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Most mobile developers have a creative side to their application styling. They also have the knowledge of common codes such as Python or Java to be able to turn their imaginations into colorful apps for the world to interact with. Yet, application building is not that simple. There are backend servers, codes and stacks to deal with that the average developer probably only has a rudimentary knowledge of how to navigate. These are technical, not creative, problems. Enter: Parse.

Parse offers native iOS and Android software developer kits (SDKs) that help developers integrate with cloud services. It is in the current Y-Combinator batch and is founded by Tikhon Bernstam and James Yu, who were co-founders at Scribd along with Ilya Sukhar (Ooyala) and Kevin Lacker (Google). Parse is the latest offering in a new trend in the developer ecosystem - backend as a service - that is lowering the bar for mobile application development.

AppMobi has launched a new "XDK," which allows developers to build HTML5-optimized applications for the Web or for mobile platforms. The resulting code can be used to deliver great HTML5 applications, like those found in Chrome's Web app store, but it can also be used in hybrid apps submitted to Apple's App Store or the Android Market.

The XDK itself is a Web app, and is available in the Chrome Web app Store for free.

A company called iSpeech has launched a free voice recognition and text-to-speech SDK for mobile developers building apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry. During its pre-launch phase, iSpeech saw over 3,000 developers sign up for its service and powered 1 billion conversions in the cloud. Incidentally, 3,000 developers is the same number that Nuance, makers of the paid Dragon SDK, recently advertised themselves, says iSpeech's CMO Yaron Oren. But that was after significant marketing efforts over the course of 6 months, he added.

The price of the Dragon SDK is a barrier to entry for many developers and businesses, the company believes. iSpeech wants to be the more affordable alternative.

Layar, maker of the Layar augmented reality platform for mobile, has today announced Layar Vision, a platform extension that enables phones to "see" and recognize real-world objects, including posters, magazines and newspapers. With Layar Vision, the goal is to provide brands and print media publishers' with new ways to engage their audience using augmented reality experiences.

Ansca Mobile, in partnership with InMobi and PapayaMobile, has today announced LaunchPad, a suite of marketing and analytics services targeted towards mobile application developers using Ansca Mobile's Corona SDK. The services will allow developers to better market their apps, increase distribution, improve monetization and better understand their audience, the companies say.

It's been a busy time for the Windows Phone team at Microsoft. On Tuesday, the company announced that the highly-anticipated update to the Windows Phone mobile operating system known as "Mango" had been released to manufacturing. This is an important milestone indicating the final phase of of Mango's development.

Now developers are being offered an updated SDK to complement release: the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 "Beta 2 Refresh." And they can also download a new pre-release build of Mango onto their retail devices, too, says Microsoft.

Qualcomm has released its Augmented Reality (AR) SDK for iOS, which now joins the Android version launched back in April. Like the Android SDK, the new iOS toolkit will enable mobile developers to create high-performance, interactive, 3D experiences, which are triggered by pointing the device's camera at real-world objects.

Mobile developers can now add in-app social networking features to their mobile applications using a new software development kit (SDK) from Socialize, Inc. Once intergrated, the app's users can find and connect with each other based on similar interests and can also push some of the app's content to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, or, for those who like it old-school, email.

Kik, makers of the cross-platform mobile messaging service by the same name, recently launched a new SDK aimed at mobile app developers. The Kik Mobile SDK lets developers add user-to-user sharing within mobile applications in a matter of minutes. This is a different take on the "app sharing apps" of late, which allow users to share lists of apps with friends. Instead, with Kik, users are sharing actual content from within the app itself.

The HTC Flyer is a newer 7-inch Android-based tablet, which distinguishes itself by offering a unique feature: pen-based input. Not a stylus, you understand, a pen. While a stylus is essentially a stick that lets you press areas of a touch-sensitive screen in order to navigate through the software, the Flyer's pen is for real-world tasks like drawing, writing or scribbling on top of photos. It is an optional augmentation to touch, not a replacement.

With the upcoming launch of HTC's recently announced OpenSense SDK, developers will have an opportunity to build apps that take advantage of the pen's functionality. But should they?