Getting a web app to run natively on mobile requires a good bit of graphical optimization and code editing that most developers would rather not do. An emerging San Francisco-based startup called Singly promises to simplify this chore with an abstraction layer that normalizes third party functionality across a wide range of platforms.

Singly’s DataFabric solution functions as a high-level interface for third party services, including user authentication, data management, and social sharing . The platform wraps itself around the underlying APIs to deliver data portability and automated integration that enable users to shave months off their app development cycles.

Mobile development powerhouse Appcelerator announced this morning that it has acquired the startup to bolster its cloud-based app creation platform. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but chief executive officer Jeff Haynie gave us a pretty good idea of what his company plans to do with Singly’s technology.

“APIs are the lifeblood of mobility, giving developers access to the data and services needed to build amazing apps,” Haynie wrote in a statement. “With Singly’s API integration management joined to the Appcelerator product line, customers can much more easily unlock public and enterprise data sources, making available a rich layer of services on which to build transformative native apps that run on any device.”

Appcelerator plans to integrate Singly across its entire portfolio by early 2014. The acquisition underlines the company’s amibitous push into the enterprise market, which it’s hoping to conquer by tapping into the power of real time analytics.

The recently unveiled Appcelerator Platform packs automated backend integrationl, social analytics, and a monitoring service that empowers corporate developers to optimize user experience. The solution also includes all the features of Titanium, Appcelerator’s flagship development environment.

The DevOps Angle

API layers have always been increasingly important for exposing internal data and services to outside parties–and in the case of Appcelerator this is no different. When attempting to tie together multiple platforms, communication is key and API provides the gateway for that communication by making rules about how data is accessed, what formats is supplied in, and how its moved from place to place.

Earlier this year, I interviewed Layer 7’s CSO Dimitri Sirota about the emergence of API management in the enterprise space and Appcelerator’s aqusisition of Singly’s API integration suite falls nicely into that paradigm. Singly Data Fabric provides an abstraction layer for developers to generate cross-platform capability by making multiple APIs (from disparate sources) work similarly. As a result, a DevOps team can manage multiple platform APIs at once as if they were working under the same API.

“Singly provides an extensive set of pre-built APIs to popular public services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Fitbit,” Appcelerator CTO Nolan Wright told me when I asked about what platforms would be included and how this would affect developer performance. “Turnkey access to data from these services makes it much easier for developers to create unique mobile experiences.  They can focus their energy on delivering value via great apps with great experiences instead of focusing on managing integrations.”

The result means that months of work normalizing multiple different API bundles to behave the same is skipped over and developers can learn to use just one (the Singly abstraction) and then use that for their applications to connect via Appcelerator to pull, push, and manipulate data.

Add in the multitude of social-mobile platforms Singly is focused on and it’s perfect to amplify the mobile developer and customer experience.

Contributors: Maria Deutscher and Kyt Dotson.