I was updating my app and AdMob and they want me to use Firebase now. https://firebase.google.com/docs/admob/ios/quick-start
I wanted to know why should I include it just to use AdMob so I checked the video on the page: https://youtu.be/9qCxo0D-Sak They promise to explain benefits for me but they only tell me how to use it. The docs also don't do it.
It seems to me that it solves more some problem Google has than the developers have.
Since Firebase has a free & unlimited analytics product, you can see your AdMob stats in the same place as your other analytics data.
From a conceptual point-of-view, the Firebase SDKs are now the place Google puts 'core mobile offerings', AdMob is one of those
Compared to Facebook's acquisition of Parse, I'm happy that the Firebase team hasn't been shut down and has been shipping new stuff. However, it's disappointing that instead of continuing to build a great value-add, they seem to be consuming existing Google platforms and fairly often making the documentation for those things much more confusing.
The Firebase Auth product existed before Firebase joined Google. We've upgraded it significantly, pulling in lots from Identity Toolkit. While we're not at full parity yet, I'd love to hear what's missing for you. There are lots of net-new features we've added [1]
The cost is free for unlimited users (same as Identity Toolkit) [2]
I'm sorry to hear you've had a poor experience with our docs, feel free to respond here or get in touch (james@firebase.com) and let me know how we can improve.
[1] https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/migrate-fireb...
Having read most of the login/signup/sign-in documentation from end to end over the past few months (paired with several different implementations), I have most of it sorted for myself.
Early on, what was missing was what the difference between Firebase, Google Identity Toolkit, Google Identity Platform and the various Google+ Identity APIs. I walked in knowing what I wanted: "I have users with email addresses, some of those email addresses are gmail.com, how do I allow them to login to my app with a single click on the Google button? Similarly, my signup only required a validated email address, surely a single click on the Google button is enough to allow that." What I was met with was a choice between what appears to be 5+ different methods of implementation, some of which are enabled by default on my exiting Google Cloud Console others require me to enable new things (Google+) and others still require me to create a new account (Firebase). Some enable me to easily allow me to easily create a user experience that all of my users will be familiar with if they've ever used Google login on a web/mobile application, others require me to implement major portions of the front end of that experience myself (a mobile friendly pop-up for the oauth dance and subsequent token handoff).
I ended up using Google Sign-In for Websites[1], which offered the best trade offs. It's easy to implement on the front end but allows self-management of users on the back end.
I've used Firebase and enjoyed the experience. My own confusion early on had little to do with Firebase or what it offers and more to do with the painfully obvious truth that Google is not of one mind (as any organization of it's size would struggle to be) when it comes to how outside entities should consume it's identity services.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/admob/admob-firebase has a pretty good explaination of the benefits. For example, using AdMob + Firebase you'll immediately be able to take advantage of Firebase Analytics to "measure sessions, user demographics, revenue from in-app products" and you'll have a relatively easy path to start utilize other Firebase features - if you want - in future.
Cheers, Stewart
I already use Google Analytics and it works really great. I don't need the other features and I don't want to include the whole framework just to display ads, it seems really overkill.
I'm glad we have an option to use AdMob separately, please don't take it away.