Microsoft updates Azure tookit for Apple's iOS to support federation with Facebook, Google and more

Microsoft rolled out an updated version (1.2) of its Windows Azure toolkit for iOS on July 25.

Included in the latest update is support for the Azure Access Control Service (ACS). According to a blog post by Wade Wegner, an Azure Technical Evangelist, this ACS support "makes it extremely easy for an Objective-C and iOS developer to leverage ACS to provide identity federation to existing identity providers (such as Live ID, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, and ADFS," or Active Directory Federation Services."

ACS is one of the elements of Windows Azure AppFabric.

Today's 1.2 release is the fourth update to the toolkit since Microsoft initially delivered it in early May. Microsoft also has released similar toolkits for Windows Phones and for Android phones.

Other new features in the 1.2 iOS toolkit include:

• A number of "Cloud Ready Packages" that can be deployed to Azure, eliminating the need for developers to run Windows and/or Visual Studio to create the package being deployed to Microsoft's cloud OS
• A polished sample app that now supports ACS
• A native OSX application that can both create the .CSCFG file with the correct values and configure the Access Control Service

Last week, Microsoft made available an alpha of an Azure toolkit for social-game developers.