There are literally thousands of different REST APIs available today, and new APIs are being created and exposed daily. There are API aggregator sites such as apigee.com and programmableweb.com that collect APIs from various sites. apigee.com makes available a very nice API console where a REST service can be tested.

Testing a REST service is cool but what if you wanted to build a mobile app using it? Tiggzi, the cloud-based mobile app builder comes with a REST API console and makes it super easy to connect to any REST API. Check it out:

1. Enter any REST service URL. In this example I use Cocoafish Location API. Now, this is the most awesome part. You can use any REST URL here. You can of course do get, post, delete and push.

2. Define REST request parameters:

3. Test the service, just like the apigee.con console:

4. Create service response by clicking Populate Response Structure button (in above screen shot:

Four steps and you are done! All it takes is a few minutes to connect to any REST service.

Last, you just map the service to jQuery Mobile UI:

Pretty cool?