Middleware design for mobile application

Question

I am developing application for iPhone and android. In code i need to access the data from database(oracle) . I am planning to use REST web services to return JSON data to devices. I dont know much about developing web servies(all i did is 'consumption' part).

Now the question came to my mind, i can still manage to return the JSON data from java servlets.

IS there any advantage of using web services. I know for sure I am missing something but want to know what is it.

Answer 1

Now the question came to my mind, i can still manage to return the JSON data from java servlets.

Yes, you can return JSON from java servlets. There are plenty of libraries out there for taking what ever data you've retrieved from you database and serializing it into JSON.

IS there any advantage of using web services. I know for sure I am missing something but want to know what is it.

This is a super general question, but yes. I think the best answer is that (among other things) it gives you an API that arbitrary clients can plug into. So you can expand to new platforms trivial. That's the main benefit as far I see it.