I’m developing a mobile app with React Native, and the backend is a Node.js/Express REST API being hosted with Azure App Service. I know that I can deploy web apps to Azure App Service as well, and use Service Connector with managed identity for secure communication without handling my own tokens or anything like that. But because this is a mobile app, I was wondering if there is similar functionality I can take advantage of? I’m going to need to deploy this app to the iOS app store, and I know Microsoft has Visual Studio App Center but that is being discontinued.

The main issue I’ve never been able to wrap my head around is how do client-side mobile apps securely communicate with a server-hosted backend? Even if we implement an authorization endpoint on the backend, wouldn’t there have to be some part of the communication that isn’t secure before it becomes authorization-based? Does Azure have solutions for this? Thanks!