$resource

As of Angular 1.2, resources support promises. But they didn't change the rest of the behavior.

To leverage promises with $resource, you need to use the $promise property on the returned value.

Example using promises

var Todo = $resource('/api/1/todo/:id');

Todo.get({id: 123}).$promise.then(function(todo) {
   // success
   $scope.todos = todos;
}, function(errResponse) {
   // fail
});

Todo.query().$promise.then(function(todos) {
   // success
   $scope.todos = todos;
}, function(errResponse) {
   // fail
});

Just keep in mind that the $promise property is a property on the same values it was returning above. So you can get weird:

These are equivalent

var todo = Todo.get({id: 123}, function() {
   $scope.todo = todo;
});

Todo.get({id: 123}, function(todo) {
   $scope.todo = todo;
});

Todo.get({id: 123}).$promise.then(function(todo) {
   $scope.todo = todo;
});

var todo = Todo.get({id: 123});
todo.$promise.then(function() {
   $scope.todo = todo;
});