The slides from my talk at Plone Conference 2015 in Bucharest. After 15 years of working purely in Python, I was thrown head-first into the world of iOS development. Taking over the management of a mobile app being developed for a Python web application, I've had to deal with managing iOS developers, understanding the iOS ecosystem, and working out Apple's byzantine procedures and processes.

1. Matt Hamilton
matt@quernus.co.uk
A Plone Developer's
Year in iOS
Adventures in Wonderland

3. enquos is the first system to combine the
tracking of nutrition, fitness & health data so
that insights can be made between day to day
actions and health outcomes. It is completely
integrated, consolidating the functions of
multiple applications and tracking devices into
one secure platform while providing tools for
making smart choices.
enquos

9. “Curiouser and
curiouser”
— cried Alice

11. Homekit
HealthKit
CoreData
EventKit
CloudKit
PassKit
PushKit
Foundation
CoreMotion
CoreAudio
CoreText

12. Xcode

15. App
Development
Process

16. Certificates
Keys
Provisioning Profiles
Bundle IDs
App IDs
Schemes
Configurations
…oh my!

18. iOS Build Process
• Long
• Arcane
• Requires variations
• Requires certificates / keys

19. http://appreviewtimes.com/ios/annual-trend-graph

20. Many weeks latency

21. Our automated
build system

22. Fastlane
• Automates builds
• Allows multiple ‘lanes’ to be built
• Repeatable, scriptable builds
• An ‘API’ for iTunes Connect
• Takes the hassle out of the build and
deployment process

23. def do_build(scheme, configuration)
increment_build_number(
build_number: ENV['BUILD_ID']
)
profile =
'build/nutrition.mobileprovision'
if configuration == 'Release'
app_identifier =
'com.enquos.nutrition'
display_name =
'enquos nutrition'
set_istest_false
sigh(
app_identifier:
app_identifier,
filename: profile,
)
else
app_identifier =
'com.enquos.Nutrition.alpha.'
+ GIT_BRANCH_ID
display_name =
'enquos nutrition '
+ GIT_BRANCH
sigh(
app_identifier: '*',
adhoc: '1',
filename: profile,
)
end
update_info_plist(
app_identifier: app_identifier,
display_name: display_name,
plist_path:
'Nutrition/Info.plist',
xcodeproj:
'Nutrition/Nutrition.xcodeproj',
)
update_project_provisioning(
xcodeproj:
"Nutrition/Nutrition.xcodeproj",
build_configuration_filter:
".*Nutrition.*",
profile: profile,
)
ipa(
scheme: scheme,
configuration: configuration,
embed: profile,
xcargs:
'-derivedDataPath ./build',
)
end

25. Per-branch app deployment

29. Things I’ve
learnt

33. iOS 8 → 9
Swift 1.2 → 2.0
Incompatibilities :(
Xcode 6.4 → 7

34. import Foundation
extension String {
public func toIso8601Date() -> NSDate? {
let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
formatter.timeZone = NSTimeZone(forSecondsFromGMT: 0)
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
return formatter.dateFromString(self)
}
}
https://www.netsight.co.uk/
2015/09/03/an-introduction-
to-swift-from-a-python-
perspective/

35. • Imposter syndrome is real
• Friendly communities rock
• Lack of virtualisation sucks
• Good documentation is great
• I still don’t understand Ruby

37. Thanks
Matt Hamilton
matt@quernus.co.uk
https://quernus.co.uk
@hammertoe