iOS Development experience (with Swift) guest lecture for NUS CS3217

iOS Development experience (with Swift) guest lecture for NUS CS3217

• 1.
  My iOS devexperiences By: Yeo Kheng Meng (CS3217 alumni) https://github.com/yeokm1 http://yeokhengmeng.com/ yeokm1@gmail.com
• 2.
  About me • Year4 Computer Science student • Interned in two startups doing Android and iOS • Developer for NUS SoC Print app (iOS and Android) • Took CS3217 from Jan to May 2014 • Last class in Objective-C
• 3.
  Just four mainareas 1. CS3217 app vs production app 2. Experience in developing my iOS (Swift) app and publishing to app store 3. Stuff I learned in the workplace as an iOS dev 4. Working with Android devs
• 4.
  Disclaimer • I’m nota Swift expert • I may make mistakes • Practices I suggest may not be the best • Apple may have changed • New UI guidelines • New/Modified APIs
• 5.
  1. CS3217 appvs Production app Type CS3217 Production Screen type/resolution (inches) 10” iPhone: 3.5”, 4”, 4.7”, 5.5” Device types/functions iPad Air iPhone: 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6+ iPod Touch: 5G iPad: 2, 3, 4, Air, Air 2, Mini, Mini 2 OS version iOS8 iOS7, iOS8 UI polish Just satisfy Prof Sim and STEPS visitors Must satisfy Apple’s human interface “guidelines” User support/feedback/improvements None Negative ratings or lost customers for you if you don’t Code robustness Good enough to demo Very high Your Bible: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperie nce/Conceptual/MobileHIG/
• 6.
  2a. App intro https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/id916524327 https://github.com/yeokm1/nus-soc-print-ios https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.y eokm1.nussocprintandroid https://github.com/yeokm1/nus-soc-print •Sends documents for printing to our SoC Unix printers ( psts, pstsb… psc011…)
• 7.
  2b. How itworks? SoC Sunfire serverNUS SOC Print App-to-app transfer SSH http://yeokhengmeng.com/2014/12/nus-soc-print-androidios-background-technical- aspects-and-learning-points/
• 8.
  2c. Developing withSwift during the early days • Little or no documentation, Stackoverflow examples, online examples, NO NOTHING  • Changing APIs (especially ? or !) • Buggy Xcode betas, iOS 8 betas • Crash loops • Wrong auto-completion • Basic clean insufficient, need clean build folder
• 9.
  2d. Swift issuestoday • No auto-refactor • Swift still in flux • https://github.com/ksm/SwiftInFlux • Compatibility with future Apple OSes • No source code compatibility • App Binary compatibility • Embedded Swift runtime • No library binary compatibility • Certain functions/libraries have no Swift equivalent • Apple Reachability library • Existing libraries: NMSSH etc • Solution: Objective C – Swift interoperation (later)
• 10.
  2f. User support •Users cannot ask questions from the App Store • They just give you negative ratings instead • Make it easy for them to contact you in-app • Put your email/contacts in an easily accessible place • Include device details • Don’t wait for users to report crashes, receive crash reports automatically and act on them. • (More on Crashlytics later)
• 11.
  2g. Publishing onthe app store (actually pitching to Apple) • Prepare a “dummy” user account (if needed) • Prepare 4 sets of screenshots (3.5, 4, 4.7, 5.5) • Ideally on actual devices so you can test at the same time • Make a demo video to boost your chances • Upload way before busy periods • Upload and prayyyyyyyy for 1-2 weeks (or longer…)
• 12.
  3. Stuff fromthe workplace • Library package manager (Cocoapods/Carthage) • Reduce repo pollution/size • Keeps libraries up to date • Existing codebase/libraries in Objective-C • Interoperation between Obj-C and Swift code • Bridging headers • Use analytics libraries, get stats and user behaviour (Google Analytics/Flurry) • Debugging library (Crashlytics android example) • Crashlytics signup wait time of a few weeks
• 13.
  The rise ofAndroid iOS only iOS first, Android maybe iOS first, Android later iOS and Android Development priorities over the years:
• 14.
  4. Working withAndroid devs • App consistency vs platform consistency • Eg. iOS Tab Bar vs Android Actionbar • Aim for similarity in code/UI behaviour • Limitations on Android vs iOS platform • iOS dev and Android dev takes about the same time • Android testing slower (due to fragmentation) • Android publishes faster to Play Store, can be guinea pigs for you (you read the previous point right) Terms iOS Android UI UIViewController Activity/Fragment Threading NSOperation Asynctask Screen density assets 1x, 2x, 3x xxhdpi, xhdpi, hdpi, mdpi, ldpi Remote notification Apple push notification Google Cloud messaging
• 15.
  Further reading (DO NOTuse in CS3217) • Use HTML/CSS for UI with native wrapper eg, Phonegap • Use only C# for both iOS and Android. By Xamarin • How Dropbox Uses C++ for Cross-Platform iOS and Android Development • Google’s Java to Objective C transpiler • Used by Inbox app
• 16.
  Questions time • Needmaintainer for both iOS/Android SoC print apps after I graduate • yeokm1@gmail.com