OHOH is an iOS social networking app like Meetup.com but for smaller groups. It allows private and group chats, likes, comments, and uses push notifications. The app was originally developed using Objective-C, CocoaPods, AFNetworking, and Parse for push notifications. It has since switched to using Layer for chat functionality due to issues with Firebase and additional chat features. The developer discusses experiences with various technologies used in the app's development.

1. OHOH

2. About Me
• iOS developer
• Runs Azukisoft Pte Ltd
• Author of
http://www.amazon.com/Objecti
ve-C-Memory-Management-
Essentials-Gibson-
ebook/dp/B00V8BMX7I/

3. What is OHOH?
• iOS social networking app
• Like Meetup.com
• But for smaller groups

5. Functionality
• Private chats
• Group chats
• Likes
• Comments
• Push notifications

6. Technology Stack
• Objective-C
• Cocoapods
• AFNetworking
• Parse for Push Notification
• Firebase/Layer

7. Objective-C
• Why use Objective-C?
• Last year Swift was not yet
mature
• Legacy code was still in Obj-C
• No point switching to Swift

9. CocoaPods
• Has a huge library of supported
components
• But tends to break when new
version of Xcode is released
• Am looking into alternatives e.g
Carthage

11. Parse
• Only for push notifications
• Easy to set up and test
• Tried Urban Airship, but had
problem with missing push
notifications
• Parse has not failed us. YET!!!

12. Private Chat/Group Chat
• Firebase for Chat
• Firebase good for real time use
cases
• Chat is 1 of them
• But Firebase is not dedicated for
chat

13. Private Chat/Group Chat
• So additional chat functionalities
such as image upload is not
supported
• It was a hassle managing data
from between our DB and
Firebase

15. Private Chat/Group Chat
• Switched to Layer
• But as with all cutting edge tech
• Code examples do not work out
of the box
• 50% of their sample code have to
be modified

16. Private Chat/Group Chat
• Layer is developed purely to
create chat apps
• So image upload, video upload is
all supported
• But can be a bit slow at time

18. AFNetworking
• Most popular iOS networking
library we have seen so far
• Widely used
• Widely supported
• But still have issues

19. AFNetworking
• Issue due to Apple’s NSURL
implementation
• Causes operation time outs even if
network is ok
• https://github.com/AFNetworking/
AFNetworking/issues/2314

20. AFNetworking
• Also sometimes we have multiple
alertviews about network errors
• Anyone encountered such errors
before?

21. Backend
• Typical LAMP stack
• PHP as fast to get going
• MySQL as it is the standard
• Running on Linode
• Ubuntu 14.04