I am developing a small set of classes that will make it easy to keep your Core Data in sync with your Firebase. But, I recently came across Firebase's iOS Offline Capabilities and I noticed, regarding data persistence, it sounds to me like similar capabilities that Core Data would provide.
As I said, I am trying to make it easy for my Core Data to stay in sync with my Firebase. How do the two differ (if at all for my case)? More specifically, will Firebase offline provide similar effects? My intentions are for a single-user app, I do not need to support multiple users simultaneously on the same app. I need the data to persist so that users can access their data offline, and between app sessions/restarts.
I work at Firebase, and I once tried to do the same thing.
The Offline Capabilities of Firebase make using CoreData a bit superfluous. Firebase's offline handles a lot of the complexities like dealing with authentication offline and syncing after being offline for long period of time.
It might be useful to have a wrapper around CoreData if you really want to use the two together. However, I have found that it ends up being more complicated than it's really worth.
As an additional answer...Both Core Data and Firebase can both store data 'offline'. They have data persistence and will enable your code to run offline transparently to the user.
To dig a bit deeper, Core Data doesn't have an 'online mode'* (built in) whereas, as soon as Firebase has a connection - wham-o, all of your offline data is now online. (*CloudKit gives CoreData that online-ness)
Additionally, Firebase has real-time data updates, so if that's what you need Firebase is the way to go for that functionality.
So for your use case, as David mentions, you are duplicating off-line functionality in many ways - especially if this is a single user only use.
If you've already got CoreData & CloudKit working, it may not be worth the time to also loop Firebase into the project - it really depends on the scope of the classes you are building.
I have started with Firebase and stumbled upon these two issues that made me switch back to CoreData:
No offline search - Firebase (online or offline) search is very limited, and they recommends using a third party service like Aglolia, which needs another subscription, another offline mode, another authentication etc. CoreData just supports searching via SQL like language and it is easy.
No offline attachments - Firebase (real time database or cloudstore) doesn't have offline attachments feature, and Firebase Storage doesn't have an offline mode as well, so I will need to implement this on my own.
Related
I am developing an iOS notes app where a user can add image, text, audio and drawing notes. I want to implement iCloud synchronization between multiple devices. Out of the 3 options (key value, document storage, CloudKit) which one should I choose? I would like to implement the sharing of notes (collaboration) among users as well. I am using core data as my DB currently.
Key-value storage is out of question due do being too limited for your goal, document storage is only recommended when you need to handle and store the document as a whole. Since you are already using CoreData for local storage, it only makes sense to use regular CloudKit with it for cloud storage and sharing.
Synchronisation of CoreData and CloudKit can be tough. I am personally using a combo of RxCoreData and RxCloudKit libraries which provide some relief in synchronisation and some syntax sugar too.
A word in advance about uniqueness constraints: for CoreData, you define them based on key(s) or hash of all values, for CloudKit it is only possible (and also required) for the CKRecord key, to the best of my knowledge. So it is best to take care of it from the very start.
IMHO, CloudKit is the only opinion :)
I have a note app named marknote. And at the beginning I used iCloud document storage. It worked sometime, but not stable. The worst thing is, when and whether your documents can be synced is out of your control, instead it relies on Apple's daemon service. It becomes even worse when your documents are a little big, for instance several mega bytes.
So after fighting for some time, I changed to CloudKit. As #maxim-volgin has already pointed out, the implementation of CloudKit sync is tough, but it is reliable. And all headache just gone after switching to CloudKit.
I am planning to develop a quiz app in iOS and doing it offline. I need to store 100s of questions and options in that app. How to store? How does core data comes in handy here? Is there any other good methods for this problem?
The app is meant to be offline.
You can also use SQLite database for saving Questions and Answers offline for your Quiz app. You can create tables in SQLite and save and fetch data from that using SQLite queries.
I would recommend you to use realm.io. It measures better than core data, its fast and simple to use. On https://realm.io there is lots of documentation.
I find realm much easier to set up and in generally to comprehend. It works nicely with SwiftJSON and hence in my view much easier to connect to backend.
Preloading core data can be quite cumbersome and to me it seems that core data still relies heavily on objective c.
On the other Core Data is made by Apple so it could be more stable solution on longer run (parse.com)
Good Morning,
I am in the process of designing an app. It will capture data in the device and will sync with a web server, I have a few months learning Swift to develope iOS apps and I am learning to use core data now with small samples.
I have a book I've been reading and available resources like this one:
https://developer.apple.com/library/watchos/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CoreData/index.html
My question is:
Do I have to start learning how to sync and save data in the device at the same time? or I can learn Core Data first, make the app and then start the process of syncing (using JSON)?
What available resources can I see to learn what I need?
This is new for me, I have a friend who knows Ruby and has knowledge about API, but he does not know how mobile devices works in this matter.
I have searched here, but a lot of question and answers I see covers specific topics.
Your help and time is really appreciated. Thanks!
P.S.
I apologize for the term sync (send and receive data to/from the server) if I a using it wrong, or should I use the term API? For me is a little confusing on how to use the term, since it is use for a few things, like data, but also it's used when talking about a method which all the info you need to go to the API of the method, function or class.
The process you should follow is first learn basic iOS developemeet. Check out the tutorials at raywenderlich and hacking with swift. In the process you will learn a bit about networking(working with APIs) and Data Persistence(Core Data).
Since collection of data precedes storage of data you must learn first about REST APIs, JSON, JSON parsing and related stuff, third party libraries available like Alamofire and SwiftyJSON(these can be installed using cocoapods)
And then jump into data persistence which can be done through sqlite database(FMDB is a wrapper available and is super easy), Core Data, NSUserDefaults, plist, Realm etc.
I build an iOS app which works with base. User can work with it everywhere, that is cool. When application starts for the first time, obviously, base will be empty. For now, user's base stores data locally with Core Data. But there is a case, when user may have his own base with a lot of data and he do not want to start work from scratch. For this reason I want to create simple Cocoa App for macOS, which will allow user to import some data from, for example - CSV file.
Both Core Data models (iOS app and macOS app) will be the same. I just want to make sync between two platforms.
I think it's possible with cloudKit, but which way is the best? Core Data Sync or smth like supporting MySQL database on server, etc...
Thanks in advance!
Asking which method is "best" is a matter of opinion, but in mine, Apple has made working with iCloud fairly simple. If all you want to do is sync between platforms, I would use cloudKit. There seems to be no reason to spin up your own MYSQL database instance and introduce another level of complexity, when the functionality you're looking for is free and easily accessible.
See this WWDC16 video for some cloudKit tips: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/226/
I am in the planning stage of a new project that will require to use Core Data. It has these requirements: 1. Be able to access same data across multiple devices. 2. Be able to access same data in offline or online 3. Guarantee data will not be lost.
Couple years ago, I embarked on similar project. But I had to abandon these features.
Does Core Data with iCloud syncing work well enough for current iOS 7 and 8 to warrant another attempt?
If not, I am thinking about using CloudKit and local Core Data storage. But then I will have to write extra code to update both.
Any suggestions?
You could use https://github.com/evermeer/EVCloudKitDao It's a CloudKit library with support for local caching (not Core Data, but files using NSCoding)