I want to make an iOS Scocial Network, almost like Facebook. But I only do it to test my Objective C programming skills so it wont be massive like Facebook (though it will have all features that Facebook has).
What I want to ask is:
Can I only use my Objective C knowledge to build my front-end app and use Parse Services (Parse.com) to build my back-end? Or I need some tools, knowledge etc...?
Again, I do not make a very very big iOS Social Network app like Facebook but I do a smaller one that has all features Facebook has.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Yes, you can use Objective-C to create the app and use Parse.com to host your data. You can use the Parse SDK to allow the app to easily access the backend data. It will work well (depending on how well you design the Parse data storage) and you won't need to write any (or much) backend code.
parse.com/tutorials actually has a couple tutorials that would be very helpful in creating your social app. It may even be exactly what you are wanting.
Parse is the way to go. You might want to check out Helios and Stackmob as well. They do the same thing as parse. However, I like Parse much better because of it's documentation.
Happy learning.
Related
I am a new iOS developer. I need to know if the following is possible.
I will use objective C to dev my app (I am confortable with C and C++)
I have a Mysql Database. it will be stored on a network.
I need to get and post information between my app and my database. I have decided to use API rest json for that purpose.
I need to display pictures stored on the network/server in my app but I'm stuck as I can not find relevant information in google (as I am new to iOS development, I get lost). Could you please help me?
i do not have code to share as I am in the beginning of the development. I am just looking at information in order to know the cost of doing it.
best
jb
As a preface: I want to do this as a learning exercise. I'm not trying to produce a commercially viable app.
What are the layers/abstractions of an iOS application that is connected to a custom, self hosted backend? What technologies are needed to build this stack?
This post has helped my understanding a bit. I'm currently using Firebase as my backend but have found its NoSQL structure wrong for my app. The data I'm storing is relational, so I think an SQL database storing JSON would work better. The data is modeling Vehicles shared between Users.
From my research, the Realm Platform looks like a good choice. Am I understanding the technologies correctly here? Does this sentence make sense?
General functionality:
Sign Up and Login of users
Upload/download vehicle data
Some server side logic
Pushing data updates to users in real time
So would the stack look like the following?
User Front End: iOS app written in Swift
Database: Realm Database (SQL)
Server: Realm Object Server
I'm really looking for an overview of the general architecture. I don't know anything about that, so I'm sure I have failed to provide many details that are necessary for a thorough answer.
I apologize if this question is redundant; most answers I've seen for similar questions typically end with "just use AWS, Firebase, etc".
Thanks!
For a start you want to build your own backend and you should create your own API's that your IOS application will connect to. in short this is called REST api
https://www.sitepoint.com/developers-rest-api/
you will need to use many more technologies more than just a server like Apache
once you create your backend API you will need to connect it to the IOS app which can be done using NSURLSession builtin framework form Apple or Alamofire which is based on NSURLSession but its easer to use if you are learning
you will need to learn how to do an http/https request to understand how the request is made
check this
https://medium.com/#MuraliKathir/build-a-simple-api-search-with-alamofire-and-swiftyjson-80286e833315
Now to Realm. Realm is a local database that will be inside of your IOS app which helps you save data downloaded online or even user generated
https://realm.io/docs/swift/latest/#queries
Pretty straight forward question i think. I have created a web app in meteor and its using mongoDB storage. I have UI to update the data in the backend through the web app.
The question then becomes, I have designed an iOS app that i would really love for it to read the data being served to the web app from the mongoDB. As it stands, the app takes a url to a JSON file that i update regularly and serializes it accordingly. I want to pass on the tasks of updating the backend but exposing company employees to the potential mess of JSON backend, where missing/deleting a bracket / brace causes the app to break is out of the question.
My question is, since the meteor web app stores data as JSON documents, is there a way i can access the same JSON from the iOS app? It would really help because then, the person updating the backend only deals with UI, not code. I know this is a pretty broad question, but any pointers would be fantastic. Links, tutorials, frameworks to learn... anything. I've been googling around but can't seem to find anything solid.
Thanks!
You'll want to look into using one of the many iOS based DDP clients, like this one. With these libraries you can connect native iOS apps to the backend of any deployed Meteor app.
As far as I understand, you are looking for a way to get/update the data of your meteor server from the IOS app.
To do that, you can expose an API, like a REST one. Basically, your IOS app will call your Meteor server via HTTP and send/receive JSON data. Like that, you can get your collections, update, add, delete their items as well. There is a lot of literature around REST.
I used a very old one that I do not recommend because it is not maintained anymore, I will put the link anyway Old Rest API.
I invite you to have a look at atmosphere, the meteor package library: Atmosphere. I did a quick search on it and I found this package that looks promising: Simple Rest.
Have a look at the packages on Atmosphere, you can use 'rest' as keyword and pick the one that fits your needs. I am especially thinking of security ;).
I have been using Parse lately for applications I develop, mainly due to the simplicity of getting an app off the ground. This could eventually be costly, more so unless I store to my own database on a rented server, I'd assume. So my question is: How would I go about storing data externally to my own server? Is there any sort of framework like parse for this with option to use one's own server storage instead? I'd assume theres something considering writing a whole login system etc that's secure multiple times would seem a bit repetitive, hence Parse. Thanks in advance!
Google has provided a mobile backend starter some time ago, here is the link https://developers.google.com/cloud/samples/mbs/. Hope it will help!
Yes you have. Kindly look into DynamoDB from amazon.
Here is a good documentation for iOS SDK.
More granular detail is here
I hope that helps.
You may need to have an account with amazon aws in order to create your appID & all.
I have searched on net for social networking integration in iOS projects (For example: Facebook, Twitter, etc)
I found there are also SDKs available for particulars and some OpenSource projects/frameworks are also available for the same which combines all into one like (ShareKit).
What is the difference in those two? Which one is better to use? Is there any problem to upload an app on AppStore which is using ShareKit framework/code?
Thanks in advance.
Mrunal
If you are using ARC in your project ShareKit is a big waste of time.
Twitter can be added very easily using the Twitter framework and TWTweetComposeViewController. Not sure about any others.
#mrunal check Socialize out: http://www.GetSocialize.com and see what you think. Full feautre list at http://go.GetSocialize.com/features
DROdio
If you are only looking to use Twitter and Facebook, then it is simple enough to just use their API and implement it in your code.
If you are new to development or want to use more (Delicious, Tumblr, Read It Later, Bit.ly, Mail), then I would highly recommend using ShareKit. It allows for sharing of text, URLs and even images. It takes less than an hour to setup even when using ARC and comes with a sample app to play around with. It is also easy to update when more features are added or the API of one the sites changes.