Cocoaheads Berlin - October

Building a cross-platform iOS, tvOS and watchOS app using MultipeerConnectivity and WatchKit

I’ve spend over a year of my spare time working as part of the team that built the POKERNIGHT: HOME - an application that helps organizing poker nights with your friends. We started with the tvOS app, but soon expanded it to an iOS and watchOS application. While building the views was the most time-consuming part of the work, the most intriguing was connecting those different platforms using connectivity APIs that iOS/tvOS/watchOS SDKs provide. I’ll try to share some of my experience using those frameworks and get you excited about using it in your app.

Presented at CocoaHeads Berlin meetup on October 2016

Transcript

1. Building a cross-platform iOS, tvOS and watchOS app Matej Balantič @skavt
2. Matej Balantič SoundCloud Mobile Engineer
3. Matej Balantič POKERNIGHT Spare time mobile engineer Spare time copywriter Spare time translator Spare time UX researcher Spare time designer
4. Matej Balantič POKERNIGHT Spare time mobile engineer Spare time copywriter Spare time translator Spare time UX researcher Spare time designer
5. Matej Balantič Spare time mobile engineer Lenart Pušelja Spare time UI/UX designer
7. 7 ❞ Why don’t we build this simple app that manages our home poker games? ~ Matej, October 2015
8. 8 ❞ Next time somebody invites me to build a simple app I’ll punch him in the face. ~ Lenart, October 2016 ❞ Why don’t we build this simple app that manages our home poker games? ~ Matej, October 2015
9. 9 Why building an app in free time? • It was to solve a real problem we had • We wanted to learn Swift • We wanted to try out tvOS • Go outside the comfort zone
10. Objectives • MVP • tvOS • Swift • Attractive design
19. 10 months ago... ✓ The tvOS is done ✓ “Pixel-perfect” ✓ User-tested
20. First test run with friends
21. 10 months ago... • Went to Apple’s tvOS workshop in Berlin • Asked their AppStore people for feedback ◦ should support iOS ◦ should localize in few languages
22. And we were like ...
25. http://frameworkoriented.io Framework oriented programming
26. Building app with frameworks: TL;DR • Build app by building frameworks • Awesome for modularization/reuse • Link against a maximum of 6 frameworks • DO share assets • DON’T share xibs/storyboards
28. • PokerKit ◦ Everything not depending on UIKit • PokerUIKit ◦ All the reusable UIKit components • tvOS target ◦ View controllers ◦ Platform specifics Project structure
31. tvOS iOS
32. Localization ✓ All strings were already localized ✘ No translations
34. http://bit.ly/swift-localization
38. iOS was ready
40. 40 Two things bothered us • We supported almost all Apple’s devices. • The TV and iOS apps didn’t talk to each other
41. 41 ❞ We will ship only the minimum viable product ~ Matej, October 2015
42. 42 ❞ We should add the Watch App and make iOS talk with the tvOS app. Because we can. ~ Lenart, May 2016 ❞ We will ship only the minimum viable product ~ Matej, October 2015
43. Because we can.
44. Turns out, adding WatchKit app is simple
45. Receiving the message from the watch
46. Receiving the message from the watch
47. Receiving the message from the watch
48. Sending the message to the watch
49. Sending the message to the watch
50. MultipeerConnectivity ❞ The Multipeer Connectivity framework supports the discovery of services provided by nearby devices and supports communicating with those services through message-based data, streaming data, and resources (such as files). https://developer.apple.com/reference/multipeerconnectivity
51. MultipeerConnectivity
52. MultipeerConnectivity • MCNearbyServiceAdvertiser ◦ Advertises the app on the network • MCNearbyServiceBrowser ◦ Discovers advertised apps • MCSession ◦ Provides communication API
53. Advertising the app
54. Advertising the app
55. Advertising the app
56. Advertising the app
57. Browsing for apps
58. Browsing for apps
59. Browsing for apps
60. Browsing for apps
61. Communicating
62. Communicating
63. Communicating
64. Communicating
65. Communicating
67. Should I do a side project? • Yes! It’s the best way to grow and learn new stuff • You get to try things just because you can • It’s very rarely a small project • Team up with a friend, it’s more fun, and you can push each other when times are hard
68. Few advices • Always build using frameworks. Even when it feels unlikely you’ll need them. • Always localize, even when you only support 1 language • WatchKit and MultipeerConnectivity are easy, try it out
70. Thank you Questions? Matej Balantič @skavt Lenart Pušelja @LenartLeo http://bit.ly/pokernightapp-cocoheads Link to slides