Building Unsplash for iOS

This presentation covers the various aspects of building Unsplash for iOS.
• Original concept, re-design
• How we work
• Unusual technical bits
• Stats

Presented at CocoaHeads Montreal on September 20th, 2018.

Transcript

1. Building Unsplash for iOS
   OLIVIER COLLET. COCOAHEADS MONTREAL. 20.09.2018
   

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2. Ryan Loughlin
   

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3. Unsplash
   • Beautiful photos you can download for free and use for anything.
   • Gifted by the most generous community of photographers.
   

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4. The process
   Patrick Schneider
   

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5. Our mobile strategy
   • We’re a platform that helps creative people.
   • The transition from computers to mobile devices is starting.
   • It’s the beginning of this transition.
   • We’re early, and not in a rush.
   

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6. Valdemaras D.
   

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7. An app for iPad
   • iOS 11 was a big step for iPad
   • iPad is slowly replacing computers for creative work
   • Drag & drop + photos = !
   • Why not for iPhone too?
   

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8. Jakob Owens
   

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9. iOS app First attempt
   • Browse photos
   • Browse collections
   • Search
   • A dedicated wallpaper section
   • Drag & drop
   

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10. George Desipris
    

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11. iOS app October 2017
    

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12. BORING! "
    Charles Deluvio
    

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13. iOS app Simplified
    • Cut cut cut
    • Keep the basics:
    • New photos
    • Featured collections
    • Search
    

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14. Mert Atakan
    

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15. iOS app March 2018
    

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16. iOS app March 2018
    

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17. Samuele Errico Piccarini
    

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18. Launch April 5, 2018
    • No profiles
    • No authentication
    • No ability to like or collect photos
    • No photo upload
    

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19. Fabian Struwe
    

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20. The team
    • Mikael - Big picture + vision
    • Luke - Big picture + roadmap
    • Kirill & Charles - Design
    • Olivier - Development
    

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21. Ian Keefe
    

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22. Planning updates
    • 6-week cycles
    • Release an update every cycle
    • Photographers profiles (released)
    • Photo submission (upcoming)
    

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23. Some tech stuff
    Carlos Irineu da Costa
    

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24. On-demand resources
    • Images for the on-boarding flow
    • Downloaded when downloading the app
    • Discarded once the on-boarding is completed
    

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25. Nathan Dumlao
    

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26. Storyboards
    • Best code is no code
    • A storyboard per main flow
    • Wrote a script to use identifiers as constants in the code
    

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27. Donald Giannatti
    

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28. Dependencies not welcome!
    • Facebook login using a WebView, no FB SDK
    • Re-wrote the 1Password extension in Swift
    • Wrote a Swift tracker for Snowplow (analytics)
    • Remaining dependencies:
    • Reachability (will keep… maybe)
    • CoreAnimator (will ditch)
    

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29. Chris Fuller
    

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30. Networking
    • No shared API client
    • Each request is independent
    • Requests are subclasses of Operation
    

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31. David Emrich
    

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32. View Controllers
    • No coordinator or flow controller
    • PhotosViewController is used a lot
    • As a child view controller sometimes
    • Remains generic, a datasource controls its content
    

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33. Ryan Stone
    

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34. Custom transitions
    • Tons of work!
    • Currently spaghetti code, needs to be refactored
    • TONS of work!
    

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35. Mark Cataldo
    

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36. Drag & drop
    • Drag to other apps is easy
    • Receiving a drop is a bit more complicated
    • Custom Drag to Download widget
    • Inspired by Things
    • Pythagorean theorem #
    

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37. Pythagorean theorem #
    

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38. Nathan Peterson
    

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39. Challenges
    • Testing on-demand resources
    • Those crazy custom transitions
    

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40. Stats
    Chris Liverani
    

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42. Ting Tian
    

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43. Downloads / Source
    

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44. Ryan McManimie
    

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45. Devices / per week
    Sessions per device / per week
    

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46. $
    Olivier Collet
    @ocollet
    

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