The iOS Times

A weekly-ish publication with news and trending projects in the open source iOS ecosystem. Curated by mokagio from mokacoding.com

© 2018. All rights reserved.

Year 1 Issue 24

10 Nov 2015

Hello all, I hope you had a great weekend 😊.

Before we start I’d like to make amend for a mistake made in last week issue. There is a way to be relatively more sure all the team members will install FixCode, the plug-in that fixes the “Fix Issues” button, you can use fastlane’s install_xcode_plugin action, and add it to the repo bootstrap script.

And now… let’s jump into this’s weeks most interesting projects!

f.lux

I love f.lux, a little Mac app that adjusts the screen temperature based on the time of the day, to put less strain on your eyes. This week the f.lux team released an open source version for iOS that you could download and load on the phone via Xcode. Apple promptly asked them to remove the downloadable, but the code is nevertheless available on GitHub, you should definitely try this app if you haven’t yet.

Voucher

“The new Apple TV is amazing but the keyboard input leaves a lot to be desired. Instead of making your users type credentials into their TV, you can use Voucher to let them easily sign into the TV app using your iOS app.”

This library cleverly leverage Bonjour and Apple Wireless Direct Link to simplify the user’s experience. Neat!

TVButton

Speaking of Apple TV, here’s a UIButton that mimics the parallax icons from the Apple TV when long pressed or dragged.

TVButton Demo

An if you’d like an implementation responding to the accelerometer have a look at MPParallaxView.

OpenSim

An open source alternative for SimPholders, a paid utility app that allows you to quickly access the apps in you Simulators from the OS X menu bar, launch Simulators, and much more. The project is still a work in progress, so why don’t you see if you can help?

Sponsored

Hot-Patch Bug in Production with Rollout.io

There is nothing more frustrating than having unhappy users due to a bug that has already been fixed in a build waiting for App Review. Rollout.io tackles the problem by allowing you to hot-patch bugs in production without injecting any native code, so their SDK is compliant to Apple’s rules. You should definitely give Rollout.io a shot and tell them The iOS Times sent you.

Splitflap

Add an old school touch to your apps with Splitflap, a component to present changeable alphanumeric text like often used as a public transport timetable in airports or railway stations or with some flip clocks.

Splitflap demo

EZSwiftExtensions

Rich collection of opinionated Swift’s extensions to write simpler code. There’s plenty of choice there, here’s some examples:

print(screenWidth) // 375.0 on iPhone6
print(screenHeight) // 667.0 on iPhone6
myBool.toggle()
myNumber.isOdd
myNumber.isEven
myArray.random()
myNumberString.toFloat()

Using extensions such these could help you write easier to read code, but always keep in mind the overhead they add.

Money

Swift value types for working with money and currencies. The cool thing is the built-in support for using Yahoo and OpenExchangeRates.org foreign exchange services, as well as building your own. There is also Bitcoin support.

Yahoo<USD,EUR>.quote(100) { result in
    if let tx = result.value {
        print("Exchanged \(tx.base) into \(tx.counter)")
        print("Exchange rate is \(tx.rate)")
        print("Exchange commision is \(tx.commission)")
    }
}

Overcoat

This library leverage AFNetworking and Mantle to build an easy to use REST API client that map JSON resources to plain or Core Data objects. There is also additional support to use it together with ReactiveCocoa and PromiseKit.

This project will certainly make it quicker to develop API clients for you, but you’ll also have to marry its way of doing things.

Other Interesting Projects