Ably Asset Tracking Demo: iOS Rider

Ably is the platform that powers synchronized digital experiences in realtime. Whether attending an event in a virtual venue, receiving realtime financial information, or monitoring live car performance data – consumers simply expect realtime digital experiences as standard. Ably provides a suite of APIs to build, extend, and deliver powerful digital experiences in realtime for more than 250 million devices across 80 countries each month. Organizations like Bloomberg, HubSpot, Verizon, and Hopin depend on Ably’s platform to offload the growing complexity of business-critical realtime data synchronization at global scale. For more information, see the Ably documentation.

Overview

This demo presents a mock delivery Rider app with functionality matching that expected for the typical use case for Ably's Asset Tracking solution, being the publication of Location updates for a delivery being made to a customer, where the Rider is using an iOS based device such as an iPhone or an iPad. Such deliveries could be food, groceries or other packages ordered for home delivery.

This app is a member of our suite of Ably Asset Tracking Demos, developed by Ably's SDK Team to demonstrate best practice for adopting and deploying Asset Tracking.

Status

The demo app is currently under active development and constantly improved. We're currently working on the first milestone of the Milestoes list, but most of the basic functionality of the expected use cases can already be tested.

Requirements

• App can be compiled using Xcode 13.4+
• App can be run on iPhone devices with iOS >= 14.0 in portrait mode.

Usage Info

Basic setup and running the app

• To run the app you'll first need to configure your Mapbox account and credentials. Please follow this guide.
• You'll need a Secrets.plist file containing Mapbox Access Token and the Ably Api Key. To do this you can rename the SecretsExample.plist file at the root of the project, and fill it out with your data.
• ABLY_API_KEY: Used by the app to authenticate with Ably using basic authentication. Will be replaced with the token auth method once the app reaches Milestone 3. You can get the Ably Api Key here.
• MAPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN: Used to access Mapbox Navigation SDK/ APIs, and can be taken from here.

Screens description and functionalities

• Ably Publisher Setup - allows you to configure the resolution that the publisher object will be using. See more details in the documentation Min. Displacement and Desired Interval text fields must have a valid Int value.
• Status screen shows various information about the currently tracked trackable object. As a debug feature you can also set the Acceptance Distance, that defines (as an Int) how close the rider's device has to be to the Active destination to allow tapping on the Finish Tracking button, that marks the order as delivered and removes the active trackable object (using the remove method on the publisher object).
• Add Trackable screen - allows you to add a new trackable, using a required trackable id text field. You can either just Add the new trackable (which uses the add method on the publisher object), or Add & Actively Track to set it as an activeTrackable (which uses the track method on the publisher object)
• Select Trackable screen - allows you to select one of the trackables that you've added earlier using the Add Trackable screen and set it as an activeTrackable (which uses the track method on the publisher object)

Known Limitations

Tracking a trackable that was added to the publisher earlier

• Currently you can either Add, or Add & Actively Track a trackable on the Add Trackable screen, which respectfully fires the add and track methods on the Publisher object. However, if you Add a trackable on this screen, and then try to select it on the Select Trackable screen (which fires the track method), you'll get an error in the track method's completion block, and the selected trackable won't be actively tracked. This problem is caused by the sdk issue: ably/ably-asset-tracking-swift#308

Resources

• Asset Tracking Documentation
• Ably Documentation