UnsplashMap

About the app

UnsplashMap is a simple app that lets you fetch random photos from Unsplash and explore their locations on a map.

I have created the app to further consolidate my knowledge in UIKit. I was also looking forward to working with maps and making API calls. As always, it was an interesting journey and lots of fun!

An Overview

Challenges I faced

1. The first challenge I faced was to only fetch photos with location data, as I want every photo to be visible on the map. Unfourtunately it is not possible to specify the location pamameter inside the API URL.

   I have solved this problem by synchronously making additional API calls, as long as the retrieved photo has no location data. Fortunately, it is possible to fetch several random photos on a single request. This leads to an estimated 1.15 expected requests each time, if we assume that every third photo has location data and we fetch five photos on each request.

2. Also challenging for me was to cluster all nearby photo markers on the map, in order to enhance performance and visibility. I found the documentation to be quite shallow so it took me some time to absorb all the necessary information from several resources.

Things I learned

• More familiarity with UIKit
• Synchronizing API calls using DispatchSemaphore/DispatchGroup
• Parsing JSON response with JSONSerialization to save into CoreData database
• Using the NSFetchedResultsController
• WaterFall UICollectionView layout and custom animations with the help of CocoaPods libraries
• Making reusable custom Popups and MiniSheets with both UITapGestureRecognizer and UIPanGestureRecognizer
• Working with Google Maps SDK, custom MapStyles as well as Markers and Clustering
• Working with LocationManager and properly managing the authentication part

Technologies Used

• Swift
• UIKit without storyboard
• CoreData
• Xcode
• GoogleMaps SDK
• CocoaPods
• Sketch
• Miro
• Adobe Photoshop

Additionals

Design prototypes in Sketch

Data architecture diagram

Object diagram of CoreData entities

Unsplash API

https://unsplash.com/documentation#get-a-random-photo

https://unsplash.com/api-terms

More

Feel free to checkout my website https://www.kaizheng.de/.