Category: iOS

Categories
Code iOS

Requesting reviews in iOS with SKStoreReviewController

If you don’t ask, you don’t get

Someone who’d not heard of bad App Store reviews

Use iOS APIs to ask your user to leave you a review – just like asking anyone for anything, you should try to do this when they’re in a good place. For example, tie it in to your user adding a photo or selecting a favourite.

First, import StoreKit:

import StoreKit

StoreKit has a requestReview() method which limits the request so your users aren’t bombarded with requests – for this reason, you shouldn’t attach the request to a button saying “Leave a review” or anything like that. iOS will decide when to show the request, and you should just let it do its thing.

In iOS 14, you’ll need to provide a scene parameter to the method, like so:

SKStoreReviewController.requestReview(in: scene)

That’s literally all you need to do.

I use this extension to grab the active scene in my apps:

extension UIApplication {
    var currentScene: UIWindowScene? {
        connectedScenes
            .first { $0.activationState == .foregroundActive } as? UIWindowScene
    }
}

Happy review requesting!

Categories
Code iOS Laravel

Credit where credit is due

This is part two of a completely unknown number of linked articles as I’m writing them without even the slightest bit of aforethought. You can find the first instalment here. They’re not tutorials as such, but more documenting my progress and thinking as I forge onward building something.

First thing to do is add a property to your User model in Laravel to represent the number of credits a user has. We’ll give a new user 5 credits to start with.

Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
  $table->integer("credit_balance")->default(5);
});

Then a method on the User model to add credits to the users balance:

public function addCredits($credits){
  $this->credit_balance += $credits;
  $this->save();
}

Finally, a couple of API endpoints to retrieve the anonymous user’s current balance and top-up the account:

public function balance()
{
  return response()->json(["balance"=>Auth::user()->credit_balance], 200);
}

public function topUp(Request $request)
{
  $validation = Validator::make($request->all(),[
    'credits' => 'required',
  ]);

  if($validation->fails())
    return response()->json(["errors"=>$validation->messages()], 200);

  $user = Auth::user();
  $user->addCredits($request->credits);

  return response()->json(["balance"=>$user->credit_balance], 200);
}

Need to get this into the app now, so the user can see their credit balance. For this bit, I’m using Swift UI – if you haven’t played with it yet you ought to, it’s really cool!

I’ve created a BalanceData class which is responsible for loading balance data from our API. This class publishes a balance variable for our views to observe.

import SwiftUI
import Alamofire

public class BalanceData : ObservableObject {
    
    @Published var balance: Int = 0
    
    init(){
        updateBalance()
    }
    
    func updateBalance() {
        let token = NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore.default.string(forKey: "laravelToken")
        if(token != nil)
        {
            let headers: HTTPHeaders = [
                "Authorization": "Bearer " + token!
            ]
            AF.request("http://credits.test/api/auth/balance",method: .get, encoding:JSONEncoding.default, headers: headers).responseJSON { response in
                switch response.result {
                case .success(let JSON):
                    let response = JSON as! NSDictionary
                    DispatchQueue.main.async {
                        self.balance = response["balance"]! as! Int
                    }
                    
                    break
                case .failure:
                    break
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

My BalanceView file looks like this – nothing fancy, but shows the balance from the server!

import SwiftUI

struct BalanceView: View {
    @EnvironmentObject var balanceData: BalanceData
    
    var body: some View {

        VStack {
            Text(String(self.balanceData.balance))
                .font(.system(size: 72))
                .foregroundColor(.accentColor)
            Text("Credits")
                .font(.system(size: 18))
                .foregroundColor(.gray)
        }
    }
}

struct BalanceView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        BalanceView()
        .environmentObject(BalanceData())
    }
}

Like I said, nothing special but there’s some useful tidbits of code there if you’re thinking of doing something similar.

I’m not a UI designer. Obviously

What’s next? Probably updating the users balance from the app.

Categories
Code iOS Laravel

iOS In-app purchases and Laravel

This is part two of a completely unknown number of linked articles as I’m writing them without even the slightest bit of aforethought. They’re not tutorials as such, but more documenting my progress and thinking as I forge onward building something.

It’s been a while since I’ve used IAP on iOS. This series of articles will follow my erratic thought process as I create the following:

  • A small web app, managing anonymous user accounts and their credit balance
  • An iOS application which allows you to top-up your account, restore purchases etc without the need to create an account.

This post will cover the authentication side of the app – I’m taking the new Laravel Sanctum functionality for a spin.

First thing I did was set up a new Laravel app, install Sanctum, and migrated all the things. I know I’m going to need an endpoint that accomplishes the following:

  • Handle a POST request with some JSON data
  • Check the request comes from a valid source
  • Creates an anonymous user
  • Issues a token for that user
  • Returns a JSON response with the user token

My function ended up looking like this:

public function token(Request $request){

    $validation = Validator::make($request->all(),[
        'key' => 'required',
    ]);

    if($validation->fails())
        return response()->json(["errors"=>$validation->messages()], 200);

    //TODO: Something a bit more robust than this; probably use it to check against an Apps table or something like that
    if($request->key != "supersecretappidentifier")
        abort(403);

    //Create anon user. You could use your own user model. I've stuck with the Eloquent one and faked the data, as I figure I may allow users to create an account at a later stage.
    $faker = Factory::create();
    try {

        $user = User::create([
            'name' => $faker->name,
            'email' => $faker->email,
            'password' => Hash::make($faker->password),
        ]);

        //Create the Sanctum token; again you'd probably use the name of the App or something
        $token = $user->createToken($request->key);

        return response()->json(["token"=>$token->plainTextToken], 200);
    } catch (\Exception $e)
    {
        return response()->json([
            "error"=>true,
            "message" => $e->getMessage()
        ], 400);
    }
}

Hit the endpoint with Postman and you’ll be given a shiny token to use in subsequent requests.

{"token":"C6UHgQXdrtCj7oEipaGCHU0Moq7uBGPpczEu1Lb1ApGpgMHSyfozQSwxvpRm524MdDbtrYBCNqU5s0Z5"}

Great! Now to make an app do it. Swift’s not my strong suit at the moment – I’m still writing most of my iOS code in Objective-C – so please bear with me.

We need functionality that does the following:

  • Checks if there’s a token on the device
  • If not, makes a POST request to our web service
  • Retrieve and store the token in the iCloud Key-value storage

I’m using iCloud storage for this example, but it would be a lot better and safer to use an iCloud based Keychain in a production app.

We save in iCloud so that if the user uses the app on another device – say their iPad – they’ll be linked to the same account at the web service end, whilst remaining anonymous in the eyes of my application. You’ll need to add the iCloud Key-value storage capability to your app to make this work.

The code looks a little like this. I’m using AlamoFire to handle network requests.

let token = NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore.default.string(forKey: "laravelToken")
if(token == nil)
{
    let params: [String:String] = [
        "key": "supersecretappidentifier"
    ]
    AF.request("http://credits.test/api/auth/token",method: .post, parameters: params, encoding:JSONEncoding.default).responseJSON { response in
        switch response.result {
            case .success(let JSON):
                let response = JSON as! NSDictionary
                let token = response.object(forKey: "token")!
                NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore.default.set(token, forKey: "laravelToken")
                NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore.default.synchronize()
                break
            case .failure:
                break
        }
    }
}
else
{
    print(token!)
}

The first time you run the app, it’ll make the request and store the token. Subsequent runs will print out the stored token.

That’s it for today I think – to recap, we’ve created a web service which creates an anonymous user and a token for the app to retrieve and store.

In the next article, I’ll add some credits functionality to the user and display our balance on the iOS device.