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Bundle of tricks for mobile apps
One thing I think I need to set up is a simple group of extensions that I can drop into every project that contains all of my tricks. I already know I plan to add Firebase to each app, reviews on a timer and push notifications so why not create a Swift file containing an extension for each with a function to trigger any of it that doesn’t happen on it’s own?
I also need to configure some automated updates. Because Firebase updates fairly often and it would be nice to keep up with those updates even if I don’t need to change anything on my end. The way to approach this would be to set up Fastlane for each application and set a cron job to update Firebase and call Fastlane to submit a new build to the app store. The automated updates would of course all have the same lame update info, “Maintenance Update”.
BuddyBuild also looks like a great tool for automated updates, it is a cloud based CI tool that connects to the top three git platforms. I told you that using git to keep a backup of your projects would come in handy some day didn’t I?
Ok then, screw BuddyBuild. I went to their login and tried to login using BitBucket because that’s what I use. Well first I get a screen with a list of all of the access BuddyBuild will get to my BitBucket account and I say ‘yes’ because I’m trying to set this thing up and so far I’m impressed that this much of it is automated, then I’m taken to a screen with an overly wordy message about how they are closed to new users. But I just approved access to my remote repository for their platform. They could have provided that message MUCH sooner in the process. Don’t get tricked like I did. Now I have to go make sure their access is removed from BitBucket.
Just like I suspected. Under the OAuth tab in my BitBucket user settings, BuddyBuild was listed as having all kinds of access. That’s unacceptable in my opinion, possibly even criminal. But I’m not a lawyer, it’s better for everyone that I’m not because I would be a mean one.
Websites are just so bad. They don’t tell you anything about their product except the vague sales pitch ipsum that every site now uses and they usually don’t give you pricing up front either. This is why I tend to build my own backend tools. I may end up doing that in this case but I have a few more options that I’m going to investigate first. One that could also handle CI for the web would be handy for any updates I needed to make on my subdomains.
Yeah, I may end up doing this myself. CircleCI could be used for my web content, but adding app deployment to the AppStore is $50/month. DeployHQ would cost me about $40/month just for the subdomains and they don’t deploy to the AppStore either. So the problem with a cloud solution is that it’s too expensive for what it’s worth.
If someone want’s to compete with these services, I’d pay $1-$2 per run. Just let me send code to DigitalOcean and also to the AppStore and pay as I go. I’d probably even forget I was signed up, but for this round of updates on all 12 of my apps and a few of the subdomains as well that would get you between $15 and $30 for an automated process that you don’t even have to interact with and I would otherwise have to configure.
