PFollow

Introduction to the

PFollow is a new project for this summer vacation. After the final exam, she and her girlfriend went to Chongqing, Qinghai and Xi ‘an for a 10-day trip. In the process of travel, I used many apps to help travel. When I was in Qinghai, I often checked the “Compass” app of iOS to check the current altitude. At the same time, because the weather in the plateau is changeable, they will pay attention to the weather of the next day and so on. These habits are mandatory to form.

When the trip is over, I lie in my dorm bed and reflect on my time in the trip. Many memories remain in my photo album, which automatically identifies and categorizes the photos with the locations and other information of the time when the trip was taken. It can even be archived into a memory video.

However, I always feel that I still can’t recall some beautiful details of my trip, because they are often covered by time or place factors, but will be revisited in the old place. At that time my mind just think, if I can put the visitors at your location with words and images, to form the “dot” on the map, recall this journey in the future, you can follow the “dot” on the map, recall some of the things had happened here, it is a matter of how much fun!

Hence open dry!

research

I knew clearly that this kind of requirement must be overplayed, so I went to the App Store to search the travel and record apps, and even went through the related problems of “travel record/punch card” on Zhihu, and found that there were products to solve these problems, and summarized the following points:

  • Poor experience;
  • So ugly;
  • Too many advertisements;
  • Forget where you came from (in the name of punching a travel clock, but in essence for something else, e.g., promoting travel products)
  • Too complex;
  • Travel card is not the main business, the entrance is too deep

Of course, the above points are all considered. It may be because it is difficult to survive simply as a tool app of “travel punch card”. Play no new tricks; It is understandable that the direction of the product has changed due to user liquidation and other problems.

However, since each developer is not willing to do this loss-making thing, that to meet personal needs to start their own dry.

design

I didn’t spend much time in the design stage, and I probably finished the 1.0 design in less than four or five days. In fact, I came up with similar tourism products when I was a freshman, and I could directly use the previous design and logic in many places.

Basically, I have used and thought about all the apps under the keywords of “travel”, “travel Punch card” and “travel record” in the App Store at least once. I also designed a UI that conforms to my personal habits using Sketch based on my own usage habits.

But it is a pity that I forgot to back up the system after working so hard in the coffee shop all day!! The result of writing the code later is somewhat “weird”.

The implementation of

The knowledge needed in PFollow is sorted out as follows:

  • Custom map (Autonavi, Baidu, MapKit)
  • GPS
  • gyroscope
  • At an altitude of
  • UI Dynamic
  • SpriteKit
  • CloudKit
  • CoreData
  • Database design
  • UIKit
  • Tapic Engine
  • Read the photo album
  • The camera
  • other

In this project, I have no full grasp of “custom map”, “UI Dynamic” and “Core Data”. After measuring it, I can put all my energy into learning without stopping what I am doing now, because I have a habit that if I find that what I want to do is beyond my current knowledge reserve, I will be all in to learn this thing, understand it and then start.

In the end, I found that the problem was “Core Data”, because it was different from ORM framework with the same slogan that I had used in the past, so I needed to consider not only the conversion of thinking, but also the writing method, which needed to be familiar with for some time.

Fortunately, I have gained a certain understanding of “Core Data” by now, and have applied the knowledge to the internship company’s products, replacing most of the Data caching strategies.

show

The map

zoom

Zoom in

Accumulation point details

Accumulation point bottle

Online program

At present, PFollow has no line plan at all, because I learned in an article some time ago that Instagram started with “location check-in” and later changed its product direction due to various reasons. At that time, I immediately understood that Instagram must have met with some problems. These problems will be exposed as time goes by after the launch of PFollow, I firmly believe!

Therefore, PFollow I will proceed as an open source project.

thinking

In the process of developing PFollow, I thought most about how to convert my ideas into actual lines of code. There would be a lot of compromise and persistence in this process. What we finally insist on is probably the most real idea in our heart at that time.

Of course, version 1.0 still has some defects, mostly because I have other things to do when the semester starts. PFollow is a good assistant for me to study quietly in this hot summer vacation, and let me readjust my state for the final year of college.

The project address

GitHub:github.com/windstormey…