TimePassages Astrology
Astrology
Astrology
Images
Overview
TimePassages is an astrology app that caters to individuals of all experience levels. The app helps teach astrology concepts to beginners but is powerful enough for advanced users. As one of the first astrology apps on mobile devices the app has acquired a dedicated following. The parent company AstroGraph aims to be the most accurate astrological chart service in the world with many more products available outside of the mobile ecosystem.
Being one of the oldest astrology apps on the market, the app itself needed a visual update as well as a technology update.
Key Features
- Create and manage astrological charts for you and your friends.
- Visualize and share your charts.
- Learn about astrology with a built in glossary.
- Sync your charts across iOS, Android and the web
My Role
The client had been working with a previous team of developers for a few years but were seeing poor results and an ever-increasing time-to-release:
I was brought on to:
- Evaluate the codebase (code review)
- Fix Bugs and Crashes
- Get the project back on track and released to the Apple App Store.
- Finish converting old code from objective-C++ to Swift.
- Reduce overall cost of ownership.
- Minimize technical debt and reduce turnaround time for new features to a reasonable level
Technical Details
The project was built using native iOS. A proprietary astrological chart engine that was created in C++ was also integrated into the project. This had to be interfaced with through Swift and Objective-C++.
Mobile
- Native iOS
- Objective-C++
- SQLite/GRDB
- UIKit/SwiftUI
- Firebase
Challenges & Solutions
Due to the amount of technical debt on the project there were some large challenges to overcome.
Patch or Re-Architect?
Developers have a tendency to change or re-architect large amounts of code when presented with a bad codebase. However, this can lead to further issues and an even longer time to release.
My approach is always to first evaluate a codebase and determine a proper course of action.
Solution
After informing the client of the state of the codebase we agreed to allow 2-4 weeks to try and add fixes to existing bugs. However, due to fundamental issues with the code a partial re- architect of the code was needed.
This re-architect included
- Modularizing key functions like database and network code.
- On an as-needed basis update screens to Swift UI from the existing “Massive View Controller” to an MVVM+C architecture.
- Updating the code to use structures representing database tables instead of using dictionaries.
- Introduce the “Coordinator pattern for navigation as the use of storyboard segues caused bloat and duplication of code throughout the project.
- Add unit tests as-needed to prevent code changes from breaking existing parts of the app.
While other improvements were added over-time these 5 actions alone drastically reduced the code complexity and increased the speed and quality of development.
Syncing Data to the Cloud
This is a topic most aren’t well versed in. keeping data accurate and up to date between the app and the cloud server can get very complex. This is especially true for apps that need to work offline.
Solution
A service was created that handled coordinating syncing between the app and the cloud. backend. This includes creating, updating and deleting records between the app and cloud. Wrapping all sync logic into a service also led to some other benefits like monitoring sync progress.
Results & Impact
My efforts led to a successful release of the app The app itself is drastically cheaper to maintain and new features can added in a fraction of the time that it used to take.
Overall:
- Time to add new features reduced by 75% – 90% (~$6,800/feature).
- Average time to fix bugs reduced by 75% – 85% ($3,000 – $3400 /bug).
- Successful Release of 3.0 version.
- Updated version control processes for lower complexity.
