Parse SDK for tvOS

[waterclock]

Please make available a tvOS-compatible version of the Parse frameworks. Apple TV apps will not be able to compile against the iOS frameworks upon official release of Apple's tvOS SDK.

[nlutsenko]

This issue is for tracking progress/work for Parse SDK for tvOS.
It's currently work in progress, but should be out very soon.
If you have specific requests or ideas - please comment here, so we are aware of this and can have a good overall discussion.

To use the development version aka current latest, update your Podfile as follows:

pod 'Parse', :git => 'git@github.com:ParsePlatform/Parse-SDK-iOS-OSX.git', :branch => 'master'

The incomplete list of required changes:

• Add basic target for tvOS SDK
• Fix imports for frameworks that aren't available on tvOS
• Update PFLocationManager to use compatible APIs when running on tvOS
• Disable extensions data sharing APIs (they don't work on tvOS)
• Disable PFPush (at least for the first release)
• Disable PFInstallation (at least for the first release, unless we have final confirmation that APNS works on tvOS)
• Make PFPurchase work (we have StoreKit, woohoo)
• Disable PFNetworkActivityIndicatorManager (API not available on tvOS)
• Update PFFile staging controller to use caches folder, when running on tvOS
• Update installationId storage to use NSUserDefaults when running on tvOS
• Update PFUser.currentUser() to use NSUserDefaults for storage of non-sensitive data on tvOS
• Update PFAnalytics to run analytics events right away, instead of going through EventualyQueue
• Disable Local Datastore APIs, since there is no local storage on tvOS
• Disable saveEventually/deleteEventually, since there is no persistent storage on tvOS
• Explicitly test deployment with bitcode for end applications
• Add tvOS SDK to deployment packages
• Add tvOS starter project (optional)
• Make Parse.podspec compatible with tvOS

This comment is constantly updating, sometimes without you noticing

[waterclock]

Great news, thanks!

[vikmeup]

+1

[WillChilcutt]

+1

[artisanglobal]

+1

[gabek]

+1

[vikmeup]

@nlutsenko any estimates? Thanks.

[nlutsenko]

Amazing to see this level of excitement.
Let me output some updates here:

• Since there is no local storage or push notifications on tvOS as of right now, we are investigating what parts of the SDK should be evicted from tvOS target
• For user authentication and analytics tracking we still need a place to put currentUser and installationId (these are just files right now, but you don't really want them to be synced to all your devices, so iCloud containers are not an option)
• We are aiming to nail down the list of all the things that we need to build/change/remove/rinse/repeat to support tvOS by mid next week
• This list should appear on this issue, so we are publicly tracking it and can develop in the wild open (as well as accept contributions)

Any feedback so far about parts that you think are the most important to have, or even something new that you can see us building are very welcome!

[WillChilcutt]

As you pointed out, since we cannot store data locally, the first thing to get working is sending and retrieving information. I think the "nice to haves" like the custom UI and analytic, etc. can come later as we have a few weeks before apps will be released, but having the ability to store data remotely is the most important issue right now.

EDIT: Just wanted to throw out a quick thank you for the fast response from the Parse team on recognizing the importance of making this framework work with tvOS!

+1

[reggatta]

Maybe there's a way to put a wrapper around the javascript API or create a lightweight IOS SDK that allows the basics? It seems that the tvOS limits are such that maybe a better approach is to provide connectivity to Parse cloud code.

[waterclock]

Llightweight local storage is available via NSUserDefaults (up to 500K). Also, caches can be written to disk for things like image caching, but they can be deleted by the system so will need to test for their existence prior to reading.

Definitely need the basic Objective-C API of Parse.framework and ParseUI.framework. All the social authentication frameworks can wait till twitter and Facebook figure out how to offer third-party authentication on a platform without a web view.