AppForce1 Worklog: Refactoring an 8-Year-Old iOS App is Like Restoring a Classic Car

AppForce1 Worklog

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Jeroen shares his real-world iOS development journey working on a legacy app at Dawn Technologies. He details his systematic approach to modernizing an 8-year-old codebase that serves as a critical tool for companies.
• Breaking down a monolithic App Delegate into dedicated managers with single responsibilities
• Leveraging the existing feature flag system to safely deploy new implementations
• Refactoring the walkie-talkie functionality with real-time audio streaming over WebSockets
• Completely rewriting the chat system to use a modern service-based architecture
• Overhauling the location tracking system to use iOS 17's new async location tracking APIs
• Implementing WiFi settings fixes for iOS 16 compatibility using modern APIs
• Maintaining a cleanup branch to remove deprecated APIs and fix compiler warnings
Check out Do iOS, the iOS development conference I'm organizing later this year. Visit do-ios.com for more information and tickets - link in the show notes.
Join me in Amsterdam for Do iOS 2025, tickets and details available now.

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פרקים

1. Introduction to the Worklock Episode (00:00:00)

2. App Delegate Cleanup and Architecture (00:03:25)

3. Feature Flag System and Walkie-Talkie (00:06:10)

4. Chat System and Location Tracking (00:10:00)

5. Deep Dive: App Delegate Refactoring (00:12:30)

6. Feature Flags: The Essential Safety Net (00:17:30)

7. Lessons Learned From Legacy Code (00:20:30)

8. Upcoming Work and Cleanup Branch (00:22:45)