CloudKit Intro

NYC iOS Meetup, 9/3/14

About me

Arun Nagarajan (@entaq)

Currently Founding Engineer, funded stealth startup in NYCWe are hiring! Email me at arun@isapp.com

Previously2 yrs at Google - Tech Lead, Developer Platform9 yrs at Verivo Software (Boston) - VP of Architecture

What is it?

● New Cloud API that provides backend to app● Other “iCloud” options

○ iCloud Core Data○ iCloud Documents/Drive○ iCloud Key Value Store

● Transport technology○ And not a local persistence layer

● 400 million iCloud accounts● Apple used it to build iCloud Drive & Photos

Key entities

● Containers● Databases● Records● Record Zones● Record Identifiers● References● Assets

Enabling CloudKit

Some favorite features

User Discovery

● User Record ID - unique per app/per user● Email address if user opts in● Scan address book for other contacts

○ You never get address book● One new permission dialog

Salient points

● Error handling is key● NSOperation based API

○ And a convenience API● Subscriptions/Push notification is solid● Querying based on NSPredicates

○ Location based queries● Dashboard

○ https://icloud.developer.apple.com/dashboard/

Is it ready?

● For now, Apple only (iOS and Mac)● Some server unavailable errors● No way to run server side code● Plenty of other options!

○ Hard to port over for the most part

Some troubles

Cost model

● Public database quota for developer● Private database quota for users

Costs

Storage - 5gb for assets, 50mb for DBTransfer - 25mb/day assets, 250kb/day DB

For every user, you get Storage - 100mb for assets, 1mb for DBTransfer - 500kb/day assets, 5kb/day DB

Sample costs

10k usersStorage - 1tb for assets, 10gb for DBTransfer - 5gb/day assets, 50mb/day for DB

100k usersStorage - 10tb for assets, 100gb for DBTransfer - 50gb/day assets, 500mb/day for DB

Thanks

Questions?

Arun Nagarajanarun@isapp.com