In some deeper corners of the internet, there lies music communities that are based around building and sharing curated collections of albums. Historically, the only consistently available means to create these specific types of grids was through an off-kilter web app, creating a convenient opportunity to sharpen my iOS skills and create a native solution without any of the fuss.
Aside from some creative UI elements, the project only posed two real challenges. The first was the connection to the Last.FM API, where it was necessary to find the "sweet spot" with how and when images could be fetched and loaded without running into rate limits. The second challenge was one of the key features of the app: being able to actually export the grid itself. To achieve this, a secondary set of grids was created and set to be populated when the user initiated an export. This background grid would then populate based on the editable grid, and generate a standardized image using ImageRender, which then would be exportable to the camera roll or otherwise sharable.
The design aspect was kept simple, relying mostly on standard iOS patterns. The challenge was figuring out how to create an intuitive grid editing experience that also provides larger context of where in the final grid is being interacted with, all within such a small screen size. The best solution for this was a combination of horizontally scrolling rows with slightly varied sizing.
With the original intention of launching to the App Store just for practice's sake, I later checked back and was surprised to find it had gained some organic traction. I then rolled out a few quality-of-life updates and continued to let it accrue users, achieving the above figures in just a few months after releasing all through App Store search and referrals.
