I spent some time on the weekend thinking about Should I Cycle, the app I want to build. There’s two ways I could do it:
- standalone iPhone app
or
- build an API
- iPhone app will call the API
Given the terms of use of most of the weather APIs out there, I wouldn’t be able to call them directly from my iPhone app. So I should build my own API which the iPhone app will call. OK then.
What should my API look like and what will it do? It’ll be pretty simple – when invoked, all it will do is call the other web services it’ll use – weather, air quality, pollen levels, convert the results into a succinct format, and probably cache the results.
Here’s a simple diagram (created using draw.io):
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
