
Ask HN: Which open-sourced mobile app codebase is the most insightful to study? - fantanfantan
I am trying to learn how to build mobile apps and want to know which codebase you guys think are particularly clean&#x2F;well-laid out. Preferably ones which have good architectural documentations (or bloggers explaining the architecture).<p>For example, this guy does a lot of code reviews for open sourced games&#x2F;game engines: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fabiensanglard.net.
He has a very good code review of DOOM on iPhone: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fabiensanglard.net&#x2F;doomIphone&#x2F;index.php.<p>Particularly insightful blogs on how to architect modern mobile apps (even if it is closed source) are also welcomed. For example Dropbox&#x27;s tech blog on how they structured the code for their photos app:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tech.dropbox.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;building-carousel-part-i-how-we-made-our-networked-mobile-app-feel-fast-and-local&#x2F;
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throwaway15213
I like Inkpad:
[https://github.com/sprang/Inkpad](https://github.com/sprang/Inkpad)

It is a high quality and popular vector drawing app (4+ stars on app store)
and the code is clean and simple to understand. I am not sure you will learn
anything by just reading through it if you're not building a similar kind of
app though.

Quick googling also yielded these lists:

[http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-
store...](http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store-apps-
updated-with-10-new-apps)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-
source_iO...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-
source_iOS_applications)

How to architect your app really depends on what kind of app you're building.

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swanson
I quite like this post about Path's Android architecture and building REST
clients that don't fall over if you have less-than-ideal network conditions:
[http://birbit.com/a-recipe-for-writing-responsive-rest-
clien...](http://birbit.com/a-recipe-for-writing-responsive-rest-clients-on-
android/)

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domparise
Depends on if you're trying to write native apps, web apps or use something
like phonegap.

If you're looking to write native apps, Android is open-source, and iOS closed
source, but they've got a lot of documentation available, albeit verbose at
times.

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NtroP
Be sure to check out LiveCode.

