I got the idea for this app after realizing I had lost around twenty pounds since graduating from college. The only time I've been close to normal weight was during college, when I dabbled in food logging with MyFitnessPal. There were several reasons I stopped using it:
It was (is) feature-bloated, which is especially poor form for a health app.
The crowdsourced database is infuriating when it doesn't have what you're looking for, and irksome when the names don't follow a consistent style.
The iOS Health app didn't exist back then, and MyFitnessPal didn't present the data in a nice graph view.
My eating habits are erratic, so I prefer a plain chronological list.
I don't trust non-tech companies with securing data.
I don't trust companies to not abuse data.
I looked around for apps that focused on doing one thing well (logging food) and conformed to the iOS aesthetic; obviously I didn't find one. I developed Foodlog according to these core values:
Limited, well-defined scope:
Two types of data: foods and food entries.
Database that you curate.
Leave data visualization to the Health app.
Simple UI.
Sync.
Try to be ethical:
Open source.
Data privacy.
Business model: paid Mac app for advanced users.
I've been using it for a while and haven't run into any more bugs, so here's version 1.0.
This was my longest project yet, taking six months on and off to get from idea to version 1.0. I have experience making Mac apps, so iOS development came pretty easily.
Some thoughts on frameworks:
UIKit - pleasant to work with: it only made me regret my profession once.
HealthKit - the job it's responsible for is well-defined, so the most annoying thing was designing around user authorization.
CloudKit - there are a lot of edge cases, some of which I haven't implemented yet. Up to date sample code is hard to come by.
Realm - I don't have much experience with Core Data, so I can't really compare the two. It works great for table view data sources. I would recommend its use as your app's caching layer. As an aside, I went through a lot more iterations of the schema than I expected.
I think the code is pretty well-architect-ed, so take that as a challenge, reader.
The only thing I'm not too happy about is the logo (it's supposed to be a cross section of a bell pepper). If anyone with an above-mediocre talent for graphic design wants to take a stab at it, I would appreciate it.
For the curious: App Store Review took three days to get to my app.
I don't know how many people are looking for an app like this, but I've found that if you make it, they will come (or at least a few will). I'm interested to see how the iOS market compares with macOS.