iOS SDK

Overview

Cloudinary is a cloud-based service that provides an end-to-end image and video management solution. The iOS SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive file upload, administration, manipulation, optimization, and delivery capabilities that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing iOS application.

The Cloudinary iOS SDK supports iOS 8.0 or higher.

Quick example: Transformations

The following Cloudinary URL and corresponding iOS code generates the image below including all of the following transformations:

• Thumbnail crop to a size of 150x150 pixels using face detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
• Rounded corners with a 20 pixel radius
• Sepia effect
• Overlay of the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner (with a slight offset). The logo is scaled down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness, and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
• Rotated by 10 degrees
• Converted to and delivered in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)

cloudinary.createUrl()
  .setTransformation(CLDTransformation()
    .setWidth(150).setHeight(150).setGravity("face").setRadius(20).setEffect("sepia")
       .setCrop("thumb").chain()
    .setOverlay("cloudinary_icon").setGravity("south_east").setX(5).setY(5).setWidth(50).setOpacity(60)
       .setEffect("brightness:200").chain()
    .setAngle(10))
  .generate("front_face.png")

Quick example: File upload

The following Swift code uses an unsigned upload preset to upload the dog.mp4 video to the specified account sub-folder using the publicId my_dog. The video will overwrite the existing my_dog video if it exists. When the video upload is complete, the specified notification URL will receive details about the uploaded media asset.

let params = CLDUploadRequestParams()
    .setUploadPreset("sample_preset").setPublicId("my_dog").setFolder("my_folder/my_sub_folder/")
       .setResourceType("video")setOverwrite(true).setNotificationUrl(https://mysite.example.com/notify_endpoint)
let request = cloudinary.createUploader().upload(file: fileUrl, params: params)

iOS SDK features

• Build dynamic URLs for delivering images and videos with on-the-fly transformations
• Implement direct file upload from your mobile application directly to your Cloudinary account
• Support chunked upload for large files
• Preprocess files before uploading
• Handle asynchronous upload callbacks
• Automatic error handling for network disconnections, timeouts, etc
• Save bandwidth with a cache-enabled resource downloader
• Support code in Objective-C

iOS capitalization and data type guidelines

When using the iOS SDK, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Parameter names: camelCase. For example: fileUrl
• Classes: PascalCase. For example: CLDTransformation
• Methods: camelCase. For example: createUploader
• Pass parameter data as a Dictionary

Installation

The following instructions detail the installation of the Cloudinary iOS library. Use one of the following options:

CocoaPods installation

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Swift and Objective-C Cocoa projects. Add the Cloudinary dependency to your Podfile:

pod 'Cloudinary', '~> 2.0'

Then, run the command:

$ pod install

This will run a script to install the Cloudinary header files in your Pods roots folder.

Manual installation

If you prefer not to use a dependency manager, you can add Cloudinary manually by adding it as a submodule to your project.

1. If your project is not initialized as a git repository, run the command:
   $ git init
2. To add cloudinary as a git submodule, run the command:
   $ git submodule add https://github.com/cloudinary/cloudinary_ios.git
3. Open Terminal and navigate to your project's top level directory.
4. Drag Cloudinary.xcodeproj into the Project Navigator of your application's Xcode project. It should appear under your application's blue project icon.
5. Select Cloudinary.xcodeproj and make sure the deployment target matches that of your application target.
6. Select your application project. Under TARGETS select your application, open the General tab, click on the + button under Embedded Binaries and select Cloudinary.framework.
7. The Cloudinary iOS SDK depends on Alamofire. Therefore, you also need to add Alamofire manually to your project. Make sure to checkout the correct version after adding the submodule.

Setup

To use the Cloudinary iOS library you have to configure at least your cloudName. You can additionally define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant. You can find your account-specific configuration credentials in the dashboard of our Management Console.

The entry point of the library is the CLDCloudinary object, which is initialized with an instance of CLDConfiguration with the desired params, for example:

let config = CLDConfiguration(cloudName: "CLOUD_NAME", secure: "true")
let cloudinary = CLDCloudinary(configuration: config)

Another option is to pass a cloudinaryURL in the form cloudinary://@[CLOUD_NAME]?{URL config parameters}, for example:

let config = CLDConfiguration(cloudinaryUrl: "cloudinary://@MY_CLOUD?secure=true")
let cloudinary = CLDCloudinary(configuration: config)

Sample project

The iOS sample project uses Cloudinary's iOS SDK to perform direct uploading with uploading progress indication, an image preview with advanced transformations, and video playback of adaptive streaming videos based on the AVPlayer library.