August 2021 Summaries

Firebase iOS SDK version 8.6.0 introduces full support for Swift Package Manager (SwiftPM), making it the preferred alternative to CocoaPods for adding Firebase products directly through Xcode. The change follows initial beta support in Firebase 6.31.0 and responds to growing SwiftPM adoption among iOS developers, driven by Apple support and Xcode integration. Developers can add Firebase by selecting Add Package Dependency in Xcode, entering the Firebase iOS SDK GitHub repository URL, choosing needed products, and including the GoogleServices-Info.plist configuration file. Achieving complete support required multi-year refactoring and collaboration with the SwiftPM community on binary libraries, resources, and unit testing, while Firebase Performance Monitoring’s migration from Protobuf to nanopb reduced its SDK size by more than 30%. Firebase is updating its documentation and sample projects to support SwiftPM-only setups and invites developer feedback on migrations from CocoaPods.

Firebase SDK version 9 is now generally available, introducing a modular, function-based API designed to let bundlers such as webpack and Rollup remove unused code through tree shaking, potentially reducing JavaScript bundle sizes by up to 80 percent. Although the release includes breaking changes, it retains familiar concepts and offers a compatibility library that preserves the version 8 API, supports gradual migration alongside the new API, and is available through npm and CDN, though without tree-shaking benefits. The release also adds Firestore Lite, a smaller REST-based Firestore option intended for one-time reads that excludes real-time updates and offline support but can coexist with the full Firestore package. Version 9 prioritizes ES modules over the browser global window object, with window-based CDN usage retained primarily as a migration path, and Firebase directs developers to its upgrade and module-bundler guides for adoption.

Firebase’s Firestore Emulator Requests Monitor, available in the Emulator UI with the latest Firebase CLI, provides a real-time view of client requests made to a local Firestore Emulator across platforms. Its Requests view records operations such as document creation and retains recent activity, showing whether Firebase Security Rules allowed, denied, or errored on each request. Developers can inspect individual requests to view a snapshot of the applicable rules, highlighted evaluation results, request metadata, existing and proposed document data, and other fields useful for diagnosing or refining rule conditions. Rules must be edited in the local firebase.rules file, after which the CLI automatically updates the emulator and subsequent requests display new evaluation results. Rather than relying on simulated requests, the tool encourages developers to exercise actual app requests, including queries, while testing locally. The monitor excludes Admin SDK requests and does not display dependent document reads caused by rules functions such as get() or exists(), and emulator performance or cost behavior should not be treated as representative of production.

Vinwap, an indie Android developer behind live wallpaper apps such as Glitter Live Wallpaper Glitzy and 4D Parallax Wallpaper, used Firebase Remote Config and AdMob to test whether increasing banner advertising could raise revenue without driving away users. The case study reports that the company achieved a 30% revenue increase within six days, highlighting Remote Config as a tool for quickly testing monetization changes and measuring their effects. Vinwap founder Wojciech Stefanski described Firebase as a primary analysis tool for evaluating new product changes, while the example complements an earlier account of CrazyLabs using Remote Config to automate testing across its app portfolio.

Firebase’s JavaScript SDK is transitioning from its long-standing namespace-based API to a modular design intended to reduce bundle sizes through tree shaking, while acknowledging that the change breaks patterns that have remained stable for roughly five years. Earlier versions relied on side-effect imports that augmented a shared `firebase` namespace, making services and their methods easy to discover but requiring bundlers to include potentially unused functionality. Version 9 instead exports individual functions, such as `initializeApp`, `getAuth`, and `onAuthStateChanged`, allowing bundlers to exclude unused code and making service creation and usage more explicit. To ease migration, Firebase provides a compatibility library that preserves the version 8 API while using version 9 internally, enabling old and new APIs to operate together during incremental upgrades. Once applications fully adopt modular imports, they can remove compatibility dependencies and receive the intended tree-shaking and performance benefits.

Firebase App Check’s beta introduces support for Apple’s App Attest on compatible iOS devices, configurable token time-to-live settings, and protection for non-Firebase backends. App Attest verifies that requests originate from a genuine Apple device running an authentic, untampered version of an app, while DeviceCheck remains available for unsupported devices. Developers can set shorter or longer token lifetimes, including per-provider settings, to balance stronger security against responsiveness and quota use across providers such as App Attest, DeviceCheck, SafetyNet, reCAPTCHA v3, and custom solutions. App Check can now also secure custom backend services capable of running the Firebase Admin SDK for Node.js, including Cloud Run, Google Kubernetes Engine, and bare-metal servers, extending its existing protections for Cloud Storage, Realtime Database, and Cloud Functions for Firebase.

Firebase Performance Monitoring is presented as a tool for helping app developers assess performance from users’ perspectives across varying devices, locations, operating systems, and network conditions. It provides real-time metrics during development and after release, including screen rendering and network-request data, with testing support through Firebase Emulators and Test Lab. Its customizable dashboard lets teams prioritize relevant measures, segment results by factors such as country, device, app version, and OS level, and use custom code traces to measure specific operations. The platform also supports comparisons between releases and trend analysis to identify regressions or severe issues before they lead to poor reviews or support requests. The article cites GameNexa Studios, which combined Performance Monitoring with Crashlytics and reported improved retention, session duration, and a 2.5-fold increase in in-app purchases after reducing performance issues.