Support for iOS

[spwoodcock]

Problem

• We web app for FMTM supports iOS without issues.

• The problem comes that the data collection part uses ODK Collect, which is Android-only.

• There is a closed-source but freely available port of ODK Collect on iOS called GIC Collect.

• However, this does not support the 'select from map' widget we need to select map features! (e.g. buildings)

  • I don't think Entities should be an issue, as that is handled more on the Central server side.

• We can't rely on GIC Collect, as it's not open-source and it also very slow to update (released a long time ago & barely changed).

The iOS problem is a challenging one (Kobo doesn't even have an app, due to reliance on the JavaRosa library too).

Possible Solutions

A few potential avenues to explore.

• Running ODK Collect somehow on iOS (explored the avenues for recent updates to UTM emulator, but it's simply not possible).

• Ensure compatibility with Enketo & host it for iOS users. They could connect to a website to collect data (will not work offline, but better than nothing).

• Create our own Flutter app for data collection, possibly in collaboration with ODK devs? (replacing ODK Collect, not ideal but an option...).

• Create a simple website that renders and XLSForm into questions / inputs & calls the Central API (this is pretty feasible & we could add good PWA caching for offline submissions).

Just throwing out ideas! iOS support isn't priority, but something we ideally want to address into the future. Open to any suggestions!

[spwoodcock]

Update, not long after this!

ODK is working on a new feature: Web Forms

https://forum.getodk.org/t/web-forms-whats-next-and-our-plan-for-releasing/48146

This would would solve our issue for iOS support! And allow submissions from any internet enabled device.

It's got to be the way forward that is the least hassle for is, so closing this discussion thread for now.