iOS app

Example applications are a great way to explore the headless capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). This iOS application demonstrates how to query content using AEM’s GraphQL APIs using persisted queries.

View the source code on GitHub

Prerequisites prerequisites

The following tools should be installed locally:

AEM requirements

The iOS application works with the following AEM deployment options. All deployments requires the WKND Site v3.0.0+ to be installed.

The iOS application is designed to connect to an AEM Publish environment, however it can source content from AEM Author if authentication is provided in the iOS application’s configuration.

How to use

The code

Below is a summary of how the iOS application is built, how it connects to AEM Headless to retrieve content using GraphQL persisted queries, and how that data is presented. The full code can be found on GitHub.

Persisted queries

Following AEM Headless best practices, the iOS application uses AEM GraphQL persisted queries to query adventure data. The application uses two persisted queries:

# Retrieves a list of all Adventures
#
# Optional query variables:
# - { "offset": 10 }
# - { "limit": 5 }
# - {
#    "imageFormat": "JPG",
#    "imageWidth": 1600,
#    "imageQuality": 90
#   }

query ($offset: Int, $limit: Int, $sort: String, $imageFormat: AssetTransformFormat=JPG, $imageWidth: Int=1200, $imageQuality: Int=80) {
  adventureList(
    offset: $offset
    limit: $limit
    sort: $sort
    _assetTransform: {
      format: $imageFormat
      width: $imageWidth
      quality: $imageQuality
      preferWebp: true
  }) {
    items {
      _path
      slug
      title
      activity
      price
      tripLength
      primaryImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

query ($slug: String!, $imageFormat:AssetTransformFormat=JPG, $imageSeoName: String, $imageWidth: Int=1200, $imageQuality: Int=80) {
  adventureList(
    filter: {slug: {_expressions: [{value: $slug}]}}
    _assetTransform: {
      format: $imageFormat
      seoName: $imageSeoName
      width: $imageWidth
      quality: $imageQuality
      preferWebp: true
  }) {
    items {
      _path
      title
      slug
      activity
      adventureType
      price
      tripLength
      groupSize
      difficulty
      price
      primaryImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
      description {
        json
        plaintext
        html
      }
      itinerary {
        json
        plaintext
        html
      }
    }
    _references {
      ... on AdventureModel {
        _path
        slug
        title
        price
        __typename
      }
    }
  }
}

Execute GraphQL persisted query

AEM’s persisted queries are executed over HTTP GET and thus, common GraphQL libraries that use HTTP POST such as Apollo, cannot be used. Instead, create a custom class that executes the persisted query HTTP GET requests to AEM.

AEM/Aem.swift instantiates the Aem class used for all interactions with AEM Headless. The pattern is:

    /// # getAdventures(..)
    /// Returns all WKND adventures using the `wknd-shared/adventures-all` persisted query.
    /// For this func call to work, the `wknd-shared/adventures-all` query must be deployed to the AEM environment/service specified by the host.
    ///
    /// Since HTTP requests are async, the completion syntax is used.
    func getAdventures(params: [String:String], completion: @escaping ([Adventure]) ->  ()) {

        let request = makeRequest(persistedQueryName: "wknd-shared/adventures-all", params: params)

        URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: request) { (data, response, error) in
            if ((error) != nil) {
                print("Unable to connect to AEM GraphQL endpoint")
                completion([])
            } else if (!data!.isEmpty) {
                let adventures = try! JSONDecoder().decode(Adventures.self, from: data!)
                DispatchQueue.main.async {
                    completion(adventures.data.adventureList.items)
                }
            }
        }.resume();
    }

    ...

    /// #makeRequest(..)
    /// Generic method for constructing and executing AEM GraphQL persisted queries
    private func makeRequest(persistedQueryName: String, params: [String: String] = [:]) -> URLRequest {
        // Encode optional parameters as required by AEM
        let persistedQueryParams = params.map { (param) -> String in
            encode(string: ";\(param.key)=\(param.value)")
        }.joined(separator: "")

        // Construct the AEM GraphQL persisted query URL, including optional query params
        let url: String = "\(self.scheme)://\(self.host)/graphql/execute.json/" + persistedQueryName + persistedQueryParams;

        var request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: url)!);

        // Add authentication to the AEM GraphQL persisted query requests as defined by the iOS application's configuration
        request = addAuthHeaders(request: request)

        return request
    }

    ...

GraphQL response data models

iOS prefers mapping JSON objects to typed data models.

The src/AEM/Models.swift defines the decodable Swift structs and classes that map to the AEM JSON responses returned by AEM’s JSON responses.

Views

SwiftUI is used for the various views in the application. Apple provides a getting started tutorial for building lists and navigation with SwiftUI.

Remote images

Images referenced by adventure Content Fragments, are served by AEM. This iOS app uses the path _dynamicUrl field in the GraphQL response, and prefixes the AEM_SCHEME and AEM_HOST to create a fully qualified URL. If developing against the AE SDK, _dynamicUrl returns null, so for development fallback to the image’s _path field.

If connecting to protected resources on AEM that requires authorization, credentials must also be added to image requests.

SDWebImageSwiftUI and SDWebImage are used to load the remote images from AEM that populate the Adventure image on the AdventureListItemView and AdventureDetailView views.

The aem class (in AEM/Aem.swift) facilitates the use of AEM images in two ways:

A similar approach can be used with the SwiftUI-native AsyncImage. AsyncImage is supported on iOS 15.0+.

Additional resources