Informed

Managing URL construction for APIs in Swift Part 2 of 3

The next part of my 3-part series is up on the @beinformed.app blog! I walk through how I construct URLs for my app in a scalable, flexible way.

beinformed.app/blog/url-con...

Creating a generic network manager in Swift Part 1 of 3

Here's the first post from my 3-part series. Hopefully, it's useful/helpful to people 😅 and let me know if you have any feedback, questions, etc.

Today, I'm expanding the number of beta testers for @beinformed.app! If you're willing to test out an app to help you find your representatives, browse upcoming elections, track campaign finance, and more, sign up here: testflight.apple.com/join/zKBtrsC5

Two screenshots of a chart built using Swift and SwiftUI. The chart is titled "Political ideology in Congress, 1948-2025" and uses DW-NOMINATE data to show growing political polarization in the U.S. in recent decades.

Over on the beinformed.app/blog, I'm going to have a series of three posts coming up that walk through (1) building a generic networking function, (2) constructing URLs with a service class and endpoint protocol, and (3) creating a data model and SwiftUI chart to build the view below.

Hey! You can DM me your email and I'll send you a TestFlight invite link.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted or given an update on @beinformed.app, but I wanted to cover a few things as we move into April. First, there’s a new feature in the app to help you search through the app’s local data to more quickly navigate and find information.

If you're a beta user, check out the new search feature in version 0.85!

Either is fine. I’ll see it either way

If you keep noticing it being slow, feel free to send feedback

That’s great to hear! I haven’t used GovTrack that much but it’s a great tool for tracking that kind of stuff. Generally, the network call to find your representatives based on your address should be pretty fast, but maybe your connection or the server was just slow.

I've been considering adding support for TipKit to @beinformed.app, but I'm not sure users actually need help with feature discovery. If you're beta testing the app, are there any hidden or hard-to-find features you think users would benefit being directed to?

BETA UPDATE: I uploaded my build to TestFlight yesterday and got internal testing set up. For external testing, the app needs to go through app review. After that, I'll invite people who signed up for the beta via email. If all goes well, I'll invite via a public link...

There's an API: api.congress.gov

Quick update on @beinformed.app: it's looking like the beta should be ready for early February. There will be some bugs (hopefully no app-crashing ones) and a lot of visual inconsistencies. Some of the UI I'm happy with, some of it is kind of ugly (sorry). I have no idea how long the beta test...

Informed iOS beta coming early 2025 Read about the upcoming beta.

You can read more about what the app offers here, if you haven't seen it: beinformed.app/blog/informe...

Not currently! The information in the app about Congress is pretty limited at the moment (it's more focused on elections and campaign finance), but there's a lot of room to add information, including on committees, subcommittees, their legislation, etc. I'll make a note of this feedback, thanks!

Informed iOS beta coming early 2025 Read about the upcoming beta.

In the past few days since launching the beinformed.app site, 22 people have signed up to be notified about the beta when it launches. Thanks!

Informed - Civic data for everyone A civic data app for iOS

The site for my app is now up and you can sign up to be notified when the TestFlight is live: betterinformed.app