Real-time iOS Chat App Template – Tutorial

In this tutorial we’ll focus on getting the Chat iPhone App Template up and running. The Swift template is integrated end-to-end with a Firebase backend where users and messages are stored. To have your own instance of the real-time chat app you’ll need to wire the purchased template to your own Firebase account.

On a high level, follow these steps:

1. Download the Real-time iOS Chat App Template
2. Link your Firebase account to the app template
3. Run the app in the latest Xcode
4. Publish your app to the App Store

Create and configure a new Firebase iOS Project

First, configure your backend on Firebase. Firebase provides database, authentication, storage, notifications, analytics and more.

1. Go to Firebase Console, log in and create a new project.

2. In your Firebase project add a new iOS App. Use bundle identifier io.instamobile.ChatApp (or yours) and create the app.

3. Enable Firebase Authentication (Email/Password and Facebook) in Authentication → Sign-in Methods.

4. Set Firestore rules to allow reads/writes during initial setup (adjust for production afterwards). Example:

service cloud.firestore {
  match /databases/{database}/documents {
    match /{document=**} {
      allow read, write;
    }
  }
}

Link the downloaded iOS app template to your Firebase Project

1. In Firebase Console → Project Overview → Settings, select your iOS app and download GoogleService-Info.plist.
2. Replace the GoogleService-Info.plist included in the Swift source (ChatApp/ChatApp/GoogleService-Info.plist) with your downloaded file.

Build & Run the app with Xcode

1. Install pods: from the ChatApp folder run:

cd ~/path_to_downloaded_folder/ChatApp
pod install

2. Open ChatApp.xcworkspace in Xcode and run on a simulator or device.

If you don’t have Cocoapods installed, see https://cocoapods.org/.

Once the app is running, test user registration, messaging, and other features. For production, tighten Firestore rules and configure APNs certificates for push notifications.