RealDealMeal

About This Project

RealDealMeal is an innovative iOS app that allows users to quickly and easily discover, view, and save recipes. The app provides daily recommendations, random recipes, categories, and favorites management. All data is fetched via TheMealDB API, and the app is built with SwiftUI using the MVVM architecture, fully responsive on both iPhone and iPad. This app was developed as part of my iOS evaluation, demonstrating best practices for Swift coding, state management, REST API integration, navigation, and data persistence.

Key Features

• Discover Recipes: Browse all meals alphabetically or filter by categories.
• Recommended & Random Recipes: Daily suggestions and a “Random Recipe” button for inspiration.
• Favorites: Add meals to favorites and store them locally using @AppStorage.
• Meal Details: View ingredients, instructions, and images for each recipe.
• Share Recipes: Easily share your favorite recipes via the built-in share functionality.
• Adaptive UI: Supports multiple device sizes and both portrait and landscape orientations.
• Search: Quickly find recipes using the search functionality.

Challenges & Solutions

• Handling optionals and null values from the API (e.g., missing thumbnails or instructions).
• Implementing async/await for multiple API calls and combining random and category-based results.
• Resolving duplicate IDs in ForEach in SwiftUI lists (e.g., with random meals).
• Applying the MVVM architecture to keep UI, state, and data separated.
• Integrating favorites persistence while ensuring thumbnails display correctly.

Technologies Used