Setting up

This project will take a data feed from a website and parse it into useful information for users. As per usual, this is just a way of teaching you some new iOS development techniques, but let's face it – you already have two apps and two games under your belt, so you're starting to build up a pretty good library of work!

This time you'll be learning about UITabBarController and a data format called JSON, which is a popular way to send and receive data online. It's not easy to find interesting JSON feeds that are freely available, but the option we'll be going for is the "We the people" Whitehouse petitions in the US, where Americans can submit requests for action, and others can vote on it.

Some are entirely frivolous ("We want the US to build a Death Star"), but it has good, clean JSON that's open for everyone to read, which makes it perfect. Lots to learn, and lots to do, so let's get started: create a new project in Xcode by choosing the Single View App template. Now name it Project7 and save it somewhere.