One of the latest projects I’ve been working on is making a Instagram client for FirefoxOS, written with EmberJS. It’s called Firegraph (not the greatest name, I know, but not being able to use the words “insta” and “gram” made it pretty hard to come up with a name that at least hinted at what the app is supposed to do…).

Why would you make an Instagram client for FirefoxOS, when there’s already a web application, you ask? Up until recently I wasn’t quite satisfied with the Instagram web app experience, and so I decided to do something to change it — and get a more “built for FirefoxOS” feel on an app on my own, using Instagram’s API (observant readers might notice that “built for FirefoxOS” is kind of antithetic to the credo of FirefoxOS as a whole, but bear with me).

Instagram’s API is fantastic, and was thoroughly approachable and easy to use. While I have only worked on this project sparingly, it’s given me a great chance to explore the new changes made to Ember in 1.10 and 1.11 releases. The changes, additions, and overall feel of Ember I still find fantastic and approachable, and it has been a joy to develop. Despite having to consult the Ember intro guide and API documentation again, I’ve found that writing a new app in Ember 1.10+ is just like riding a familiar framework bike.

You can check out the (current, and very much WIP) code for the project here:

https://bitbucket.org/t3hmrman/firegraph/

As of now all I’ve got (which is pretty pathetic), is authentication and user information gathering (getting the current user), and there are no tests, but I am enjoying working on the project (even if it’s serving as a bit of a distraction from my other ‘heavier’ projects).