Parsegram

Background

The final project of CodePath's Android course. I was curious how social apps work under the hood, so I built a minimal Instagram-style clone: sign up, take a photo, caption it, post to a shared feed.

Solution

Parse handles accounts and image storage. The feed shows recent posts with pull-to-refresh, photos come straight from the device camera with captions added before posting.

Process

Backend connection and auth screens first, then camera capture and preview, which took longer than expected to get right. Tested by creating several accounts and posting different images to make sure the feed held up.

Final Product

Reflection

Main practical lesson: move work off the main thread or uploads freeze your UI. With more time I'd add reactions and client-side image compression, because raw photos upload painfully slowly.