Install iOS SDK via CocoaPods

[soumak77]

Currently the Firebase iOS SDK source is included in this plugin repo, causing the download size to be over 100 MB. Users are reporting failure to install the plugin, likely due to network issues when downloading the plugin. We need to switch the plugin to install Firebase via cocoapods.

[soumak77]

I don't have time to fix this myself, so if someone else could pick it up that would be great.

@christocracy already did all the heavy lifting to convert the plugin to use cocoapods.
Check out his fork for more info: https://github.com/transistorsoft/cordova-plugin-firebase/tree/cordova-7.1.0

[tryadelion]

what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

[christocracy]

@tryadelion It's an open-source project. Open the source or pay someone to do it for you.

[tryadelion]

"our open source project weights 300mb and fails to install via npm on normal networks" -> "make someone else fix it instead"

great solution indeed. 👏

[briantq]

@soumak77 I figure it's been a while, but any chance you recall what the issue(s) were that prevented the fork from getting merged? I was going to take a look but with the number of changes to code I am not familiar with, it would be more productive if I knew what didn't work properly.

[soumak77]

@briantq I just remember trying to merge the fork into master and saw there we merge conflicts that I didn't have the time to fix. I'm also not well versed in iOS dev so I didn't want to spend time trying to figure it out.