@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

_Davidsmith

@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social

Independent app developer. Independent in general. Maker of Widgetsmith, Pedometer++, Sleep++ and Watchsmith.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I'm starting a new series of articles about "Craftsmanship & Consideration", elaborating on the ideas and lessons I've learned about app development.

The first article is a bit meta, considering what makes for the "Best Advice”. As I think out loud about my process I'm trying to be cognizant of how I can be most helpful.

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2024/06/04/best-advice/

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

It's that time of year again when we get a collection of 'WWDC Wishlists'... I don't really have one of those instead I have 3 little weird wishes for WWDC.

  • The cellular data dialog could make it easier to find the app needing data,
  • the Apple Watch could show when it is fast charging,
  • and a less squelchy Optic ID sound on visionOS.

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2024/06/04/weird-wishes/

Screenshot of a smartwatch display showing a battery charging screen. At the top right, there is a lightning bolt icon next to the time, which reads 8:58. In the center, a circular progress bar indicates the battery level at 44%, with the text "Charging to full."

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@dimsumthinking The ordering issue was actually helped in iOS 17 with this incredibly subtle option switch at the top which lets you sort by name. Which took forever for me to actually notice.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

My goodness it is going to be warm next week for WWDC(🥵).

Definitely a sunscreen, hat and shade kind of situation.

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@axxl Fixed, thank you

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@dlx If anything it was the opposite, I have many memories of freezing waiting outside on Monday morning.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

It's the Monday before WWDC so you know what that means? It is Test Device Inventory Day.

This is the point in the year where I go through my testing device stack deciding which will be my iOS 18 device and also just making sure I don't have any holes in my iOS version coverage.

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

It is important to decide on my iOS 18 iPhone today because it is also the day when I'll start wearing two Apple Watches.

If you don't wear your watchOS 11 Apple Watch ahead of time then sometimes there are Heath/Fitness features which won't be useful right away. So I always start wearing it a week early.

Probably also worth saying that I never recommend putting beta versions of watchOS on anything other than test watches, if something goes funny they are very difficult to downgrade.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Watched the "What If?” Vision Pro experience. It is really, really fun. Felt like essentially the best amusement park ride you could imagine. Slightly self paced, gently interactive but mostly a story to follow along with and feel a part of.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/what-if-an-immersive-story/id6479251303

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Also, watched the new Adventure immersive film about a parkour team. Which again reminded me again of how amazing the 180º video format is. Though I do hope that there will at some point be an Adventure film which doesn't prey upon my fear of heights to make sure that I “feel" the full immersion. 😱

All this makes me really impatient for the future of the platform. There is so much potential here, but it feels like we are still at the cusp of it being realized.

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@TeeeBear If I'm being honest, I didn't actually watch the jump 🙈. When they got to that section I very quickly got too nervous and jumped ahead to the more normal parkour jumps. But I imagine it would have had to have been loads of takes all stitched together to make it feel seamless.

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@MikeMilzz I gotta imagine there was a large, black air bag at the bottom of the fall. Which we can’t see but would break their fall if they missed. I suspect it was 100% real in terms of the athleticism but more safe than we could easily see

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@MikeMilzz if I could easily rent one of those cameras I’d 100% take one to all my favorite spots and record long peaceful views.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

My goodness Kino is beautiful. Whether or not you're a video creator, if you're a fan of exquisite design you gotta give it a look.

I mean come on, just look at this. This is the just onboarding screen. So great.

https://www.shotwithkino.com

A screen capture of the user manual for Kino, it is a 3D animated recreation of a folding camera manual document. Which smoothly animates between pages as you turn it.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I wonder if in the next earnings round we will hear from mobile gaming companies facing 'head winds' from iOS emulators. I gotta imagine that there will be at least some impact from a meaningful group of gamers focusing their attention towards other games in last few month.

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I'm grateful to @tomlokhorst and @mathijskadijk for their WWDC Index (https://nonstrict.eu/wwdcindex/). It’s an awesome resource for finding older WWDC talks.

At my first WWDC in 2009 there was a talk “Mastering iPhone Scroll Views" by Josh Shaffer & Eliza Block which was incredibly influential to how I build my apps. I went looking for it a few years ago, but it was no longer in the developer video list, but they've tracked it down! It meant a lot to me to watch it again.

https://nonstrict.eu/wwdcindex/wwdc2009/102/

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@tomlokhorst Thanks for the topic view, I didn't realize that was a feature too. That series of talks was so great. Lovely to have it all in one place gathered up.

tvaziri, to random
@tvaziri@mastodon.social avatar

Apple Watch Workout — can I permanently get rid of this Fitness+ button that always appears at the top of my Workout list?

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@tvaziri what I did which seems to have gotten rid of ‘em was to swipe on the alert on your watch in the workout app, and the hit the X, and then in the Watch app on iOS I went into Workouts and turned off “add to watch”. I haven’t seen them since.

image/png

_Davidsmith, (edited ) to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I'm a big fan of James Hoffmann for all things coffee. He just made a video about "What Great Coffee tastes like" and it's a real delight. May I commend this as a lovely way to wrap up your week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkssYHTSpH4

Happy Friday!

jetho, to random German
@jetho@mastodon.social avatar

@_Davidsmith Did anything change during the last updates of Pedometer++ regarding the way steps are being count? Because I was close to completing a year and now my streak got randomly broken back in February (and a few times after that). On the times it got broken it‘s almost always within a few steps of my daily goal (e.g 7992/8000)

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@jetho did you happen to change time zones? That can reset streaks, there is a mode in settings to lock your days counts to a particular one. I haven’t changed anything otherwise which I can think of

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

While thinking about my feelings towards this year's WWDC I was struck by how grateful I am to be a part of this community. A community which spurs me on towards doing better and better work.

I tried to capture this feel in writing, to see if I could summarize what I think makes the indie app community so special. After a lot of thought I think it came down to two ideals I regularly see valued here: Craftsmanship and Consideration.

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2024/05/15/craftsmanship-and-consideration/

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@primatologyxyz That’s Free Lunch by @simplebits https://simplebits.shop/products/free-lunch

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

The good news: You have found a way to reliably reproduce a hang you've seen intermittently and the new Xcode Hang detection helped you quickly narrow down its source. (🎉)

The bad news: It is caused by some very old Objective-C model logic which you haven't touched in years and are terrified of making any changes to. (😔)

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

The last Pedometer++ update addresses some issues with app Hangs. Using the Instruments Hang tool I was able to track down and resolve an intermittent Severe Hang, and then in the process of working on that I found and fixed a few other more minor hangs.

The net result is nearly 7X fewer hangs than the previous version(🎉). 34 seconds/hour on-screen still feels high to me, but it’s a great start.

This WWDC video was SUPER helpful in knowing how to use the Hang instrument https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10248/

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@cocoafrog INCREDIBLY helpful! Once I watched that video and actually knew what I was doing, the process became incredibly straightforward. Thanks!

_Davidsmith, to apple
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

For the next step in my #visionOS design journey I wanted to tackle a slightly more complicated UI, so I have rebuilt Widgetsmith's weather app into a design which fits on visionOS. This process was actually simpler than I had originally feared.

It seems like if you have built an iOS SwiftUI app using good general conventions then it is mostly just the colors and navigation chrome which needs to be revamped.

I broke down my process here: https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2023/07/12/design-notes-40/

_Davidsmith,
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@alpennec That's a while since I wrote that code but generally it is that the blendMode of destinationOut when applied to a view can ‘punch out' a whole in a view so that whatever is behind it is visible. In this case I applied it to the circular backgrounds around every icon. This has the effect of making the translucent view background visible behind them.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • love
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • provamag3
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •