These are my short notes: mostly what I’m reading, half-formed thoughts, and what I’m faffing around with.
My longer written pieces mostly live on the blog now. You can get an RSS feed just for notes if you want to follow just these.
I’m looking for some inspiration for my own Apple Watch development aspirations, and I found these really fun apps (via r/AppleWatchApps):
RadioStation - free, private radio player with cute Apple Watch tuner companion app
Crown Calm - fidget app for Watch. I love the marble maze!
PonyRelief - HRV stress trends, but mainly just because you can choose your own pony mascot
I’ve just read on the great This Sceptred Dial radio newsletter that the BBC is to axe, amongst others, Free Thinking which is such a great show. I’ve discovered numerous interesting things from that show including On the Silver Globe, a fascinating unfinished sci-fi film project I’d never heard of.
And I really hope the BBC finds another outlet for Matthew Sweet. He’s one of the best radio presenters they have.
As pillars of Radio 4 crumble, what kind of network are we going to be left with?
Another interesting use case for Claude:
Always wanted a desktop widget but thought it was a faff to create one? Just get Claude to create it.
Here’s one I created today: show me the current virtual desktop name, so I can see what I’m working on, on my current desktop.
A couple of days ago, someone bought the Pro upgrade for Basic Countdown Timer today. That’s $2.99, minus Apple’s cut.
This is the first IAP sale I’ve ever made! I wrote the first version of this app on an iPad in 2024 to learn Swift. Then, I abandoned it for two years. It gets about 20 downloads per month.
Whoever you are, thank you!
I just read this in an interview with the makers of the app ‘Grug’, which won an award at this year’s Apple Design Awards.
What advice would you give to a developer or designer just starting out?
Ship. When you build, you find new ideas, bad ideas, technical roadblocks, better directions, and real people. Put something into the world, learn from what happens, then keep going.
So, just ship.