Five years ago, a TikTok video changed my life. And I can say that without any hyperbole. The run up In April of 2020, while the world was struggling through the early stages of the COVID pandemic I launched an app for creating highly customizable complications for the Apple W … | Continue reading
watchOS 10 Redux The funny thing about working on my Liquid Glass redesign for the Pedometer++ watchOS app is how very little needs to actually be done. A couple of years ago with watchOS 10 Apple introduced a very similar design language, with edge-to-edge backgrounds and froste … | Continue reading
Next up is the active workouts screen. This is shown when the user is out on a walk, hike or run. It uses their iPhone to track the metrics associated with the effort. It also includes route finding features to help with navigation. It seemed like the best place to start looking … | Continue reading
Next up for my speed run of iOS 26 first draft redesigns is the main Home Screen of Pedometer++. This one proved pretty straightforward, at least to get to the solid draft stage. The initial step was to adopt the new Tab Bar design. Pedometer++ had previously used a completely cu … | Continue reading
Yesterday’s re-design involved updating the “Start Workout” screen, which I chose as one of the core screens of the app. Today I’m going to walk through redesigning another of more pivotal areas of the app, maps! Pedometer++ has a number of mapping based features for planning and … | Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon I submitted my last major pre-iOS 26 update (which feels very good to be out the door). So I am now able to turn my attention more fully to iOS 26 updates. I’m starting by focusing exclusively on the design update portion of my iOS 26 work. While there are a v … | Continue reading
This time of year there is always a murmur amongst app developers, blinded by shininess of the new iOS, to consider whether to drop support for older versions of iOS and jump fully to requiring the new stuff. Doing so can make your life a whole lot simpler and your code a lot cle … | Continue reading
I was fortunate enough to get one of the Design Labs late last week, which meant that I spent Friday morning frantically doing as many first-pass updates to the new design as I could. I then was able to discuss many of them during the lab and learned a bunch. Something in particu … | Continue reading
Yesterday’s announcement of the new Liquid Glass design system has made me think it is a good time to dust off my old Design Diary series of blog posts. I expect I will be spending a good part of this summer working through what the new design system means for my apps. The Road A … | Continue reading
Six months ago, I found myself really demotivated with my health and fitness. For a long time I’d been on a good run with working out and staying fit but I found that I was struggling to head to the gym and keep consistent with taking care of myself. This isn’t the first time thi … | Continue reading
For the last few years I’ve gotten into the habit of heading out for a nature-oriented holiday two weeks before WWDC (the penultimate week if you are studying for the SATs). Typically, this time of year it makes little sense to start any major new projects, so heading out on a br … | Continue reading
Last week brought a rather dramatic turnaround in one of the longest-lived and perhaps most controversial policies in the App Store when a federal judge has required Apple to allow developers to use their own payment processing from links within their apps. The details of this de … | Continue reading
Five years ago I wrote a post entitled 38,299 hours on my wrist, where to observed the five year anniversary of the launch of the Apple Watch. I took a look at how often I have worn one since it’s release. Yesterday, the Apple Watch celebrated its ten year anniversary so I though … | Continue reading
Last week I watched the iOS development community react to substantial rumors of a major UI redesign slated to be announced at WWDC25. The reactions were complex and I’d say broadly negative, which is a reaction I very much can understand and appreciate. However, after wandering … | Continue reading
The above image represents the sum total of the progress I made yesterday. It sure doesn’t look like much. It is a grid system for an upcoming widget feature I am working on for Widgetsmith. I’m almost embarrassed to post it as the collective effort for an entire day’s profession … | Continue reading
This past weekend I was fortunate to be a participant in the “Relay FM 10th Anniversary Extravaganza”, a live show in London celebrating Relay’s decade of podcasting. Relay is the home of Under the Radar. We didn’t quite join at the start but have been part of the network for nea … | Continue reading
In Steve Jobs’s 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech he famously concluded by quoting the back cover of the Whole Earth Catalogue’s final issue. It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. And I’ve always wished that for myself. And now as you gradua … | Continue reading
I thought it might be interesting to write a series of articles elaborating on the concept of Craftsmanship & Consideration. I feel like I’ve developed a certain perspective about my process which I think could be helpful to others. That said, giving general advice is incredibly … | Continue reading
This is the time of year when we very often will see Apple commentators posting their “Wishlists” for WWDC. These are enjoyable and helpful to frame our perspectives going into next week. I don’t have one of those but I do have a handful of wishes for tiny details I’d love to see … | Continue reading
WWDC is one month away and while I was out on a walk this morning I got to thinking about how I was feeling about it. This will be the 16th(!) consecutive WWDC which I have attended1. My first in 2009 was a few months after the birth of my oldest child. He has never known a world … | Continue reading
I don’t really give conference talks anymore, but I had this idea bouncing around my head for a while which I thought would make a good one. So I recorded it as though I was giving a talk. The idea is around how to develop An Inclusive Mindset as it relates to product design. How … | Continue reading
So far the most compelling experiences I’ve had while wearing an Apple Vision Pro have leaned heavily into the immersive abilities of the device. The Immersive Videos are fantastic, but where things really get interesting is when the immersiveness is derived from my own memories. … | Continue reading
I’m delighted to announce that I have brought on Stephen Hackett to help me with my apps. He will be working on customer communication, marketing and generally creating space for me to focus on the programming oriented parts of my work. Something that’s been rattling around my mi … | Continue reading
Earlier this year I released a major update to Pedometer++ which included a complete visual redesign of the app and brought workout tracking to the iPhone. This update represented a movement towards making Pedometer++ your best companion for outdoor walking adventures. Today I’m … | Continue reading
Earlier this year I released a major update to Pedometer++ which included a complete visual redesign of the app and brought workout tracking to the iPhone. This update represented a movement towards making Pedometer++ your best companion for outdoor walking adventures. Today I’m … | Continue reading
The introduction of the second generation Apple Watch brought with it the addition of a new watch face called Modular Ultra. I’m always on the look out for a new digital watch face and this one is very nice, and particularly flexible in terms of layout and look. It also includes … | Continue reading
Let’s start out this week with a little brain teaser type problem. How would you calculate the rotation angle for the minute and hour hand of a clock? Specifically this came to mind for me because of a feature in Widgetsmith where you can specify an analog clock as one of your wi … | Continue reading
Given how young of a platform visionOS is I thought it might be a good idea to err on the side of overly documenting the processing of making Vision Pro apps. There is a whole new set of gotchas and pro-tips to learn. Also, if I’m being completely honest I really don’t know if I’ … | Continue reading
Today’s Design Diary entry walks through a design evolution, which is superficially super minor and a bit silly. But so often the best designed products are an accumulation of countless tiny details, so I felt that nevertheless it was worthwhile. It relates to the graphs shown at … | Continue reading
I’m starting something new to help me get my apps ready for visionOS. Over the summer, while I was preparing my apps for iOS 17, I essentially stopped working on visionOS work because it was more important that I focus on the more pressing concern of getting things ready for Sept … | Continue reading
For the next update to Pedometer++ I’m greatly enhancing the offline maps capabilities to allow you to easily download the maps for a particular area so that when you are out exploring the wilderness you don’t have to worry about connectivity. This is a design evolution showing m … | Continue reading
I’ve begun working on the next major update to Pedometer++ which includes a variety of hiking focused features. The first of which is the addition of a walking route planning tool. This will let you use an interactive map to help you choose your route. One of the core aspects of … | Continue reading
Three short years ago Widgetsmith came out and changed my life in a dramatic fashion. I never thought (or really dreamed) that I’d make something which would have the reach and impact Widgetsmith has. It has been quite the ride and today, as we start its fourth year, Widgetsmith … | Continue reading
watchOS 10 features a radical redesign throughout all Apple’s apps. Now that we have transitioned away from the rectangular screen of the original series of Apple Watches, we can fully embrace the edge-to-edge rounded screen of modern displays. This lets apps take full advantage … | Continue reading
We’ve just had the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro developer labs. These one day, hands-on experiences will take place around the world over the next few months and allow developers to refine and enhance their apps for visionOS based on real-life usage. I’ve applied to atten … | Continue reading
This morning I again spent some time trying to develop my visionOS design skills. I find the best way for this is to just get started with development and then learn along the way. Today I decided it would be interesting to work through updating the weather app from Widgetsmith f … | Continue reading
Owing to a variety of personal commitments I’ve not really been able to get started working like I typically would have by this point in the summer. The period directly after WWDC has often been my most productive, where I return home full of ideas and excitement for the summer a … | Continue reading
Last week at WWDC I was extraordinarily fortunate to be one of the very few people in the world to try out Vision Pro for myself. The 30 minute session I had with it has been described in tremendous depth in lots of places (the best likely being Myke’s discussion on Cortex), so … | Continue reading
Today I was working on designing a steps focused live activity mode for Pedometer++. In the initial version of workout tracking I focused on distanced based UI, which fit well with the overall structure of the way workout tracking functions. However, I quickly started to get lots … | Continue reading
A small coda for yesterday’s exploration of corners. I recently was able to finally track down a bug which has been frustrating me for a long time. Widgetsmith’s interface includes several places where I displays previews of widgets. In these views I could occasionally see dark, … | Continue reading
One of the most challenging questions I find myself facing when doing visual design work is: “What is good enough?” Design is an exercise in constantly balancing tradeoffs between simplicity and complexity. Seeking to find that elusive, but satisfying, point where the two balance … | Continue reading
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of heart rate based training. This involves doing some activity (rowing, biking, running, etc…) with the goal of getting my heart rate into specific range and keeping it here. I find this is a really helpful way to improve my cardiovascular health, … | Continue reading
One of the strange ‘benefits’ of having been doing my current job for nearly 15 years now is that I can see the cyclical patterns inherent in the life of an independent developer. The last few weeks were a reminder of one of the more challenging one of these patterns. Stretched. … | Continue reading
It feels like every few years in order to renew my developer license it is required that I design a Now Playing screen. Historical Background The earliest one I remember making was for my app Audiobooks, which back in 2009 looked like this: You know that’s an ancient screenshot … | Continue reading
It is often easy to present the Apple Watch, especially the Ultra model, as a rugged and powerful adventure companion that is suitable for crossing the Sahara with naught but your wits. And it is, it is a useful companion for all manner of dramatic adventures. However, I was rece … | Continue reading
Last week I talked about how rarely I find myself getting down to the ‘pixel level’ anymore in my design work, but still occasionally find that it is necessary in order to give a design that extra little bit of polish. Today I again ran into a situation that needed this level of … | Continue reading
In the early days of iPhone development people would often talk about “Pixel Perfect” design, where we would sweat the details right down to the pixel. I hear a lot less of that these days. The shift towards such a wide variety of device screens and accessibility modes made it in … | Continue reading
Widgetsmith has just achieved a remarkable milestone, surpassing 100 million downloads since its launch in September 2020. A number that I can’t really wrap my mind around. A number larger than the population of all but 14 countries (🤯). I was very conflicted about whethe … | Continue reading