@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social
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_Davidsmith

@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social

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

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

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

agmcleod, to random
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@_Davidsmith trying out a pedometer++ trial. I have no idea how you did the snap to paths magic, but this is great. Look forward to trying it out on some hikes soon.

_Davidsmith,
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@agmcleod glad you like it that routing is done using a Mapbox API.

Dreamwieber, to AppleVisionPro
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Real world scans can add so much more depth to your immersive environments ✨

Here's my process for using photogrammetry in making Vibescape, my meditation app for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_WUfL_-3yc

_Davidsmith,
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@Dreamwieber That’s super cool, thanks for sharing!

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

_Davidsmith, to random
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Listening to this week's Connected discussion of Emoji++ (may it Rest in Sherlocked Peace) sent me down a rabbit hole thinking of the old days of Emoji. My goodness the old emoji keyboard was awkward.

https://www.relay.fm/connected/500

video/mp4

nickkohrn, to random
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@marcoarment @_Davidsmith I’ve been listening to podcasts for a long time (Smart Speed has saved me 507 hours so far). I have found Under the Radar to be invaluable. It’s the only show in my Starred playlist. Thanks so much for continuing to provide value. It’s helping to shape how I approach my personal project. Your Pillars series is so incredibly helpful.

_Davidsmith,
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@nickkohrn So glad to hear it.

_Davidsmith, to random
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The latest Under the Radar episode further elaborates on the YouTube video I posted last week about Inclusive Design and how focusing on the widest possible audience for your apps makes them just generally better.

https://www.relay.fm/radar/291

danielmunoz, to random
@danielmunoz@maly.io avatar

Dear Mr. @_Davidsmith, I have a doubt about this cute complication in Watchsmith. What does the circular gradient represent? I assume it is a visual representation of temperature (blue for cooler and green for warmer conditions). The colours may depend on today's temperature range. It is similar to the standard gauge used by Apple, but more complicated because it contains more information. Can you help me fully interpret it?

_Davidsmith,
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@danielmunoz That’s a twenty four hour ring where the current hour is larger, and the other wedges represent the subsequent 23 hours. The color represents temperature with cooler colors bring blues and greeens, and warmer ones oranges and reds.

_Davidsmith,
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@danielmunoz Yup, the outer ring is rain probability and you're right midnight is top and noon is bottom.

_Davidsmith, to random
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Today is one of those classic development days where I had put off dealing with a tricky design/UX problem during the initial creation of a feature (offline maps in Pedometer++), which I now have to solve (deleting old maps).

I didn't address it the first time because I didn't have a great answer and I hoped that after using the feature for a while the solution would come to me [narrator: it did not], but now I really kinda need to find an answer.

So I am basically this meme now.

Tom Scott saying “That was a problem for future me, and now I am future me”.

_Davidsmith,
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One of the funny things about being a developer with a computer science degree is that my initial thought is that I should use a fancy algorithm to solve my problems...when in reality hardware is so fast now that more often a naive, brute force solution works great (and is easier to understand).

For my offline map problem I need to do some point clustering, there are lots of clever solutions for this, but since I'm only ever clustering a few thousand points a simple solutions works great.

_Davidsmith,
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@janl Exactly, I started to get clever then just tried the straightforward solution and it completed in 0.04seconds with a larger than usual dataset.

_Davidsmith, to random
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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 to build software which is comfortably useful to as wide a spectrum of your users as possible. I then illustrate this with a variety of concrete examples from my work building Pedometer++.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQDuBEtcAOc

_Davidsmith,
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@joshdholtz Unfortunately the reason I gave up doing conference talks was that I found the travel associated with them to be too disruptive...so I stopped going to any conference other than WWDC. 😔

_Davidsmith,
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@MuseumShuffle It’s a completely custom tab bar. I didn't like that the system one doesn't adjust at all, so I made one that does.

_Davidsmith, to random
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We just released an update to Widgetsmith which adds Background Sound widgets. These let you listen to a variety of ambient soundscapes directly from interactive widgets on your home screen. These can either be styled like a standard widget, or you can use a photo widget the basis.

They are also available on visionOS where they can augment the Environments to give you that extra sense of immersion.

All the sounds chosen are high quality, perfectly seamless loops.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/widgetsmith/id1523682319

A photo sound widget showing a flower image with a light rain sound playable.
A Vision Pro screenshot showing a rain on tent widget on mount hood.

_Davidsmith,
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@GrantMeStrength There is a 'morning chorus' /‘forest at dawn' sound in the list. which might suit your needs.

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