Becky’s WWDC Wishlist

Becky Hansmeyer: “New and/or third-party watch faces. When I think of all the amazing designers I follow on Twitter, it makes me sad to imagine the gorgeous, fun watch faces they could come up with that will probably never see the light of day.”

It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a blog post from Becky and it’s always fun to read her wish list.

My wish list is simple: Custom Apple Watch faces.

Of course most developers want SwiftUI improvements. I’m fine with that but not in a real hurry. I’ve contributed to a couple SwiftUI projects and I found it very confusing — it’s yet another brain shift — but I get the idea.

It’s really nice when “it just works™️.”

End of an Era?

I don’t get too excited about WWDC any longer. I think the pandemic really did it in for me, perhaps it’s just an age thing. In the end I have so many things I’d like to achieve with my apps, that have nothing to do with the latest OS support, I just can’t pay too much attention.

I may change my mind at some point in the future but for now that’s where I am. Not excited about WWDC or any new OS features.

I submitted a request for WWDC’s in-person day, but now I’m much less interested in attending than I was when we recorded the last Core Intuition. I don’t think WWDC will ever return to what it was. 8 years ago I blogged about the “eras” of WWDC… Just feels over now.

Jim Dalrymple - retirement

The Loop: “Over the past couple of years, I have taken time to address issues in my personal life. In that time, I realized that there is so much more to life than work—I’ll be honest, that revelation came as a massive shock to me, but I couldn’t be happier."

All he best, Jim.

LONG LIVE THE BEARD!

Free and Opinionated

NetNewsWire Blog: “Our mission is to make the best RSS reader that we like making. We value stability, high performance, clarity, and lots of figurative air and space rather than a mélange of features.”

I love how Brent and the NNW team hold true to what they believe – and what they want – a feed reader to be.

If you haven’t checked out NNW you really should, it’s a great product.

Dear Recruiters

A wonderful bouquet of flowers.If you’re a recruiter from Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Facebook please save yourself some time and don’t pursue me as a candidate.

I’ve been around for a long time as a developer but I’m not someone you’d want to hire.

I’m not that smart. More than likely I won’t be able to get through your interview process. I do ok as a developer but I’m not an algorithm guy. I try my best to write easy to read, maintainable, and stable code.

I’m not a ninja, rock star, or 10x developer. I’m kind of slow paced, iterative, and discerning. Definitely not a code factory.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Bull Durham I’d compare myself to Crash Davis – played by Kevin Costner. My best days are behind me. I had my time in The Show as part of Visio – which became part of Microsoft – but that was over 20-years ago. I’m in that stage of my career where I’m trying to help younger developers learn the business so they can get to The Show.

I still like to write code but I’m not a good fit for Big COs. I don’t have the energy or desire to work 80-hours a week for months on end. Living for the company.

I’m beginning my twilight season and I’m certain you’ll find your perfect candidate.

Take care, and remember, we only get one shot at this beautiful life. Make the most of it.

P.S. - If you’re a Facebook recruiter, this is the page I want you to see. You should really question why you work for a company like Facebook. If the answer is “because money” you’re doing it wrong. Facebook is a vile company.

My WWDC 2020 Wishlist

Time to get in on the action.

Here goes: Custom Watch Faces, iOS stability and performance improvements, and macOS stability and performance improvements

That’s it.

I’d really love to have a Dumbledore watch face.

Xcode for iPad?

MacRumors: ‘because it “opens the door for ‘Pro’ applications to come to ‌iPad‌."’

Red sock.I picked that bit of a sentence from the article because it’s complete B.S. If folks want to bring Pro apps to the iPad they have the means to do it today on their Mac. Having Xcode on an iPad won’t magically make that any better. The Mac is the perfect tool for building Professional Mac and iOS apps.

Xcode on iPad would be fine. I can’t personally see using an iPad as my primary development machine. Mainly because I like using a bigger display for development. My 15in MacBook Pro display is about as small as I’d like to use.

If I could set the iPad on a stand of some sort, hook it up to my full size keyboard, mouse, and 24in display? That is something that may work.

We’re getting closer to that day, we’re just not quite there.

Not all nerds carry the latest iPhone

Do all Apple related podcasters believe every nerd carries around the latest greatest iPhone?

I’m a professional iOS software developer. Have been since 2009. Prior to that I made my living writing Windows and Linux based video viewing workstations. Prior to that I worked on a an extremely popular Windows desktop drawing and diagramming software. I’m approaching 30-years as a pro.

I carry an iPhone 7.