i haven’t written about my new app Albums on this site, which is a little bit intentional and a little bit of an oversight. let me explain.
i don’t know who reads this blog. intentionally. i have no analytics, no email subscription list, nothing. if i had to guess, the number of people that read any given article is more than five and less than one hundred. i’m not sure if that’s me being dismissive of my own reach or trying to be somewhat realistic about the deluge of content we wade through every day.1
so back to not writing about my new app here. it’s a bit of an oversight because this is my “official” website. it’s the one that bears my name and the one that has some reasonably important announcements on it. it should probably contain at least some reference to my first indie iOS app in over a decade. as for it being intentional, i don’t consider the app to be “finished” yet. it’s still missing functionality that i desperately wanted to put into the first release, but somehow convinced my perfectionistic ADHD brain to push below the line. i stubbornly didn’t want to announce the app in a long-form post until it was “ready”.
but that’s kinda silly since as we’ve established: i’m not sure if any significant number of people read this blog and even if they do, is an app ever truly finished? i may be waiting a long time.
so without further delay: i shipped version 1.0 (and 1.1) of my first indie app in over 12 years. it’s called Albums, and it’s one of the things i’m most proud of building.
Some screenshots from my new app ‘Albums’ displaying a portion of my music library.
I’ve been through this “new year” thing a few times. Not as many as some, but more than others. The last few years I’ve gravitated toward “themes” instead of listing a bunch of unrelated goals/wishes. That way when I list out any specific goals, it becomes more about listing actionable steps to support a singular goal instead of a bunch of things I need to keep in my head throughout the year.
I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs recently. One quote that’s been bouncing around my head quite a bit is this one from 1983:
“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”
I’m sure there were many meanings tucked away inside that simple phrase, but the story I’ve seen attributed to Andy Hertzfeld (who was at Apple in 1983) centers around resisting the bureaucratic nonsense that was increasing in the Mac group at Apple as they were growing. Don’t give up your scrappy, win-at-all-costs, counter-culture identity just to conform to “the system”.
Dutch is a 9-week old Goldendoodle, a frequent member of the “good dog” club, and lover of fetch. He’s named after our favorite coffee chain, Dutch Bros. Coffee1 and as a nod to Dutch Formula 1 driver (and defending world champion), Max Verstappen.
He’s the newest member of the family, and we love him so much!
Who’s a good boy?
Financial disclosure, I own a [small] number of shares in Dutch Bros ($BROS) ↩︎
There’s an aphorism that’s attributed to Steve Jobs that I’ve often used to spur on my own artistic endeavors:
“Real artists ship.”
Those three simple words convey a whole host of underlying meaning, and personally I find it incredibly helpful to refocus my own efforts toward the end goal: shipping my art for the world to see.
I’ve had several pet projects I’ve been working on, in some cases for multiple years, that I keep tinkering away on with no end in sight. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – it’s good to have side projects that sharpen your craft or serve as test beds for learning – but at least one of the projects has been eating away at me, calling out for me to ship it.
So over the next little bit, I’ll put in the final touches of work needed to get it to v1.0, and ship it. Stay tuned!
A partial screenshot of <redacted> (I’ve already said too much!)
