In the last few months there has been a lot of discussion of people’s hopes for the future of Apple. With the announced leadership changes, it is a logical period of reflection and projection of hopes for the future. A recurring theme I’ve heard is a desire for Apple to “return to its roots” or “go back to what made it great”. I don’t personally feel those feelings very much. Maybe I’d describe…
I love going on wilderness adventures. I am rarely happier than when I am far off into the mountains without a soul in sight. As a result, I have spent a lot of time learning how to safely explore and navigate when I’m away from civilization. The most important habit I’ve found for not getting lost is to be very regular in checking your location as you go, and the best way I’ve found to do that is…
Today I’m beyond delighted to announce the release of Pedometer++ version 8. I worked with legendary designer Rafa Conde to re-design the appearance and layout of the watchOS app to make it the most capable, yet intuitive, walking app on the App Store. Pedometer++ has been on the Apple Watch from day one twelve years ago. Over that time I’ve built dozens of designs and features, today’s redesign…
The last few months have involved a major shift in how I do my work. With things like the Codex app and GPT-5.3+ reaching a level of code quality and consistency which has made them properly helpful. While my use of these tools for general purpose programming is still something I haven’t fully settled my workflow for, there are several uses for these tools which I have found I use very regularly.…
In Widgetsmith 8.2 we added the ability to give your widgets a ‘clear’ background. This isn’t actually clear (since iOS doesn’t allow that without private API use), but instead just crops part of your home screen wallpaper and uses that as the background. In order for that to work I need to know precisely where each and every widget is on each and every iPhone model. This involved a massive…
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 Watch. Watchsmith was my attempt at filling the void left by the lack of 3rd-party watch faces on watchOS. It let you chose…
All summer I’ve been chronicling my iOS 26 redesigns. With the September event just around the corner I am delighted to report that I was able to complete my work for both Pedometer++ and Widgetsmith . The final styling of each redesign is different between the two apps but in both cases I feel like they landed on a solid interpretation of the new Liquid Glass design language. I figured the best…
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 frosted overlays. This redesign also carried with it the underlying nudge to move away from any form of custom navigation and…
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 for some inspiration would be in the Apple Maps app, which does essentially the same thing…just without the backcountry…
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 custom tab bar control, which caused all manner of complexity and trouble. So this seems like the opportune time to switch…
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 reviewing your walks, hikes or runs. Within Apple’s own iOS 26 apps, I’d say that Apple Maps is one of the prettiest…
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 variety of other functional changes I need to make, what is most important right now is to build a basic design so that I…
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 cleaner. There are two major considerations to make before doing this: one more obvious, the other more subtle. Existing…
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 particular which I heard a few times was that I was overusing Liquid Glass. Which I suppose makes sense, it is the literally…
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 Ahead The very first thing I did once I got the new Xcode versions installed was a simple build-and-run of my apps to…
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 this has happened to me but as I get older I am very aware that it is vital that I continue to fight against this tendency…
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 break before the intensity of the WWDC-to-September season makes a lot of sense. This year in particular, this time away…
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 decision, its merits, and consequences have been widely discussed. I’m not particularly interested in discussing the…
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 thought I’d update the counts. In the ten years since the Apple Watch was released I have worn one for at least part of…
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 around in the (literal) wilderness for most of last week testing Pedometer++, my current reaction is now much more…