The Shortest Path To A Great App
June 10, 2019
“The Shortest Path To A Great App” That is the phrase Apple used in a number of the SwiftUI sessions at WWDC last week. But beyond SwiftUI, there were a number of other announcements at WWDC 2019 that also could lead to a shorter path to a great app.
Taken in total, these announcements have left me feeling incredibly energized.
An Oddball WWDC Week
I have an oddball WWDC week compared to most people attending WWDC, AltConf, or Layers.
For the last eight years, I’ve organized and performed in the annual LIVE near WWDC concert on Wednesday night. The last four events have been benefit shows for App Camp For Girls.
I’ve also had the honor the past few years of closing out AltConf on Thursday afternoon with a lighthearted musical Week In Review session. Of course, I have no idea what I’ll be talking about until after Monday’s announcements.
Preparing for these events keeps me pretty busy until late Thursday afternoon—with a large chunk of Monday set aside for the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union—and then viewing sessions or snippets of sessions as I can.
So Friday is the first day of WWDC week I can dig deeper into everything that has been announced.
An Aha! Moment Before Breakfast
It dawned on me early Friday morning that a set of announcements at WWDC 2019 should make an app I have wanted to build much easier and quicker to create.
The annual LIVE near WWDC show is a complicated undertaking. This past year we had 24 performers playing 18 different instruments on 18 different songs.
In addition, for the past few years, Adam Tow has taken some really fantastic photos of the show.
So, for a long time I’ve wanted to build an app for my band, James Dempsey and the Breakpoints (JDBP). The app would be a place to share photos, lyrics and info with fans, and also be a resource for people performing in the show—the Breakpoints.
Fans would be able to download the free app and without an account, see photos, browse photos of past performances, see lyrics, maybe even play JDBP songs from Apple Music if they are subscribed.
Breakpoints would be able to sign in, see info about the upcoming show they are performing in, view the (ever changing) set list, know which songs they are playing on, and be able to swipe through the chord charts for the songs they are playing on, in order on an iPad (or iPhone in a pinch).
But, until last week, just thinking about building that app was exhausting. It would be just me writing it and would need a lot of infrastructure code to get it right.
Then, Friday morning, the thought occurred to me that these three newly announced technologies could make writing this app significantly faster and easier:
- SwiftUI
- Sign in with Apple
- Core Data / CloudKit interoperability
A Journey of Discovery
Will these three newly announced technologies do the trick? What dead ends, limitations, and blind alleys will I discover?
At the moment I have no idea, and that’s exciting.
I still have videos to watch, documentation to read, and lots of code to write and fiddle around with.
The app I’m building won’t be open source, but I’m hoping to make it an ‘open process’ app. My plan is to write little blog posts as I go.
These posts will be me thinking out loud — expressing what I want this app to do before I’ve even fully investigated how I will implement it. And then reporting what I find as I investigate things and see how they work in practice. The intent is for this to be a public journal or technology travelogue as I go through the process of building an app.
I’m also hoping the posts will help spur discussion and feedback and help us all come to understand these technologies better.
Thanks Brent!
This approach was greatly inspired by Brent Simmons. I’ve always admired Brent’s ability to post in the casual and open manner of “Hey, I’m working on a thing. I’m learning it and I’m not an expert. Here’s what I’m discovering and here’s what is confusing to me.” Brent has been a prolific developer for many years, but he never claims to have all the answers. (Plus he plays a mean keyboard.)
A Last Caveat
This app is a side project. As the glow of WWDC 2019 fades and day to day tasks come back to the fore, there may stretches of time between posts about this app. I appreciate your patience in advance.
Let’s see how short that path really is.
I’m so excited to get started! •
Categories: Apple, Software Development, iOS