[mar.kɪs kɚrt] He/him. Indie game and iOS/macOS app un-developer. Opinions written are my own and are not representative of the entities I work with.
goals
When I established my goals for last year, I had taken a different direction and declared it my “Snow Leopard” year. I won’t echo my reflections on this from yesterday’s post, but I did appreciate how open-ended I made that particular goal. So, this year, I’m making a broader set of goals again.
devlog
The app space for the fediverse was sparse when I started working on the Hyperspace project back in 2019. Although there were a good handful of clients on mobile and a couple decent web interfaces, I felt none of them were fully suitable for college students to use.
goals
When I started writing my goals out for 2022, I had thought it would’ve been my “Snow Leopard” year, where I focus more on refinement and general improvement rather than big, ambitious (but realistic) goals.
devlog
For the past four to five years, I’ve been using YouTrack as my personal issue tracker for all of my various projects. Despite this, I’ve been slowly migrating my project tracking to the more widely used Jira.
ios
I love playing with machine learning, especially with the Core ML framework; I use it in Give Me a Sniglet to determine the validity of possible words, for example. On the Mac, Apple makes it easy to create or convert ML models for use in apps with Xcode.
reflection
The notion of an iPad being able to replace a Mac, pixel for pixel, has always been strange to me. While the proposition is tempting, and I could realistically see myself doing that in the future, the iPad won’t be able to completely replace a Mac for me. And I’m totally okay with that.
opinion
In preparation for this seemingly inevitable event, I’m going to discuss my current thoughts about sideloading as both a consumer and a developer.
reflection
After spending about two weeks playing The Witness, I realized that the game is a great metaphor for the journey I’ve been on for the past four years at Goucher College.
opinion
Federico Viticci from MacStories recently published an article about his realizations throughout his journey. I agree with a lot of the points he addresses and some of his conclusions, though there are some areas where I disagree.
opinion
Apple published a response yesterday about the App Improvements process. I’m glad that the criteria have been clarified, though I still believe this should have been clearer from the start. Nonetheless, it’s a welcome change.
opinion
I’m well invested in the Apple ecosystem. I thoroughly enjoy using Apple’s product and how seamless they work with each other. However, Apple’s latest behaviors in defending one of its strong suits, the App Store, has been leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
opinion
It appears that Apple’s “App Improvement System” is taking effect as of recently. Many indie game developers, app developers, and sticker creators are being plagued with emails from Apple’s system, telling them to either update their product or it will be automatically removed.