Under the Radar

Managing customer support, customer expectations, and frequently asked questions.

Finally starting the Overcast redesign, and pragmatic considerations when tackling modernization of older codebases.

A healthy balance for subscription-expiry grace periods, and how the new MacBook Pro helps our development workflows.

Getting over shyness to ask your app's users for money in more prominent and direct ways.

How we decide whether, when, and to what degree we should adopt the headlining features of each iOS release.

We were given a reprieve with a lack of new developer-facing features in the iPhone 13 line and Apple Watch Series 7, but with the continuation of the Series 3, we all lose.

The effects of legal settlements and regulations on independent iOS developers, and how we can ensure that we still have a place in the scary potential futures that may come.

Needing to offer different features and experiences to different parts of your userbase due to hardware limitations and OS differences.

The power of default settings and choices, and the impact of changing your app's default behavior.

When fixing a simple visual bug unexpectedly becomes a much larger problem.

How we're spending our summers so far.

Approaching a change with very, very high stakes.

The second digital-only WWDC, how iOS 15 and watchOS 8 impact our apps, and what we'll be tackling first this summer.

What to expect from WWDC, how to prepare for the virtual event, and how to follow the material.

Dealing with features we wish we'd never added.

When big-company maneuvers hit the little fish like us.

Forgiving ourselves for a year of greatly reduced productivity.

WWDC 2021's announcement, and whether Overcast should adopt a terminology change along with Apple and Spotify.

You should totally run your own servers. It'll be fine! Well, most of the time.

A _DavidSmith Story Half-Hour on the surprising journey to build a simple photo complication for Apple Watch. How hard could it be?

Deforestation, timber production, and wood preparation. [taps earpiece] What?… Oh, sorry. Scratch that. Writing lines of text to files for diagnostic purposes.

Trying to remove emotion and assumptions from indie business decision-making.

Copying someone else's work as a learning exercise, and the tricky balance between copying and inspiration.

The kind of year we expect 2021 to be for Apple-platform developers, and an update on Overcast's SwiftUI progress.

Apple's new privacy labels in the App Store, and how we've designed our custom analytics frameworks for minimal data collection.

The tricky balance of making big changes to your app to better serve your current market without upsetting your initial customers.

How the M1 Macs are game-changers for developers, and our thoughts on the lower fees from the App Store Small Business Program.

The continued challenges of modernizing Overcast with Swift and SwiftUI, and deciding whether to rewrite Objective-C components in Swift.

Refactoring and rewriting the foundations of a 6-year-old Objective-C codebase using Swift and modern APIs.

Settling into a baseline, leaving no room to be undercut, and where Widgetsmith goes from here.

Dave's app is number one in the App Store! We explore the mind-bending scale and perspective of such a defining moment in an indie developer's career.

What Apple's event and iOS 14's timing means for us.

Our second-annual wishlist for how we hope this fall's Apple hardware spends the efficiency gains from another year of technological progress.

How Epic vs. Apple might affect developers like us.

The new App Store privacy disclosures and tracking-permission prompt in iOS 14.

What we're working on so far this summer, and why we're not keeping it secret.

Adapting to the continued consolidation of Apple's platforms and frameworks.

How the online-only format of WWDC 2020 is working out in practice, and how quickly we plan to adopt the new APIs.

Putting mental health above productivity during challenging times.

Using compatibility shims and abstractions to gain some of the newest APIs' benefits on previous OS versions.

Imposing arbitrary limits on yourself to produce better projects.

The risks and rewards of using custom fonts, and how to implement them in a modern app.

The launch of David's new app that pushes the boundaries of watchOS and finally makes our smartwatch faces actually smart.

The business side of Apple Watch app development in 2020.

Business decisions for app developers during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Considering how Apple could replace and expand the roles filled by WWDC if it's canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

How we tackle the occasional need for more advanced math skills than what we actually have.

Looking back at the launch of the iPad, and what its present and future hold, from an app-development and business perspective.

As Marco discovers the value of staying with the old, David plows headfirst into the new.

Making plans, setting goals, and setting guidelines for decision-making — and, taking a page from our friends at Cortex, our chosen themes for 2020.