I spent a few days worth of free time writing and re-writing a SwiftUI app.
It was going to be called Notiks – Latvian for “will happen”.
Took a while to find a name that makes sense, I like and has the domain available for purchase.
The plan was to build a SwiftUI app, which would be the companion to a website, which I also wanted to build later.
The idea was to build something that I find lacking, or at least not done properly in our local market, something I personally am missing and wish we had as I’d definitely use it.
Something I felt I could do better, and at least from UI/UX point of view, I already have, but UI is pointless in an app which lives and dies by its content.
The further I got in the UI build, the closer I got to the part that I dreaded and have absolutely zero interest in doing: actually finding events, engaging with organisers, encouraging them to keep my app at the top of their marketing todo list.
This would take time. More than I was ever truly willing to spend.
I’ve faced this exact issue before, many times, start work on an app idea, get to a step where I realise the real work that is going to be required and that’s usually where I stop the work and abandon the app.
Goodbye
Me publishing the work done so far to Github Today feels like goodbye.
For I know that while I am grateful for the amazing experience I had building this app (learned a lot of interesting SwiftUI quirks, played with the new Glass styling), I will not be returning to it.
I went quite deep, I built a proper lightbox view, with interactions, like the Facebook app (the swipe, zoom, pinch gestures you expect are very time consuming to get right).
I think there are about 40-60 worth of my brain power in this app. Feels a little sad to abandon it.
However dumping another 60 into it, making it polished and then realising that it’s got no wheels and I still don’t want to do any of the actually critical stuff — sourcing all the event data.
Moving on
I am already thinking about my next app idea. This time I think I want to build a game, something I could play and have fun with?
I’m a huge fan of Vampire Survivors, Brotato and Bloons TD.
Would mashing these things into 1 be a bad idea? Only one way to find out!
As I’m writing this, I realised that testing it is going to be a true pain in the butt to test and debug, need to hook up my phone to the computer, so I can test on it.
Otherwise, simulator only testing isn’t going to be sufficient to truly get a feel for what the game is like to play.
Need to figure out how to jump states within the game, so say it’s a 15 or 20 minute/wave based thing and I want to test a new mob that only spawns on the last wave.
Feeling excited.
Maybe this is my favourite part, new things, starting to realise just how much I don’t know, how much I will need to learn.
I’m grateful to have the kind of work which challenges me and lets me learn new things constantly, find it fascinating that I choose the do the same thing in my free time.
