One of the less obvious skills needed to be a long term indie developer is dauntless optimism.

Every time I launch a new feature I get the feeling that “this is gonna be awesome, folks are gonna absolutely love this”...even though history has taught me it is actually not really true. Most feature launches are greeted more with a “meh” or “hmm, that's interesting"

...which is fine and goes with the job but nevertheless we keep on building, waiting for the “OH WOW!”s which do eventually come.

@_Davidsmith I especially love toiling over a frequently requested feature that was challenging to implement, only to get something along the lines of “ok” when it’s available…

…and then it hardly ever gets used 🤦‍♂️

@_Davidsmith some of the best "features" are genius pieces of code that the average user wouldn't even notice
@_Davidsmith The latest update was definitely a "WHOA” feature for me. I've wanted both trends and historical import for so long. This makes reinstalls less stressful too (aside from the e-mail import method).
@ashah That's lovely to hear. So glad you like it!

@_Davidsmith Beautifully executed. Looking at trends is particularly tricky from a UI standpoint, and I think you’ve done it very well. It’s much better than Apple’s implementation, and the recent focus on being able to share them is so fun.

Looking forward to the future! Happy Holidays!

@_Davidsmith not just indie— I’m in B2B and sometimes it takes two years for something we’re confident will matter to filter through and get strong adoption and suddenly folks are jazzed.
@_Davidsmith True, and i’ll never stop.
@_Davidsmith had this so many times. Part of my strategy for fighting this is talking to my customers when I can, and making sure I understand what they’re looking for. So many times, I’ve jumped to my own conclusions about a feature request and missed the mark - looking to do better at that in 2025!
@_Davidsmith historical import made me go back to the app after a decade or so 👍👍 (after asking for / inquiring about this every two years or so). Next up: I was checking whether you ever wrote a “design diary” or similar about the iOS/watchos widget update interval limits for an app like this?