David Smith

@_Davidsmith
16.9K Followers
315 Following
1.8K Posts
Independent app developer. Independent in general. Maker of Widgetsmith, Pedometer++, Sleep++ and Watchsmith.
Bloghttps://david-smith.org
Podcasthttps://www.relay.fm/radar
Widgetsmithhttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/widgetsmith/id1523682319
Pedometer++https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pedometer/id712286167
Show threadDavid Smith20h ago
@steipete I worked with Claude Code on an Xcode project yesterday for the first time. It was really compelling. Especially the way it is very clear about what it is going to do, then how it is doing it, and then summarizing what changes it actually made. Make it all feel predictable in a way which was encouraging for a newbie to using it. I can see how much this process will unlock exploration and creativity.
Show threadDavid Smith21h ago
@acf @collin I find the Apple Maps system potentially useful for simple hiking, but less useful as soon as you want anything more. When they first announced the features I was worried it might sherlock Pedometer++'s advanced hiking support...but a few years on and it hasn't had much impact at all.
Show threadDavid Smith1d ago
@ryanashcraft @viticci I don't believe so, in the interactive snippets talk they re-iterated that it is only Buttons and Toggles for us. So you can't (as far as I can find) do any text entry or keyboard things…but if anyone finds a way I'd be delighted to hear!
Show threadDavid Smith1d ago
@dimillian that is soooooo delightful!
David Smith2d ago

While it would be lovely to spend all of this summer working on iOS 26 redesigns and features, the realities of the business are such that I'll need to ship several updates over the summer.

Started working on one of these updates today and it is super weird. It is like I’m working in the past, with knowledge of the future. I’m tweaking my iOS 18 designs so that they are more “Liquid Glass Compatible" and will be easier to adapt later this summer when the time comes for the re-design.

Show threadDavid Smith2d ago
@stroughtonsmith 100% agreed...when they were talking about legibility and mentioned "check for contrast when the snippet is viewed from a distance” which doesn't make any sense for use on an iPhone, but would make a ton of sense for a home hub device. Not a lot of iPhone use when you're across the room.
Show threadDavid Smith2d ago
@ryanashcraft I’ve walked that road before, you *might* get away with it if your colors are wildly different than theirs. But they can be prickly if it is too close to theirs
Show threadDavid Smith3d ago
@agiletortoise @clarko Yup, that I *think* does it (or any number of other workarounds), my feedback is that it would be great to able to be explicit to the system rather than it being a side effect of some other parameter. My code only works if run in the host so needing to rely on the side affect of another indicator isn’t great.
Show threadDavid Smith3d ago
@clarko That sometimes works, but there are situations with interactive widgets where I want/need the intent to be run in the host app, but don't want the app to open (just the widget to refresh). For example, if I need to load data from a large enough data model that it cannot fit into the WidgetKit extension memory limit.
David Smith3d ago

Finished filing my initial Feedbacks from last week:

- Please provide an option for widgets to optionally have the glass background (FB18149747)

- Allow App Intents to indicate they need to run from within their host app (FB18149990)

- Add option to filter which iOS Controls appear on watchOS (FB18150151)

- Please add support for the new Power Profiler Instrument to watchOS (FB18150323)