Linked List: January 7, 2022

Friday, 7 January 2022

ToDon’t – First App Created and Published Using Swift Playgrounds on an iPad ★

Matt Waller:

I didn’t know entirely what I was getting myself into by making an app on the iPad.

I went in aware of its limitations and tried to think of a little something I could make for myself that would be useful and extremely simple.

Thus I settled on the love song of so many developers, the thing that there is plenty of in the world, and yet which is close enough to our souls that we always find ways to make it our own.

I mean, of course, the to-do app.

I’m an odd bird, so I thought it would be fun to load a to-do app with lots of random and silly things to NOT do, so that I could have a giggle, and check it off for that tiny dopamine hit.

Waller’s post is a great write-up delineating both the pros and cons of using Swift Playgrounds to develop (and publish) an entire app. He also kept a public development journal on Twitter, replete with animated screencasts of the app in-progress.

The app itself is relatively simple, but it’s fun, and it looks and feels quite polished. App development using Swift Playgrounds is clearly nascent, but based on ToDon’t, I’d say the future looks very bright. ToDon’t is $3 in the App Store, and well worth it just to reward Waller for making something fun and documenting his experience.

(Via José Adorno at 9to5Mac.)

Update 14 January: Thord D. Hedengren interviewed Waller for Switch to iPad.

Thoughts on The Athletic’s $550 Million Price Tag ★

Is $550 million a fair price for The New York Times to pay for The Athletic? I don’t know. But just eight years ago, Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post for just $250 million. Something seems off here. Either Bezos got The Post for a song or the Times bought The Athletic at high tide.

I suspect it’s the latter. Does it make any sense that The Athletic raised $140 million in venture capital? Not to me. They have over one million paying subscribers (including me — I pay $60/year through iTunes) but somehow lost $100 million in 2019 and 2020? I don’t understand that.

New York Times to Buy The Athletic for $550 Million in Cash ★

The New York Times:

The New York Times Company has reached an agreement to buy The Athletic, the online sports news outlet with 1.2 million subscriptions, in an all-cash deal valued at $550 million, The Times said on Thursday.

The deal brings the Times, which has more than eight million total subscriptions, quickly closer to its goal of having 10 million subscriptions by 2025, while also offering its audience more in-depth coverage of the more than 200 professional teams in North America, Britain and Europe that are closely followed by The Athletic’s journalists.

The Athletic is terrific. Good writers, good design, and a model that supports both national and local coverage. For baseball, they have national writers like Jayson Stark and Ken Rosenthal, but also beat writers for every team. Lindsey Adler, The Athletic’s Yankees beat writer, is terrific. The Athletic’s success is built upon one simple notion: good writers doing good work. No clickbait, no bullshit, and no ads. Let’s hope it stays that way.