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.

★ Friday, 7 January 2022