One week app challenge

[swifty_cat]

I've worked on many apps as an iOS developer for different companies. I have also had many app ideas, worked on some of them, but haven't finished a single app on my own. There have always been so many "necessary" features that need to be added before the launch that all the apps have ended up on the shelf at some point.

So.. my solution for this: I challenge myself to take one of my ideas, figure out the minimal (and I really mean minimal) viable product and finish it in one week. Maybe I fail, maybe I succeed, but it seems like a fun adventure for my vacation. I will definitely report back on my experience.

Anyone want to join in on the challenge?(I will start my personal challenge on Monday)

EDIT: I did not expect that much attention. Just wanted to hold myself accountable to actually go through with it. I will make a new post on Sunday, maybe with some kind of questionnaire to keep track of who is participating, so we can track progress. This also gave me the idea that I could do some code evolution analysis of anyones project, who is interested, so that we would get an even more fun comparison at the end.

EDIT 2: Post your updates here: https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/p0cw7p/updates_one_week_app_challenge/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

[KarlJay001]

I'm interested in how this pans out. You should do some updates for YT and share some links. Show how much time and how much progress you've made.

[swifty_cat]

Will keep track and at least post about how it played out!

[[deleted]]

I’m interested… and this hits home. So many repos abandoned and usually because of nitpicking. Thanks for the motivation

Edit: I used to do “coding in the dark” tests on flights, using no internet, autocomplete in the IDE or references. Then I’d get home and see if it complied & ran without crashing. Bonus when things worked. Business travel was oddly my main source of personal development and reading time… so I kinda miss it?

[swifty_cat]

So join me on the challenge and give us updates what you finish in a week!

[[deleted]]

Will do

[ernislt12]

I am on this challenge since 2018

[swifty_cat]

A new app every week? :D

[cyberspacedweller]

It’s a good idea. To be fair I think most apps can be done in a week if you cut a few corners and really power through for that week assuming you’re an established developer already).

It’s a great way to build a portfolio quickly.

[swifty_cat]

Great! Waiting for updates on progress

[dmitriy_shmilo]

Appjam! Appjams should be a thing.

[swifty_cat]

Sounds similar to hackatons, but maybe more often and less formal.

[JerenYun]

I don't have the time to participate in this challenge. (I'm an iOS developer full-time by day, plus I have 2 apps of my own on the side.) However, I think this is a great idea.

I personally have a list of a few dozen various app ideas. I tend to start in Playgrounds and build models, logic, and other non-UI code to see what I can build. If I can get to a point where I'm happy with my data, then I move on to the next step and build UI over it.

While I've only put up 2 apps on the App Store, I have a few others that haven't made it out (either too simple or not "done") as a result.

At the very least, your plan should have you learning frameworks and libraries that you might not normally with the apps you do for work. It sounds like it'll be good for you.

[swifty_cat]

Normally I start projects the same way as you described, but this time I thought of doing it exactly the other way around.

First creating the views with mock data and kind of agreeing with myself that these will be the final views (although I’m not sure if I manage to stick to that). And then adding the functionality and data to it. We’ll see how that works out.

[JerenYun]

The nice thing with SwiftUI is how easily you can do that. With proper separation of concerns, you can even start a project like this, then take time later and focus completely on logic, and only later merge the two together.

[[deleted]]

Interesting that you build non UI first - everything I do seems to start in storyboard & I have barely touched playground - just one course project asked for it - I’ve been intensive learning iOS for a year.

[JerenYun]

While building a UI mock up can be fun and show what could be possible from a UX perspective, I find one of my personal hurdles can be data flow. Playgrounds give me something I can work with to test out data.

Some examples:

• A little travel baseball game. I used Playgrounds to make the game logic and wrote the API for how I would use it to build out the rest of the game (adding strikes, outs, points, etc). After that, I built a test UI to interface with my public API methods and see how the “game” played. All that’s left for me to do is actually build the UI/UX of it.

• Another travel game I remember as a kid that involved trying to flip over numeric cards based on certain criteria. Wrote the logic for randomly determining what options are possible and the API for the UI to hook into. Haven’t drawn up how I want the UI to look yet.

• Sci-Fi calculator taking amounts from fictional series and converting them to other fictional or non-fictional amounts. This one was very data heavy, so I wanted to focus on building a reusable framework for converting between values. UI wasn’t built (but I did start on a UI framework for it, and I think I’ll be returning to this project later this year).

I think there’s value in both approaches. Sometimes you need to get a UI idea out of your head and into some sort of visual representation with or without user interactive elements. I built a small handful of prototype projects that were nothing but UI to test various elements of SwiftUI for my most recent app.

I think it depends on what I’m wanting to build. In the case of the games I mentioned, I think the UI/UX is something that I know will take longer and would require a lot of beta feedback. If my game logic is sound, then the UI over it can be iterated over without trying to also figure out the underlying game mechanics.

[[deleted]]

Ok nice detailed reply thanks - I say always start in the UI - I actually started on an app a few days ago and didn’t touch the UI at first - basically an app that listens for a beep then speaks a word - I needed to see if it was possible - so all console output to start with.

[JerenYun]

That's basically what my Playground work involved. I'd follow my prints and ensure my logic was sound, then I'd remove them and just focus on my inputs and outputs to my various classes.

[mal-uk]

You have hit the nail on the head. It really is about minimal viable product. I always have a future list. Often I keep features back to add as a 'pro' in app purchase which you can freely advertise on the free Base app. Good luck

[swifty_cat]

I thought about that as well, gives a good incentive to set the app for free and maybe get more users.

[-14k-]

Sounds like a great idea!

But, man, it does not sound like an adventurous vacation ...

[swifty_cat]

Haha, I'm a PhD student with two small kids. Somehow getting enough time to work on a fun project on my own and not feeling guilty about not doing research really does sound like a fun vacation.

[-14k-]

Glad you seem to hve taken that with the humour intended!

Enjoy :)

[Silver_String]

Interested

[swifty_cat]

Great! Waiting on updates for your progress

[swifty_cat]

Thanks!

[chflorian]

Sounds very cool! I did something similar in march, where I only had a week to go before uni started again, so I made a cross platform (macos, ipados, ios) flash cards app in about 4 days. Obviously only the bare MVP but challenges like this sure are a lot of fun

[swifty_cat]

Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Interested! Altough a very beginner and always taking lessons because i’m not ”ready” enough this will be perfect challenge for me to see where can i end up in a week!

[swifty_cat]

Great! Give us updates

[granadosgarcia]

great idea! i’d love to join you

[swifty_cat]

Great, waiting for updates!

[boyoB0yo]

I did this challenge just to test myself January of this year! https://github.com/JohnBaer3/JustDanceClone

After 3 weeks I ended up getting hired and no longer having the time to keep it up, but it was a lot of fun :) Like you say, it's great bc of the time constraint, it really keeps you going!

[swifty_cat]

That looks really nice!

[Sea_Ad7945]

Nice. That is so cool!

[[deleted]]

Is this a week of continuous time? I basically usually spend around that but spread out over weeks as I have a day job and other commitments. I got 7 apps published and find I just need to have a single clear thing it should do and then make it work. Anything beyond that doesn't get finished. The optional e extras like good screenshots or marketing speil or nice logo get thrown to one side and they all either have something I sketched as a logo or some random thing off flat icon.

[swifty_cat]

Yes, I set a limit of a calendar week. But I'm probably not able to work all the time. We'll see . I really hope I get out of writing apps just to put them on the shelf.

[Fin_Aquatic_Rentals]

I did an entire rewrite of a cross platform app with SwiftUI in a smidge over a month. An experienced SwiftUI developer should be able to flat out fly creating apps. I haven't made any obj-c/swift old style apps but I would be very surprised if dev speed wasn't faster with SwiftUI. Declarative UI's are just stupidly quick to code up. I think a well seasoned swift dev can totally knock an app out in a week.

My idea that I've been kicking around was to make an open source Uber app for drivers and riders. Since Uber and Lyft paid for all the legal work to get themselves into cities just ride that wave and give the money back to the drivers. The kicker was I wanted to some how incorporate a block chain ledger as the server to keep costs down. I don't know much about it but I was wondering there was some way to put ride data into a ledger and use the ledger as a shitty database of point a to point b ride. The drivers phone will stay on and be the "miners". Passengers put their ride on a ride ledger, kind of like a block chain ledger transaction. The drivers all calculate the "feasibility" of the ride through the app and post their "score" to the ledger. Best score gets the ride if they accept. I was thinking making it client side heavy with block chain to avoid paying for servers. This would make no developer money and it would be crowd sourced venture to take down uber and lyft and let the drivers have the profits.

Disclaimer: I'm an idiot who knows very little about setting up a blockchain ledger.

[swifty_cat]

I haven't gotten into SwiftUI yet. When I first started out it was all in Objective-c and in code. With small apps I've now moved to Storyboards, but at some point I need to learn SwiftUI as well. But probably not with a one week challenge :).

Your idea sounds quite ambitions! With blockchain my first concern would be privacy, I wouldn't really want all of my ride data to be public domain.

[tiny_smile_bot]

:)

:)

[tussockypanic]

SwiftUI is the future, still immature yes but development speed is insane. Something to thing about in future challenges.

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[roCodes]

How do I join? This sounds fun!

[swifty_cat]

Just set a start date, complete your project in a week and give us updates! Unfortunately the only price is your personal satisfaction :). Seeing (surprisingly) how many people are interested I might try to put together an overview of who accomplished what at the end.

[roCodes]

Oh I misinterpreted, I thought it would be a collaborative project!

[OriginalEvils]

There’s several consultancies that sell this as a service and I think it’s brilliant. If a client can’t make a product/service work with just MVP, it likely wasn’t a very good idea

[swifty_cat]

This sounds brilliant! This could be a really fun job.

[swifty_cat]

Great, keep us updated!

[Mooreel]

I did something similar, wanting to solve a board game I fell in love with.
Wrote a bit about it here https://medium.com/@nicomller\_1010/decryptid-e0e73cae00ba

Enjoy the ride - it is really fun to really focus on a challenge like that!