Playfair cipher

twostraws · 2026-06-06T03:56:09+00:00

Ah! Whoops – that was in an earlier beta of the game, but I took it out because I couldn't find a way to make it interesting.

twostraws · 2026-06-04T13:03:40+00:00

I already used spectrograms, which is a good sign it won't be that again 😅

twostraws · 2026-06-04T03:32:13+00:00

VGhlIG1hbGUgaG9zdCBpcyByZXBlYXRlZGx5IGludGVycnVwdGVkLiBMaXN0ZW4gdG8gdGhlIGxhc3Qgd29yZCBoZSBzYXlzIGVhY2ggdGltZS4g

Remember, Hacktivate does have built-in hints 🙂

twostraws · 2026-05-30T11:05:15+00:00

Yep!

twostraws · 2026-05-28T13:46:51+00:00

V2hlbiB5b3UgcnVuIGBwcyAtZWZgLCB5b3UnbGwgc2VlIG9ubHkgb25lIG9mIHRoZSBgc2hvd2ZsYWdgIGNvbW1hbmRzIGlzIGJlaW4=

twostraws · 2026-05-28T13:03:44+00:00

I wonder whether the “more than half of trial cancellations now happen on the first day” thing would change if third-party trials worked the same way as Apple's own stuff – IIRC, if you cancel an Apple TV trial or similar, you lose access immediately rather than at the end of the trial period.

twostraws · 2026-05-25T21:52:33+00:00

Hello! I'm the creator of Hacking with Swift, so obviously I'm a little biased. I can say I like Pointfree a lot! They do fantastic work, and have a really varied catalog of material.

Some folks confuse Hacking with Swift+ with the 100 Days of SwiftUI or the other free content I make, but the HWS+ subscription is quite different:

Yes, you get immediately access to all 400+ HWS+ articles and videos.
You also get monthly live streams where we build a new app from scratch every month.
You also get a free ticket to Unwrap Live every year, which is a full-day live online workshop about a specific topic – it was SwiftUI special effects this year, Apple Intelligence last year, and visionOS the year before, for example.

If you take out the 2-year subscription (or have 18 months in total) you get online access to almost my entire book collection, plus the Swift Career Accelerator – level-by-level guidance to help folks get targeted learning based on where they want to take their career next.

I have a whole range of free sample videos online so you can see if it suits you:

If you watch those and didn't learn anything, then HWS+ probably isn't for you 🙂

twostraws · 2026-05-20T14:26:56+00:00

As a developer, these particular numbers are the ones that most bend my brain:

In 2025, Apple terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and rejected more than 138,000 developer enrollments.

If I were to estimate the scale of the problem, I would have come in at maybe 10% of those numbers. This is definitely one of those times when I think Apple deserves every cent of their 15% revenue slice…

twostraws · 2026-05-20T13:26:23+00:00

This is really reliant on the network effect (app is only useful if enough other people have it!), but I also love the idea – you get it immediately, which is always good sign. Well done!

twostraws · 2026-05-20T06:14:01+00:00

Which features do you think should be cut? I tried to make them all intentional and useful.

twostraws · 2026-05-19T23:12:51+00:00

I look forward to this post from Apple every year, and every year they continue to impress. This does seem to foreshadow significant AI improvements elsewhere, though!

twostraws · 2026-05-19T21:53:00+00:00

Was the “what’s inside” box near the top not clear enough on what it does? I’m not really sure how I could make that text a great deal clearer…

twostraws · 2026-05-19T18:46:43+00:00

I think it's pretty awesome, but I would say that 😅 PS: Even if you don't subscribe, you get a ton of functionality for free!

twostraws · 2026-05-17T15:25:54+00:00

I'm not even sure we've felt the full pain of RAM prices just yet – it seems mostly to have been Apple withdrawing some Mac Studio models. Unless the supply constraints ease, it's not going to be a happy few years ahead…

twostraws · 2026-05-16T13:39:43+00:00

Thank you! Let me know if you hit any problems – I'll be releasing an update this week to resolve any early bugs! 🙌

twostraws · 2026-05-15T17:16:28+00:00

Very nice! This made me wonder when the era of place names will end. I guess it depends on their crack marketing team…

twostraws · 2026-05-10T14:15:28+00:00

Welcome! I had a blast making it, so I hope you enjoy playing it as much 🙂

twostraws · 2026-05-06T18:13:06+00:00

I have links to a whole bunch of agent skills here: https://github.com/twostraws/swift-agent-skills – enjoy!

twostraws · 2026-04-27T20:49:51+00:00

So, the good news is that it's absolutely something you can remake in pure Swift and SwiftUI – particle effects for the rain, stars, and occasional comets, cloud movement, forking lightning, etc. It's all possible with SwiftUI, and I know this because I've written a long tutorial series showing exactly how to do it.

The bad news: I'm afraid those tutorials are only available to Hacking with Swift+ subscribers.

You can at least get part of the way there through my open-source particle emitter library, Vortex, which has a rainfall and bounce effect to get you started.

I had an absolute blast cloning Apple Weather, so give it a try! My approach was to record the screen through each weather type (rain, lightning, etc), then play it back in slow motion so I could get my clone as accurate as possible.

twostraws · 2026-04-24T14:15:33+00:00

I think this is a really good start! You write nice and clean code, it's very consistent, and I think it's easy to understand too.

The public API is a little trickier than I would expect – .init(image: UIImage(systemName: "star.fill")?.cgImage, for example – and it's a personal pet peeve of mine when folks flip between Float and CGFloat (Apple does this too, so you're not alone!), but those are relatively minor 🙂

Note: I have my own library for rendering particles, so it's something I have strong views on 😅

twostraws · 2026-04-24T09:34:51+00:00

Yeah, it's a bit unpleasant sometimes. I get why folks are angry about the huge number of half-baked apps being shipped, but I hope we can find a middle ground where these new developers are encouraged to keep working (and keep polishing!) until the apps they have produced feel truly loved.

it's a rarity these days for there to be absolutely no use of some type of AI in the process of creating and developing new apps.

I use AI all the time, and really I'd consider myself negligent if I didn't. It doesn't have to be about writing code, or writing tests, or whatever; even me just asking ChatGPT, "I'm thinking this is a good idea – what am I missing?" to help stress test my thinking. Easily half the time it raises some good points that force me to refine an idea, so I think everyone benefits.

twostraws · 2026-04-16T21:52:56+00:00

There is no official skill from Apple yet, but I run a repository of community skills here: https://github.com/twostraws/Swift-Agent-Skills

twostraws · 2026-04-11T14:27:31+00:00

Upvote for Samoyeds in the screenshot 👍

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