We made it to Issue #145! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue

Today is a double special day! First off, I’m spotlighting a dear friend and amazing human being. And second…

I’m announcing a new product! Or service? And you all are the first to publicly hear about it 😊 This newsletter was never meant to be a channel for my own projects. I’ve mentioned a few times that it was meant to connect and inspire indie developers, and one of them is me. I’ve tried my hand at making consumer apps and while I’ve had fun making them, I could never really get any of them to stick with me. I had fun building them but then I didn’t really have a vision for them. I think I realized I was trying to push myself into the wrong indie path. I wouldn’t change any of it since I’ve learned so much, but it’s time to change it up to something that I truly love and something that I know well… and that’s developer tools 😏

I’ve made countless SDKs and CLIs over the years. The best known would be fastlane since 2015. I’ve also made my own Sentry Android back in the day and have even been contracted to work on their official iOS SDK. And for the last four years I’ve been working at RevenueCat on every one of their SDKs for StoreKit 2 integration, Google Billing Library integration, CI/CD, and remotely configurable paywalls. I keep gravitating towards developer tools. I always need to personally use the things I build and I think that’s why this happens. So now it felt natural to just create my own.

So it’s time to announce… Mostly Good Metrics!

It’s a simple analytics tool for indie apps where you drop in an SDK, track events, and see funnels and retention without turning analytics into a whole other project. I wanted an analytics platform where I don’t have to overthink what to track or spend time translating dashboards into meaning, and figured some of you might want the same thing.

Even though I spend most of my time in the mobile world and specifically iOS and Swift, I’m much more of a generalist developer with a lot of my years doing web. I’ve always enjoyed end-to-end work with frontends, APIs, and SDKs. I’ve also always enjoyed infrastructure. Mostly Good Metrics scratches the itches of an analytics tool that I want to use with all of the types of platforms that I enjoy connecting up.

So why am I announcing it here first? Because I’m excited! I started Indie Dev Monday back up to get inspired to build things again. I honestly thought it was going to be a mobile app. I was wrong. Getting back into the indie space drove me into the path of a SaaS?

There’s a free tier if you want to try it out, and I’m offering early beta pricing for the first 100 folks who want to lock in a lower rate. I’m still early in this journey so I’d love any feedback or ideas you have. And with that… It’s now time for the star of this issue!

Today’s issue features Adrian Eves!

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Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs

📆 Today I’m featuring Adrian Eves.

Adrian is the creator of Pediapal: Child Health Monitor and Auralog: Migraine Tracker. Pediapal is a health tracking app for parents that helps you log your kids’ vitals, track medicine doses, and walk into every pediatrician appointment actually prepared. As a parent of two, I know the chaos of trying to remember which kid got what dose of what medicine and when… Pediapal solves that. It even generates reports you can hand straight to your doctor.

Auralog is a migraine tracker built for people who actually get migraines. Adrian built it in under a month because he was fed up with apps that make you fill out a bunch of forms when you’re in pain. With Auralog, you tap once to log a migraine and fill in the details later when you’re feeling better. It even uses Apple Intelligence to automatically pull out triggers from your notes. So thoughtful 🤯

Adrian’s story is one of those great indie dev origin stories. He was modding Super Smash Bros in college when a friend told him he was in the wrong major. He switched to software engineering the next morning and never looked back. He runs Aberfeldy Studios (named after an Ed Sheeran song, with an avocado mascot named Cado 🥑) and I love that he’s building apps that solve his own problems. Check out Pediapal and Auralog and give Adrian a follow! 😊 I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Adrian for the past few years (we always seem to cross paths at iOS/Swift conferences) and the energy he brings to Apple platforms and this community is just amazing. It’s been so great watching him channel that same energy into his own indie apps, especially ones that help families with their health. So without further ado… Adrian!

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.

Q&A

1) What is your name? Where do you live (city or general area)?

My name is Adrian Eves, and I currently reside in Mobile, AL.

2) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?

For most of my childhood, I actually wanted to be a writer. Truth be told, I think I always felt a desire for creativity – be it writing music, drawing cartoons, or crafting puzzles for my friends. I initially went to study English at school but about a semester in, I knew it wasn’t for me. I then thought my purpose in life was veterinary medicine, which we all have a good laugh about now. My whole life, I’ve been drawn to computers and what you can do with them, and I loved Steve Jobs’s sentiment on the power of personal computing, so it never occurred to me that I could do something I love as a profession. I used to make builds every two weeks for a mod of Super Smash Bros Brawl, Project M, with requests from the folks in my residence hall. One night, while I was supposed to be studying for an exam, I was crunching the next update because I didn’t want to disappoint. My friend sat across from me and finally told me that I’m in the wrong field and Software Engineering is a major they offer. The very next morning, I switched my major and never looked back. Considering how much I loved the sentimentality of Steve Jobs about computing, it’s a no brainer that I became an iOS developer, but it was an uphill battle to finally get a paying job, including a role where I had to be an Android developer for a year and half!

3) When did you start considering yourself an indie developer? Was there a moment where it clicked that you wanted to build your own things under Aberfeldy Studios?

I’ve always wanted to be an Indie Developer. I have friends like Ryan Ashcraft, Jordan Morgan, Charlie Chapman, Christian Selig, Tyler Hillsman, Mustafa Yusuf, and Devin Davies to whom I’d always say things like, “I’m going to ship an app this year, I know it!”. Except it took me a couple years to find something that mattered to me personally, a puzzle to solve, which came in the form of Pediapal. (Thank you for indulging those years of inaction, folks!) As I started building the app, I knew I needed my own business, so I quickly picked a name, which ended up being Aberfeldy because of Ed Sheeran’s song, “The Hills of Aberfeldy”, and Studios, because I knew I wanted the freedom to make apps and anything else that came to mind (plus I love Marvel Studios). And then I drew a little mascot, an avocado named “Cado”. And it all felt like one perfect click moment.

4) Pediapal - As a parent of two kids, I totally get the need for something like this. What’s the story behind Pediapal? Where did the idea come from?

So I have three young children, and I work from home, so a lot of their medical care falls to me. And let me tell you, it can get overwhelming in the blink of an eye. So I basically made Pediapal to manage this for me. I had probably twenty notes on my phone with scattered weights and heights, dosing instructions, and everything else a pediatrician would need to tell me. It was a golden moment because I finally had a problem to solve. If you don’t know me, I’m extremely into puzzles. So once I had the much needed puzzle, I built it over the course of a few months, and I was finally able to have something in one place for my partner and me to use as a single source of truth. It’s really nice having all of my kids, their vitals, illnesses, and medications all in one spot, especially considering how proactive it aims to be. At the end of the day, it solved a problem for me and therefore gave me the stepping stones to an indie journey.

5) Pediapal - Building something that deals with health data, medicine reminders, and keeping multiple family members in sync sounds like a lot of moving pieces. What’s been the most challenging part of building Pediapal?

The hardest part of Pediapal was the CloudKit stuff 100%. For those of you who are skilled in CloudKit, I applaud you and respect you deeply. It’s been a hard thing for my mind to grasp, even now. The sharing feature might not have happened if it weren’t for Mustafa’s MYCloudKit, a framework that made syncing so easy. Mustafa was so patient with me and got on calls with me to help make sure things worked, and I couldn’t be more grateful. If you’re struggling with CloudKit, I highly recommend adding this to your project! Recently, the hardest part of Pediapal has been organising my time more intentionally, but that’s something I’m trying to improve by setting aside time to work on new features and applying more testing to catch tricky bugs.

6) Pediapal - I love that you can generate reports to hand to the pediatrician. That’s the kind of feature that makes me go “why doesn’t every health app do this?” 🙂 Are there any features you’re particularly proud of that users might not immediately notice?

So it’s funny you mention the report. My partner used to send me texts before I’d go into an appointment that detailed everything going on with our kids, but with a much-needed medical perspective. It made me think, “Hey, everyone should have a little pocket Mary” and that’s basically what that feature’s inspiration was. One thing that I’ve seen a lot more people gravitate towards are the Care Plans, which have been reworked to help families get in routines and even protect those routines when entrusting care to other folks like educators and extended family members. I really liked the redesign I did over the summer, but for reasons you might not think. I pushed hard to adopt Liquid Glass, and I somehow snowballed into this expectation that the design alone would start driving up users a lot more. It didn’t, and I was pretty crushed. But it got me looking at things realistically. These things take time and hard work, especially if you’ve never done it before. So that shifted my mentality into a more grounded vision of “build intentionally and be surprised”. My other app, Auralog, could not be what it is now without that much needed lesson.

7) Auralog - I try to pay pretty close attention to what folks are building and this one seemed to come out of nowhere! What’s the story behind Auralog? How quickly did this come together?

Truth be told, I built Auralog because I was a little mopey about my lack of overnight success with Pediapal, but the idea really solidified on a train ride. I have suffered from migraines for almost my entire life, and there are so many apps out there that make it an absolute chore to log your migraine data. I wanted a pretty, ADHD-friendly approach, so I built it around the idea of a user exerting the least amount of effort possible. I built Auralog in a little under a month, and I had a bet with a friend (if you’re reading this, you know who you are) to finish it in time or I’d have to pay for my own ice cream next time we hung out! This was another case of solving a personal problem, but this time I wanted to start it by doing just one thing exceptionally well. It was the antidote to that funk I was in, and I’m surprised at how well this one has been doing thus far.

8) Auralog - I love that you can just tap to log a migraine and fill in the details later when you’re feeling better. And then Apple Intelligence pulls out the triggers from your notes automatically? That’s such a thoughtful approach 🤯 How did you land on that design?

At the end of the day, I want to build things that are genuinely helpful towards others, so this is definitely an extension of that wish. Migraines are awful and come in many forms, so I want to be as accommodating as possible. Ultimately, I landed on this design for two reasons: the first being that, when you have a migraine, the condition varies from person to person, but a lot of the time, you’re in great pain or dysfunction. The last thing I wanted to do when adding a migraine to an app was subjecting myself to a bright screen that would just attack my eyes and intensify the pain. I wanted something you could just tap and pretty much throw your device in a corner until you felt well enough to care about the extra details. The second reason is that I have a hard time forming new habit loops, so I wanted the process to be as frictionless as possible so that way you’d get the things you need to know with a fraction of the effort.

9) Auralog - What’s the response been like so far? Any feedback from users that surprised you or changed how you’re thinking about the app?

The response has honestly been totally unexpected. I get people writing to me about it, and I have ranked in a few countries on the App Store, which is completely surprising to me because it’s the first time I chilled out enough to let myself ship something and grow it like a little flower. The app is doing well in several ways, but the way that matters most to me is when these users who write to me are able to easily identify the intentionality I put into development. I am so grateful that these users are trusting me with this problem, and it also makes me feel like I’m not alone with this condition. The future for Auralog is so bright, and I cannot wait to continue iterating on it. I do get quite gleeful when I see someone submitted feedback in the app for something they’d like to see.

10) You’re running Aberfeldy Studios as both an indie app label and a consultancy. How do you balance client work with building your own apps? Does one fuel the other?

I’d say I handle this in seasons. I tried doing just one of these things solely at a time, and it ended up being quite stressful, so I try to take a more balanced approach now. I’ll do work for other folks, but I’ll also save time for my own apps. I’m not at all perfect at this even now, but I’m getting better as I go. They both help each other go, though. The consultancy gives me the ability to afford to have time to work on my own apps, and at times, the apps give me the ability to not have to stress as much about finding clients between contracts. I would eventually like to focus exclusively on my own apps while allowing the consultancy aspect to be handled by junior developers to help them gain job experience that’s hard to come by these days.

11) I noticed Aberfeldy Studios mentions “apps, games, and perhaps everything in between” - so you’re into game development too! Are you working on any games or is that something you’re hoping to explore more? What draws you to the gaming side of things?

While I’m always passionate about helping people and communities with the apps I build, I am still working on games, but it’s been very slow at the moment. I’ve struggled with balance for projects over the years, and I think I’ve settled on something that works for me. I want to spend the next year or so really working on my apps so they generate enough income to where I can carve out plenty of time to dedicate to my own games, because I think game development is intrinsically a part of who I am. If I got to the end of my life without shipping a game, it would be a serious regret; however, you’ll be able to see some of my work sooner than you might expect if you know where to look!

12) What has been the hardest part of being an indie dev? What’s the most fun part?

To me, the hardest parts about being an indie developer are accurately forecasting times, managing hyperfocuses, and really maintaining self-discipline and organisation. These are all things that I struggle with as a part of my ADHD. I will be so honest and share that I’ve not yet truly triumphed over these things. Perhaps it’s not a one and done accomplishment sort of thing, but I know there’s still work to be done there. My favorite part about being an indie developer is the unbridled creativity that comes with it. I get to intentionally make every choice that I ship, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired about that. And I cannot wait until I get to dedicate more time to my games because then I’ll get to express ideas that other people can muse upon as well. I’m a very community-driven person, so I hope I’m building community wherever I am.

13) What’s next for Pediapal, Auralog, or any other projects you’re working on? Anything you can share with us?

Auralog is an easy answer because I’m steadily working on feedback I’ve received from users to make it more useful to them, and I’ve got a nice amount to keep me busy until the Spring. For instance, users have requested the ability to add what medicines they feel work for them. Pediapal has some exciting things coming, as I’m going to make it even better for help with infants. It’s a really exciting time to be developing apps, and I’m just really happy to be able to do it. To create without restraint is such a rewarding experience.

14) Do you have any other indie devs that readers should follow / lookout for?

I have loads of folks who would be absolute delights to meet. If you haven’t talked with them already, I highly recommend Danijela Vrzan and Danny Behar. We’ve really worked hard over the course of the last year, and we try to challenge each other to grow as indies to the best of our abilities. I also think that Chris Lindsay and Paul Hudson are great folks to talk to because Paul has shipped his game, Hacktivate, which is nothing short of outstanding and creates some fantastic puzzles that will actually teach you things, and Chris has been doing incredible work with Nihongo, Nihongo Lessons, and recently Transcrybe. My core friend group is really made up of iOS Developers, so I could recommend for days on end, I’m sure. But Indie Dev Monday is already such a lovely thing, and you’re doing amazing work with it.

Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊

Make sure to visit https://indiedevmonday.com/subscribe to get an email of future issues!

And go to Twitter and give @IndieDevMonday a follow… or multiple follows if you manage more than one Twitter account 😜

We made it to Issue #144! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️

Where Are They Now?

Today’s issue is a special “Where Are They Now?” issue where we catch up with a previous Indie Dev Monday guest! This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now but I never felt like I had enough indie developers or enough time has passed where it made sense. Well… it turns out that after 143 issues and like 5 years, that is the perfect amount of time for this kind of issue 😉

This first “Where Are They Now?” is a special one. I mean, every issue is special but this is someone that truly is special…

Back in Issue #3, we featured Mustafa Yusuf. I think I first got introduced to Mustafa from some random tweet and I thought his app, Tasks, looked really neat. And I just honestly needed someone that would say yes to being in a random new newsletter and Mustafa looked desperate enough to say yes. Wait, what?! Did I really say that? 🙊 I did but that is because I’m now very close with Mustafa where this is generally just how we interact with each other 😇 I was able to spend time with Mustafa in India this past September and he is one of the smartest, kindest, and most genuine people that I know. I had no idea that in Issue #3 that interview would end up in a friendship on the other side of the world where we now see each other a few times a year. But enough of the mushy gushy stuff…

Let’s see what they’ve been up to since then!

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Catching Up With…

📆 Today I’m catching up with Mustafa Yusuf.

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇

Q&A

1) For readers who weren’t around in 2020, give us a quick intro. Who are you and what do you build?

Hi, I’m Mustafa. I’m 5 indie years old (turning 6 this June).

I build two apps: Tasks and Karo (both are task managers)!

Tasks is my main app (you might recognize it by its fun, lickable, rainbow-candy-esque logo). After watching how people actually used Tasks, I realized something: a lot of tasks involve other humans (who would have thought?).

So I built Karo, an app that lets you send tasks to anyone in your contacts. Karo then politely… or not-so-politely… reminds/nags them via WhatsApp or Messages and they can complete it right from there. They don’t even need the app! Cool, right?!

2) A lot can change in 4+ years. Walk us through what’s happened since we last talked.

I went from a solo indie dev to a tiny indie studio. We’re now a remote team of three, all based in India. I also added two more kids to my personal “portfolio” (clearly scaling in all directions).

On the indie side: I lost focus for a bit. Tasks was doing well, but I kept thinking, “What if I recreate Tasks’ success with a new app?” So I kept starting new apps instead of doubling down on the one that already worked! Now it’s just Tasks and Karo!

I’ve been working with Apple to visit universities across India, speaking to students about indie dev life. These universities have an iOS Development Center, and I try my best to inspire students to build and ship their own apps.

Oh I also shipped a conference - Swift Bharat in India which is in my eyes (and as per the event feedback survey) was a wild success!

3) You’re a dad now! How has that changed how you approach indie dev?

I was a dad then… I think? Maybe the kid was still in beta when we last spoke. Today I have a 5yo, 3yo, and 1mo!

Early parenthood is chaos. Later, it becomes… structured chaos? I’m incredibly grateful for the systems (aka family) around me that let me keep building.

The biggest shift: I’m way more intentional with my time. Now, before building something new, I ask:

• Does this make sense?

• Is there a market?

• Will I still want to maintain this in 5 years?

That said… I really want to build an education app for my kids. Is it a good business idea? Probably not. Is it an excuse to code while my kids wireframe designs? Absolutely. Peak parenting!

4) You were excited about Mac, Widgets, Watch, and Siri. How did that play out?

Wow, I shipped all of it, and honestly, nailed it!

• Mac app: Huge win. Paid off way more than I expected.

• Apple Watch app: Hardly anyone uses it… but if I may brag, it’s one of the most complete independent Watch apps out there. Almost all of the main app functionality, on your wrist.

• Siri support: Built it twice thanks to AppIntents. Character-building experience.

Fun surprise: Tasks gets featured more on the Mac App Store than iOS, and Mac users are far more likely to pay.

5) What’s the biggest thing you’d tell 2020 Mustafa?

Add analytics.

I had that idealistic indie mindset: “I track nothing. My privacy label is pristine.” That’s just building blind. I wish I’d added anonymous, reasonable analytics from day one. Not creepy stuff, just enough to understand how people actually use the app. I only added analytics recently, and wow. The number of users and the impact Tasks has was something I never fully grasped before. Those numbers now drive me every day.

6) Does your advice about product-market fit and listening to users still hold?

100%. No change. Listen to users. Always.

I still reply to emails promptly. I still ship improvements based on feedback. And those users? They stick around and bring people in! Some of the people I email/chat with today have been with Tasks since launch, over 5 years ago. That’s everything.

7) One feature you’d mass-delete (or time you wasted)?

Tasks on Vision Pro! (jk, it took 24 hours, and I’m low-key proud it was on the App Store on day one)

Honestly, I haven’t wasted much time on features inside Tasks or Karo. But I’ve wasted a lot of time on apps I never shipped. Now, every time I hit Xcode → New Project, I try to think it through. (emphasis on try :P)

8) What’s next? What are you excited about heading into 2026?

• Massive updates to Tasks (to become one of the finest task managers out there)!

• More open source - I’ve been extracting internal tools into packages to help me ship faster and break fewer things. Recently launched MYCloudKit and Dragula.

• ARCtic Conference (February) - I’ll be doing something with CloudKit, and yes, I’m extremely excited. Get your tickets if you haven’t?

• Deep Dish Swift 2026 - I’m planning to swing by!

• and Swift Bharat 2026 👀

• maybe a new app?!

2026 is shaping up nicely 🚀

This was a “Where Are They Now?” interview. Read Mustafa Yusuf’s original interview in Issue #3.

Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊

Make sure to visit https://indiedevmonday.com/subscribe to get an email of future issues!

And go to Twitter and give @IndieDevMonday a follow… or multiple follows if you manage more than one Twitter account 😜

We made it to Issue #143! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️

Today is the day! This issue (if you are reading via email) is being sent by Substack… I really hope this made it to all of your inboxes 🤞

If you want to read in the Substack app or follow along there too, here’s the link:

👉 indiedevmonday.substack.com

But besides that, I want to say that it feels soooooo good to be bringing Indie Dev Monday back! A good amount of you have reached out to me to let me know the joy these issues have been bringing you 🥹 It’s also been bringing me joy as well! I look forward to Mondays and finding new indies to interview. It’s also reignited my spark for indie dev projects so… stay tuned for those 😉

Anyway… it’s time for this week’s indie and it’s another good one! 👇

Sponsored

Deep Dish Swift 2026 — Chicago’s premier Swift developer conference, April 12-14, 2026. Join us for 1/2 day of indie development talks, 2 days of Swift and iOS talks, a live podcast recording of Launched, and more!

Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs

📆 Today I’m featuring Engin Kurutepe.

Engin is the creator of SolarWatch and XCBabel. SolarWatch is a beautifully designed sun tracking app that shows you sunrise, sunset, golden hour, and everything in between with its iconic SolarWheel visualization. XCBabel is a developer tool that uses AI to localize your Xcode String Catalogs - something every indie dev shipping internationally needs in their toolkit.

Engin has been in the iOS game since the very beginning and SolarWatch has grown into something really special with over 500,000 downloads. I’m excited to learn more about his journey and what’s next. Check out SolarWatch and XCBabel and give Engin a follow! 😊

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.

Q&A

1) What is your name? Where do you live (city or general area)?

My name is Engin (g like GIF). I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, and I’ve been living in Berlin for almost 20 years.

2) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?

I studied electrical engineering in Istanbul and came to Berlin for a PhD on multi-camera video compression and streaming. I was deep into MPEG and H.264/265. Then the iPhone happened. I couldn’t afford one as a broke PhD student, but when the App Store was announced I thought, I’m already writing code all day anyway, how hard can learning Objective-C be? Turns out there’s a big difference between breaking your own research code and breaking code for thousands of users.

Long story short, I never finished the PhD. I worked various iOS jobs, did a lot of contracting, co-founded a company, built a few apps of my own, and now I’m a product manager at RevenueCat. Outside tech, aviation is my thing. I’ve been flying gliders since 2013 and I’m working toward my single-engine license. My eventual goal is a commercial license so I can fly professionally on the side.

3) Have you ever considered yourself an indie developer?

Yes. Absolutely. I’m an indie dev by passion. Since my PhD days, that direct feedback loop from users, the good, the bad, the “why is this broken?”, has been addictive. Building something people enjoy and voluntarily pay for is a joy that never gets old.

4) What got you started/interested in creating your own applications outside of your “normal” job?

At the time I was building the Berlin office for Keepsafe. The CEO told me, “If I see you commit code on Github, you’re fired.” So I did the logical thing and wrote code on evenings and weekends instead. That’s how my indie projects were born.

5) How do you balance your time between friends/family, work, hobbies, and indie dev?

Poorly. The only strategy that works for me is being very clear about priorities and aggressively ignoring everything else.

6) SolarWatch - The golden hour is sacred to photographers. Is this what sparked your interest in creating SolarWatch? If so, do you have any pictures you’ve captured with the help of SolarWatch or do you have any that your users have captured?

SolarWatch wasn’t solving a problem so much as ambushing me. I was on the couch watching TV with my wife when the idea for the SolarWheel visualization hit me. I grabbed my laptop and started building immediately. The first version had a much more instrument-like aesthetic. I shared an early prototype on Twitter and the one and only Matt Davey came back with the color palette that defines the app today.

7) SolarWatch - SolarWatch has over 500,000 downloads. That’s a lot of people watching the sun! What do most people use SolarWatch for? What’s the most unexpected way you’ve heard someone using the app?

Everything from planning photo shoots to staying in sync with daylight to checking whether their future home gets enough sun. SolarWatch went from a tiny side project to a widely used app after Apple featured the SolarWatch Widgets during the iOS 14 release when the Widgets were introduced.

8) SolarWatch - Map mode and AR mode feels like magic when you’re scouting a location. But behind magic is usually some crazy technical challenges. Were these planned in your initial idea for SolarWatch? And was there a moment where you thought “this might be impossible” before you got it working?

Not planned at all. SolarWatch started in 2017 as a small utility and grew feature by feature. AR mode was particularly tough because ARKit wasn’t designed to render objects at infinite distance. It has a hard cutoff, so getting the sun projection to feel correct while pretending it’s infinitely far away required some creative math.

And even without AR, time, date, and time zones are notoriously unintuitive. I usually tinker at the edges and improve what’s already there, and every once in a while the suns align and I ship a bigger feature. I have plenty more ideas… and very little time.

9) SolarWatch - Sun tracking seems simple on the surface, but I imagine there’s wild complexity underneath (time zones, daylight saving, regions where the sun doesn’t rise or set for months). What are some of crazies edge cases you’ve had to cover? How do you test them and do you think you’ve covered them all?

The fun bugs come from “almost right” date and time logic. Someone from an edge-case location will email me a wonderfully specific bug report, and I love them for it. Recently, someone north of the Arctic Circle reported that during the winter when the sun never rises, the twilight labels were correct but the SolarWheel rendering froze on the first day without sunrise.

Luckily the iOS simulator lets me pretend to be anywhere on Earth.

For real-world testing, I once drove from Berlin to Tromsø, Norway in December to check if AR mode works at nearly 70 degrees north. It does:

10) XCBabel - So XCBabel is a developer tool for localizing Xcode projects using AI. This is super relevant right now with all the AI stuff happening. What made you want to build a localization tool? Was this a pain point you experienced yourself with existing tools out there?

SolarWatch ships in many languages. Before LLMs, I used DeepL to translate my strings files. It worked but was painfully manual. When Apple introduced String Catalogs, I finally built the tool I’d been wanting: XCBabel. I’ve been using it privately long before releasing it. It scratches my own itch and taught me a lot about SwiftUI on macOS.

11) XCBabel - Developer tools live or die by how well they fit into developers’ workflow. What’s your philosophy on how XCBabel should fit into a developers’s existing process? Do you want it to be invisible, or something they actively engage with?

I experimented with versions that plug directly into builds or run as a fastlane plugin. They’re convenient but take away the ability to review translations. I like that XCBabel has a UI where you can see all languages at once, search, review, and adjust machine translations. A pure CLI would lose that.

I’m also considering a small web service where users can rate translations and suggest fixes. A bunch of web tools do this, but I want one that works the way I want.

12) You’ve been in the iOS community for a long time. How has indie development changed since you started? What advice would you give to someone just getting into indie dev today?

The community is wonderful, full of kind, supportive people. As for being an indie dev, it spans a huge spectrum. Maybe you just want a creative outlet. Maybe you want to build the next Flighty, Widgetsmith, Overcast, CardPointers, Slopes, or Art of Fauna.

The key is not comparing your journey to someone else’s highlight reel. Build something you want to exist. Ship it. Share it. Hand out early TestFlight builds. Push it through App Review. Celebrate the wins. Don’t be crushed if your first app vanishes into the App Store void. Keep going. Decide if you want a business or just a hobby. The learning process is worth it (and sometimes very humbling) either way.

13) What’s been the hardest part of being an indie dev? What’s the most fun part?

The hardest part is getting people to notice your app. Promotion is tough for me. It’s always easier to retreat into code and improve the product. I think a lot of indie devs struggle with this, so maybe it’s my resolution for 2026.

The best part is user feedback. A thoughtful email from a user can make your day. Negative feedback is great too: it means someone cared enough to write. The only truly painful response is silence.

14) What’s next for SolarWatch, XCBabel, or any other projects you’re working on? Anything you can share with us?

SolarWatch is overdue for a design refresh. I’ve heard many times that the main UI is confusing for non-techies, so I’m working on prototypes to address that.

For XCBabel, I want a user feedback system for translations.

The next launch, though, is Readback: an ATC communication training app for pilots. It helps new pilots learn radio basics by talking to an infinitely patient controller, and lets experienced pilots practice. I presented an early version at an AI Tinkerers meetup in Berlin and got so much good feedback that I tore the whole thing apart and rebuilt it. I aim to ship it before the end of the year. Now that I said it publicly, I guess it’s official.

15) Do you have any other indie devs that readers should follow / lookout for?

Hidde and Pol are doing excellent work with Helm. Klemens is on fire with Art of Fauna and Art of Flora. And a shout-out to Gabriel Hauber for being one of the earliest XCBabel users and giving great feedback.

Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊

Make sure to visit https://indiedevmonday.com/subscribe to get an email of future issues!

And go to Twitter and give @IndieDevMonday a follow… or multiple follows if you manage more than one Twitter account 😜

We made it to Issue #142! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️

Quick little update from my side! I’m most likely switching the email-sending side of Indie Dev Monday over from Kit to Substack. Kit (ConvertKit when I started) has been great, but it’s really built for bigger newsletters now, and Indie Dev Monday doesn’t need all that extra stuff… or the cost that comes with it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be migrating everything over to Substack. Your email subscription will move automatically — you don’t have to do anything — and issues should still show up just like always, just in a slightly different format.

If you want to read in the Substack app or follow along there too, here’s the link:

👉 indiedevmonday.substack.com

But again: you don’t need to sign up or change anything. This site will remain as well. Just a little behind-the-scenes housekeeping to find a setup that fits me better and my attempts to grow Indie Dev Monday.

Okay, I think that’s mostly everything I needed to talk about today ☺️ As I mentioned in last week’s issue, with the help of AI I’ve been able to improve a lot of the automation around Indie Dev Monday. I have a new draft system where I can easily queue up indie devs so I should never feel like I’m falling behind. And some of the tedious parts (gathering all the data I need and formatting it) are now done by the robot, which means… my job is really just talking to indie devs and clicking the publish button 💪

Now… on to this week’s indie!

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Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs

📆 Today I’m featuring Chris Hefferman.

Chris is the creator of Game Hub, Drone Map, and Food Hygiene UK Ratings. Game Hub is a gaming companion app that helps you track your games, discover new releases, and stay on top of what’s coming next. Drone Map helps drone pilots discover and share flying spots, complete with no-fly zones, weather forecasts, and community-shared locations. Food Hygiene UK Ratings lets you check the hygiene scores of restaurants and takeaways before you eat there. And that’s just three of Chris’s TWELVE apps 🤯

I’m honestly blown away by how many apps Chris has shipped as a solo indie dev. From bird hides to truck stops to watch faces… the range is wild. But what’s really impressive is that each app solves a real problem without any bloat. They’re focused, useful, and clearly built by someone who cares about getting things right 💪

I’m so excited to learn how Chris thinks about building, how he ships so quickly, and what it takes to maintain 12 apps as a one-person indie studio. Check out Game Hub, Drone Map, and Food Hygiene UK Ratings and give Chris a follow! 😊

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.

Q&A

1) What is your name? Where do you live (city or general area)?

Hey 👋 I’m Chris and I live in a small town called Wimborne Minster in the UK. Wimborne is a quaint market town with coffee shops and cafe’s aplenty, and only 20 minutes away to the beautiful south coast.

2) Introduce yourself. What’s your background? Education? Past work? What do you enjoy inside and outside of tech?

An Apple fan-boy since the original iPhone, I never thought I’d have the privilege of working with Apple products for a living. After my wife and I got married in New Zealand in 2018 (in Hobbiton no less 🧙) I decided to focus on my then un-interesting career in Test Management to something I was more passionate about - learning to code!

As I hadn’t come from a conventional educational background in programming, I took the self teaching route, learning from Apple resources such as “Everyone Can Code” and Sean Allen’s amazing YouTube videos and courses.

After releasing two apps to the App Store (a Lord of the Rings quiz and a Google Adsense and AdMob tracker) and three years of late night coding alongside having two young children I landed my first job as an iOS Developer at a wonderful company called GCN in October 2021 who were excellent at teaching me the ropes.

I currently work full time as an iOS Developer, but still have the itch for a full time indie life!

Outside of tech I love spending time with my two kids and wife, gaming, flying my drone, playing the guitar now and again and of course, even more coding on my side projects! 🤦‍♂️

3) You currently have 12 different apps in the App Store — which is incredible. How did this portfolio come together? Are you someone who follows inspiration quickly, or was this intentional from the start?

Thanks! To be honest, at the start, I always thought I’d just have one or two apps, and focus on those - but as time went on, I had other ideas for apps I wanted to create and so (most of them) naturally came to be.

I say most, as a few are also a way for me to experiment with trends, or wanting to learn different technologies that might not necessarily fit into an existing app.

I love creating them, and I still get enjoyment when submitting new apps, and even new versions to the App Store, so although 12 does seem like a lot more than I was initially planning on setting out to create, I think there’s definitely many more in me!

4) With such a large collection of apps, how do you decide where to focus your time and energy? Do you follow data, user feedback, your own excitement, or something else?

It’s a mix of all the above really - I am definitely someone who can easily get fixated on a problem, or something I’m not particularly happy with in an existing app, and so I’ll focus my energy on that quite quickly.

I’ll also keep an eye on which of my apps are performing well and pivot to working on those to see if I can capitalise on that. I currently have a very large Trello board with different labels for each app so I can keep track of what needs doing across my portfolio, but then sometimes that goes out the window if I feel excited about a new app idea or feature that I want to work on.

Sometimes it’s just about working on something fun!

5) Game Hub — What inspired the initial concept? Was there a pain point or a moment where you thought: “This really needs to exist”?

This app, or at least, the idea of this app was what got me into coding in the first place - so it’s definitely an app that is special to me.

In 2015 I came up with the idea for the app as nothing really existed in the App Store at the time that combined sorting out your gaming backlog, along with social aspects of reviewing and rating games. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t know how to code! At that time in my life my first child was born and so I put any learning to code on hold as having children is a bit of shell-shock at the beginning!

Fast forward seven years and after working as an by 2022 I had been working as an iOS Dev and I finally knew how to make the app 😆. I was itching to start working on some side projects again, and so I decided to put it into action.

As well as that we were leaning towards a VIPER architecture at work, and I wanted a project at home that I could use to learn more about that architecture, and so that was really the motivation by that point - to work on something outside of work and something I was passionate about, but also teach myself more about VIPER.

6) Game Hub — What’s been the most challenging part of building or maintaining it, either technically or in terms of content/community?

I think the most challenging part for me until very recently was the general architecture of it.

As mentioned, when I set out to make it in 2022 it was written using VIPER, however fast forward three years and I wanted to re-write the entire app’s architecture away from VIPER towards something easier to manage for me.

This must have taken around 2 months for me to complete, and the apps binary still has a lot of old un-used code in it that I keep meaning to rip out, but it’s definitely a lot simpler to reason about now without the use of Presenters, Interactors and Repositories.

I don’t want to get into an architecture discussion (always a hot topic!) but at the time it served me very well at work to learn more about VIPER, so I’m not knocking it at all, but I think for a side-project it was a little overkill and slowed down my development process.

7) Drone Map — What led you to create a mapping tool specifically for drone pilots? Were there features or limitations in existing options that pushed you toward your own solution?

I’m a keen drone pilot myself and love finding new places to fly, or visiting one’s I’ve been to before with great scenery. I found myself jotting these places down in a note, but one thing I thought would be cool is if there was somewhere a community of drone enthusiasts could share places they’d flown on a map for others to see.

I’m still working towards building a community, but so far users have shared over 100 spots across the world, which is super exciting. I’ve recently added some new features such as no-fly zones, weather forecasts and saving other users’ places to your own list to visit to make it even more useful for users.

8) Drone Map — What has surprised you the most while working on geospatial data, flight zones, or mapping features?

I think one thing I struggled to grasp the most was “clustering” the locations so that your UI doesn’t fall over when it has so much data to present. It took me quite a while to fine tune my work so that it felt like a smooth user experience, but also a helpful one by not clustering too much.

9) Food Hygiene UK Ratings — This is such a practical app with real-world impact. What motivated you to build it, and what’s your approach to keeping the data trustworthy and up to date?

Thanks! The motivation for me building this app was to help my wife on I deciding where to eat when we go out! My wife had a kidney transplant 14 years ago, and so although generally well at the moment, we do need to be careful of the hygiene of places where we eat so that she doesn’t get unwell.

In the UK we have a government run agency called the Food Standards Agency that all establishments by law that offer food here have to be rated a score between 0 and 5 on the general food hygiene standard as well as some slightly more in-depth measurements such as confidence in management, hygiene & safety and structural requirements.

The agency offer their data via a very easy to use API, and although there were already some apps that offered this information, for me they looked a little dated. I took this app as a small test bed into using iOS 26’s Liquid Glass (love it or hate it!) and wanted to create something simple but useful to use.

10) Food Hygiene UK Ratings — Are there any features or future improvements you’re especially excited about?

My wife and I are foodies and love eating at nice places whenever life with two young children allows (which isn’t that often!). However, I had hoped to integrate some sort of Michelin Star rating to the establishments as well. Sadly I’m not sure that’s going to be feasible as I don’t see an API available for me to use.

I have also considered the idea of integrating ratings from Trip Advisor, which there is definitely an API for. The downside of this might be that it takes the app away from its original intent of being a simple easy place to find official ratings and so it’s something I might consider A/B testing.

Food for thought! - Sorry, I couldn’t resist 🫠

11) You also have nine other apps — from bird hides to truck stops to watch faces. Is there a common theme behind the kinds of problems you’re drawn to solving?

I’d say my apps generally try to draw a line between some really useful applications, to also throwing a few of them at the wall and seeing what sticks. I want to make sure all my apps are reputable though, and useful in someway to my users.

I take a lot of pride in great UI as I definitely think that is where my strength lies and to help with this I have created myself a shared package that I use in all my apps to keep things looking on brand and helps me make things re-usable to speed up development!

12) Across your less-active apps, is there a small feature or detail you’re particularly proud of that people might overlook?

One of my less actively developed apps I have is an app for MiniDisc Player enthusiasts.

I’m a kid from the late 80’s / 90’s and I absolutely loved my MiniDisc player and I wanted to create an app that recreated that tactile / physical feeling of using one.

I tirelessly designed four separate players using SwiftUI shapes, borders, shadows and overlays to present the most realistic looking players I could achieve. It picks up your Apple Music playlists, and displays them as discs that the user can drag into the player, which then gives the user some really nice haptic feedback as if the disc is being read by the player.

As well as this there is some UI on the player display such as the battery level (which mirror’s your iPhone or iPad’s battery level), a small spinning disc icon which was painful to create in SwiftUI and also some very subtle reflections on the screen. I also even allowed the user to drag the metal slider on the discs themselves which snap back into their original place when the drag gesture ends with a really satisfying haptic feedback and audible “click”!

I doubt much of this is noticeable in isolation to the user, but I think it definitely adds to the overall immersion of using a MiniDisc player and it was important to me to get right, and I loved playing with SwiftUI and pushing it to it’s limits!

13) What does your tech stack look like across all 12 projects? Do you have shared components or internal tools that help you move quickly?

My tech stack looks very similar across my apps as I like to build quickly, and re-use where possible, and so keeping to things I am familiar with enables this.

I have my own Swift package that I pull into most of my apps which saves time on me not having to create reusable views and ensures where needed that my apps stick to a brand. It also means that when I learn new things or improve my UI and UX such as onboarding or paywalls, I can simply update my package once and then update across the apps and it’s done.

For any user data persistence I’m a Firebase devotee. I love how easy it is to set up, how simple the code is to read and also the speed in which you get the data. I appreciate it has some downsides and I wish sub-collections could be fetched with the same read request as the top level collection, but it’s a trade off I’ve been happy to make.

Other notable tools I use in my app development include:

• RevenueCat

• Astro

• RocketSim

• Vivid (lifesaver when you’re outside!)

• Claude Code

• Sketch

• Sora

14) What has been the hardest and most rewarding part of indie life for you so far?

The hardest part definitely for me is getting the right balance in my life on spending time on my apps. I work full time as an iOS Developer, and right now do not make anywhere near enough revenue from my apps to become a full-time indie developer (the dream for sure!).

Therefore balancing my time between full time work, spending time with my family, keeping on top of life admin, and not wanting to take myself away to spend all my spare time on my apps to chase the full time indie dream is challenging.

That niggling feeling when I’m relaxing watching a movie, or playing a video game, that I should be doing something with my app portfolio can be hard to suppress, but I also want to make sure I don’t get fatigued with app development. So I do find that hard to balance.

15) What’s next for Game Hub, Drone Map, Food Hygiene UK Ratings, or any of your other apps? Anything you can share?

My general app lifecycle of switching between creating something new, or honing and refining my existing apps. I’m currently in a honing mode, and I’ve spent the last month really brushing up the user experience on Game Hub.

I also want to experiment with marketing, or rather, feel like I probably should! At the moment, Other than ASO research, I do very little in terms of marketing and it’s not quite getting the results I would like to see and so I think some social media marketing could also help drive some downloads to my apps.

Unfortunately I’ve always been terrible at social media - I feel weird posting about my own work, and I think I need to work on distancing myself from that feeling and just putting it out there to see what lands.

16) Are there any indie developers you think readers should follow or keep an eye on?

Absolutely! The iOS Developer community is such a welcoming and supportive place, and I genuinely don’t think I’d be doing what I do now for a living if it weren’t for many of those supportive developers.

Firstly a big thank you to you for giving me the opportunity to take part in the newsletter - it’s been a staple in my selection of newsletters, and I’m super glad you’re in a place where you feel you can bring it back.

In no other particular order, I’d love to highlight the following people:

• Sean Allen

• Ben Sullivan

• Stewart Lynch

• Shihab Mehboob

• Taiwo Omisore

• Stephen Dixon

• Rudrank Riyam

• Anum

• Ben Harraway

• Christian Selig

• Jordi Bruin

• Adam Lyttle

• Aivars Meijers

I’m sorry if I’ve missed anyone I’ve interacted with over the years, but the iOS Developer community is brilliant, so thank you to everyone!

Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊

Make sure to visit https://indiedevmonday.com/subscribe to get an email of future issues!

And go to Twitter and give @IndieDevMonday a follow… or multiple follows if you manage more than one Twitter account 😜

Nothing changes on your end: same Monday newsletter, same indie dev stories, same fun vibes. You’re already subscribed, so you don’t need to do anything at all. Everything should just keep showing up like normal.

Okay, that’s it! Back to the fun stuff. 😄

— Josh

We made it to Issue #141! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️

This is absolutely something I would say… if we actually did have an issue last week. But it’s been 665 days since Issue 140. I couldn’t let it get to 666, so here we are 😇

But why? Why did I abruptly stop Indie Dev Monday, and why am I starting it again now? Well, I’ll answer that…

I do the things I do because I enjoy them. I find personal value in them. I find future value in them. I find community value in them. So, story time…

At the height of the pandemic, the world felt very dark. Days and weeks blurred together, I was losing my sense of community, and I needed some indie dev inspiration. Indie Dev Monday became my solution. It gave me something to look forward to on Mondays. I got to talk to over 160 indie developers from all over the world and hear new perspectives on nearly everything. It changed my life and, surprisingly, it changed a few others’ lives too (which I never expected).

But then in 2023, I abruptly stopped the interviews. I half-tried to bring them back in 2024. So, why the stop-and-start?

Because I had a major life change. I took on too many things. The personal reasons behind Indie Dev Monday started shrinking compared to everything else I had going on, and it started to feel like work. And my goal is for none of my projects to feel like work. I never want to have to fight myself to keep doing them.

And that brings us to today. I’m able to manage my life and priorities much better now. Indie Dev Monday has the trifecta again: personal, future, and community value. And honestly, I’ve been fighting myself the past few months not to start it back up again. Also, let’s be real, today’s AI makes it way easier for me to get my thoughts out without stressing about spelling or grammar (which I hate). So the fun-to-friction ratio of Indie Dev Monday is officially much higher!

And with that…

WE ARE SO BACK!

Today’s issue features Klemens Strasser!

There are some developers whose work you can spot instantly. Not because they shout about it, but because everything they make feels unmistakably theirs. That’s always been the case for me with Klemens. Every time he ships something new, I find myself smiling at how thoughtful, warm, and human his apps feel. They make you want to slow down, explore, and genuinely appreciate the craft behind them.

I’ve wanted to feature Klemens in Indie Dev Monday for a long time, and after the 665 day break, it felt like the perfect moment. So here you go…

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Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs

📆 Today I’m featuring Klemens Strasser.

Klemens is the creator of The Art of Fauna and PocketShelf. The Art of Fauna is a beautifully illustrated, calming puzzle experience that blends nature, accessibility, and storytelling into something that feels unlike anything else on the App Store. Every interaction feels intentional from the soft colors and animations to the way the game invites you to observe and appreciate wildlife. A portion of each purchase even goes to wildlife conservation organizations, which makes the app feel good in every sense of the word.

PocketShelf is a friendly, personal reading companion that helps you track what you’re reading, reflect on your books, and revisit what you’ve learned. The onboarding is one of the warmest I’ve ever experienced, and the focus on accessibility and personalization makes it feel welcoming from the very first screen. Whether you’re a casual reader or someone with a slightly out-of-control book backlog, PocketShelf turns your reading life into something you actually want to spend time with.

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.

Q&A

1) What is your name? Where do you live (city or general area)?

Hey, I’m Klemens and I live in Graz, Austria. Graz is Austria’s second-biggest city, has a lovely old town, and with Schloss Eggenberg, a beautiful castle with gardens that is just ten minutes away from me, where I can do my daily walks!

2) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?

I first went to a technical school (HTL Bulme) in Graz to learn electrical engineering and low-level programming. I then went on to study computer science at the Technical University of Graz, quickly finished my Bachelor’s and not so quickly finished my Master’s there.

I started tinkering with my own apps during my studies, worked as a developer at Flexibits and then Nuki, and can now call myself a full-time indie!

Outside of tech, I enjoy cycling, love spending time in nature, and spend unreasonable amounts of money on speciality coffee.

3) When did you start considering yourself an indie developer?

I think in 2014? It was right after the release of Elementary Minute, the first game that I actually released to the App Store. Two weeks into its release, a colleague at uni asked me how the game was doing. I said, “Fine? I make like 7€ a week off it”. And he said, “That’s amazing, so it pays for lunch once a week!”.

This conversation was when I first felt like an indie :D

4) What got you started/interested in creating your own applications outside of your “normal” job?

For me, the applications came before the “normal” job. But I need to go one step back first.

As a kid, I loved playing video games! I always told my mum that one day I wanted to build my own game. And that almost stayed a dream forever. I found out early how brutal the games industry can be and deemed it unreasonable to follow that dream. So I decided to go into the software industry instead. I went on to study computer science for this.

Then one day, I had the idea for my first game. And then for a second one. I thought I could learn Apple technologies to build out these projects. Because that way I could learn about how to build apps and thus, land an actually paying job as an iOS software engineer. And that is what actually happened. I released Elementary Minute, went on to win a Student Apple Design Award with it, met the people from Flexibits (Fantastical, Cardhop) at that WWDC, and landed my first job there.

I kept on building these games and apps on the side until eventually, they became my main source of income.

5) Art of Fauna - What was the spark behind Art of Fauna? Was there a moment when the idea clicked and you thought, “I need to make this”? Did you see this art somewhere a thought you wanted to showcase it in a neat way or were you looking specifically for this kind of art style?

I stupidly scrolled through Instagram and ran into the feed of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. They scan in very old books that were used for scientific research in the past and make them available for free to everybody. When I first saw the feed, I just couldn’t stop scrolling. These images were so gorgeous. I knew I had to build something around it.

Back then, I was playing a bunch of puzzle and cozy games. From Patterned to Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and A Short Hike. And I had the idea to use this dataset to build a puzzle game that emits the similar feeling to those cozy games.

6) Art of Fauna - Giving a portion of each purchase to selected wildlife conservation organizations is an amazing thing to do! Was this always your intention when making Art of Fauna? How do you choose which organization(s) to give to? Are there any unexpected hurdles or things that could be improved with giving a portion of proceeds like this?

Pretty much, yes. For once, I felt inspired by my friends at Broken Rules, who do something similar with their game Gibbon: Beyond the Trees. But the fact that I got these beautiful animal pictures for free played a huge part in it. I felt like I had to “compensate” for that. And I just loved the idea that drawing of animals from the 18th and 19th centuries can be used in a project today to play a tiny part in ensuring the preservation of those animals in the future.

As for choosing - For now, it was just organisations that I researched and felt like are doing an incredible job. But people can also suggest organisations in the app that they are passionate about!

One hurdle I wasn’t aware of at first is that I can claim my tax benefit only when supporting certain organisations in Austria. That definitely hasn’t stopped me from supporting others, but I just honestly would love if the rule wouldn’t apply.

7) Art of Fauna - What part of building Art of Fauna surprised you the most — either creatively or technically?

Definitely the whole mechanic of the two-sided puzzle game. In Art of Fauna, you can always switch between the traditional image puzzle and a text-based puzzle. This was done purely because I needed a way to make it accessible to VoiceOver users. The idea was that these users could use the text side to solve the puzzle with VoiceOver, while people with i.e. cognitive disabilities could stick to the image side.

But the surprising part was how valuable that was to everyone else. If you got stuck on the image side, you could flip to the text side and continue the puzzle there— or vice versa. And also, you could just stick to the text side if you want to learn more about an animal. By reading these facts over and over again, they engrave themselves into your brain. And I would have never expected this when first building the feature.

8) Pocket Shelf - Pocket Shelf’s welcome/onboarding is one of the most fun and friendliest I’ve ever gone through 😊 The first screen being accessibility settings really shows that you care (and all apps should do this). After that, the warm personalized feels and gaining a library card had me hooked. What are the requirements for yourself with onboarding? What is your process liked? Do you start with onboarding, end with onboarding, or shape it as the rest of the app shapes up?

First, thank you for saying that ❤️

But I usually start with building the core experience in an app, so what the user is doing most frequently in it. You would call it the moment-to-moment gameplay in a game, I guess? But for PocketShelf, it’s tracking your reading sessions, making notes, and adding books.

And after that works, I try to see what can be pulled into an onboarding to make this core experience better. If there isn’t anything, other than the accessibility settings, then the onboarding will be very short. But for PocketShelf, it makes sense to nudge the person into adding their first book - so that they can start tracking it right away.

And the library card, for example, is just a fun thing to add some personality and show them that we care about details and doing fun things.

10) Pocket Shelf - Do you have a favorite small detail or feature in Pocket Shelf that people might not notice right away?

I love that the signing of the PocketShelf membership card is not restricted to the name field. Like in a paper card, you can just scribble anywhere, anything on there. We won’t stop you.

And I have one on my to-do list that I still haven’t gotten around to building. When you first read a book in PocketShelf, it adds a little bookmark to the cover. But in the future, the cover should get a little scratch for every time you read it. First, this will look very subtle, but noticeable after a while. To make it feel like a real book that will look more and more used over time.

11) Design & Aesthetics - Your apps all share a really recognizable look and feel. How do you think about design and aesthetics when you’re starting something new? Do you have guiding principles, or is it more intuition and iteration?

Not a real guiding principle really for the aesthetics part at least. Here it’s just a lot of researching the domain, intuition, and then a ton of iterations.

For designing things (i.e. how they work), the only real principle that I have is spending a lot of time trying to nail the core experience or mechanic of each app. Like refining the puzzle mechanic in Art of Fauna. Making the learning view in Study Snacks feel right. Making adding and tracking books in PocketShelf feel seamless.

Everything around it then falls into place. I also iterate a lot there, but I also reuse a lot from old projects. There is only so much you can do to make i.e. a settings screen feel nice. And I learned that as long as the initial impression and the core mechanic of your app work really well, people are usually much more forgiving for the rest of it.

12) Indie Life - What has been the hardest part and the most fun part of being a (now full-time!) indie dev?

For me, it’s definitely hard to juggle my time between all my projects. Like Study Snacks still hasn’t gotten the Liquid Glass update, and other apps deserve some long-due love. And there are parts that I just don’t really like doing, from taxes to legal stuff and parts of marketing. But it’s just part of the deal.

I really enjoy the freedom the indie life brings. From being able to jump on a bike in the middle of the day to spending an unreasonable amount of time working on a tiny detail in an app. And that flexibility also allowed me to travel a lot. I’ve been to seven? conferences this year, plus WWDC. And doing this, meeting friends from all over the world regularly, helps with creativity, but also with the loneliness trap that you can fall into when working alone from home.

13) Indie Life - What’s next for Art of Fauna, Pocket Shelf, or any other projects you’re excited about? Anything you can share with us?

Last week I announced Art of Flora, which is a sister app to Art of Fauna, based on the plant world. It’s only going to be released in March, but people can pre-order it right now (Please do!)

As for PocketShelf, we want to finally add statistics, make an Apple Watch app and do more community based things. Many good things ahead!

Art of Fauna is getting extended with more puzzles and updates as well. The most exciting one here comes this week - A puzzle pack that I created together with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Archives in New York to inform people about the Hudson Canyon.

And then next year I want to give some older projects more love (especially Study Snacks, Subwords and Asymmetric) and maybe even dare to try a new app project! We will see.

14) Do you have any other indie devs that readers should follow / lookout for?

How many can I name here? :D I’m fortunate enough to have so many inspiring indie devs as my friends. Without their help and feedback, I definitely wouldn’t have achieved any of this.

I would start with my partner in crime for building PocketShelf - Frank Solleveld. But also my long-time friends Frederik Riedel, who builds One Sec, and Leo Mehlig of Structured. Hidde van der Ploeg and Pol Piella of Helm (and NowPlaying) fame. Everyone probably knows Jordi Bruin, Antoine van der Lee, and Mustafa Yusuf. And then everyone should know Seb “UIKit” Vidal and Nils Bernschneider, who build Duet and Lengo respectively.

Sofia, Cesár, Bobby, Danijela, Dani, Rob, Chris, Chris, Ryan, Andy, Monika… I could go on here for a while. But that’s the amazing thing with our community. It overflows with kind and inspiring people. I love it <3

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We made it to Issue #130! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️

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Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs

📆 Today I’m featuring Vidit Bhargava.

Vidit is the creator of LookUp and Zones. LookUp is an easy to use english dictionary app, with beautiful Word of the Day illustrations, and an award winning design to lookup all you want to know about about a word in a single search. It’s a great reading companion for avid readers, and a visual learning tool for kids, new English speakers, or just about anyone looking to proactively build their vocabulary. Zones simplifies the process of time zone conversion with a simple and easy to use interface. Both of these apps are apps that I use daily 🙂 I’m so bad at remembering the meaning of words and I also tend to have friends that like to use big or obscure words that I’m not familiar with 😵‍💫 LookUp makes finding and learning these easy but also in a beautiful way! It’s more than just a dictionary. It’s an elecantly designed word learning tool. And Zones is always running my menu bar. I’m always talking with teammates and friends living all over the world and its necessary to know to know the time where they live. I try to make sure I’m not interrupting them outside of work hours or while they are sleeping 😇 I’ve had LookUp and Zones installed for a while and it makes me so happy that I’m able to feature Vidit this week! Go checkout both of these apps today 💪

👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.

Vidit Bhargavas

Q&A

1) What is your name? Where do you live?

Hi! I am Vidit Bhargava. I am based out of New Delhi, India.

2) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?

I design and develop apps under the name of Squircle Apps. Two of my most popular apps are LookUp and Zones.

I started designing apps with my elder brother when I was in high-school (He’d program the apps while I designed them). Eventually started doing both design and development of the apps, as my brother moved into a sales-strategy role at a larger tech company.

By the time I completed my undergraduate course in 2018, LookUp was was popular enough to be able to work on it full-time, and that’s what I have been doing ever since.

Inside the tech sphere, The field of Emerging Technologies has always fascinated me. Currently, I am excited about this idea of ubiquitous computing where technology disappears in the background but is available when we need it, instead of always being inside a rectangular display that we always need to carry along with ourselves.

My interests outside of tech are very varied. In my spare time I love baking pizza, watching movies, or reading fiction. I also, pretty much watch all Cricket matches where India is playing, if they are happening while in my work time, I play the commentary in background (as if it were a podcast!).

3) Have you ever considered yourself an indie developer?

Always. I’ve only been an indie developer throughout my professional career and have never had a job besides that.

4) What got you started/interested in creating your own applications outside of your “normal” job?

In school, I was the one of those kids who were very fond of computers and took a keen interest in designing web pages, I’d participate in inter school web designing competition, and also maintained an e-magazine for students to keep abreast with technology news and to catch up on tech-trivia.

Being an Apple fan and a tech-nerd, I was always interested in news around Apple products, so when the iPhone SDK and the App Store launched, I spent all my time reading about it. The idea that one could build and ship something to thousands of people worldwide was really exciting to me. My passion for web design and my fondness for Apple products quickly translated into a passion for App Design, and I was downloading Xcode and playing around in Interface builder in no time.

Soon I was trying to convince my brother to learn iOS programming so that we could turn our ideas and designs into actual apps!

5) How do you balance your time between friends/family, work, hobbies, and indie dev?

I try to. For me, the pandemic was a big eye opener in terms of taking the time to unwind seriously. Six months into the pandemic, I realised that my work balance had gone for a toss, and that I was burned out. These last couple of years, I have been working on restoring that balance.

Evenings are for family time. I stop work at 5PM and then spend the entire evening with my family.

I spend my weekends unwinding, that usually means baking pizzas or going to watch a movie.

6) LookUp - LookUp is one of my most used apps! I’m always looking up the definition of words when I talk to people online. I’m so bad at words but LookUp is always there to help me 😊 LookUp is so much more than a dictionary app though! When did you start making LookUp? What were your original goals?

My brother and I used to share an 8 GB iPod Touch back in 2012. I was in my final year at high school and was studying for my finals. Being a non-native English speaker, I’d often need a dictionary to learn and understand the meaning of various words, but dictionary apps at that time took up more than 200 MB of storage, and were cluttered with numerous features I didn’t need.

I wanted to make a dictionary app that was as delightful and easy-to-use as the iPod and iOS itself. A dictionary where finding definitions was easy and not bloated with junk features. That’s how LookUp came to be.

My original goals were to create a minimalist, easy to use app that provided contextually rich definitions.

Over time, the app has built on top of that, and a lot of the features (like Collections and Quizzes) have been a result off the feedback that our early users shared with us.

7) LookUp - The “Word of the Day” is probably my favorite feature of LookUp! It’s such a fun thing to wake up to in the morning each day. It’s not just about the word but its also about the artwork! How is the word of the day chosen and how is it matched up with the artwork? Is it all done manually or do you have some sort of algorithm or automated process for this?

It’s all done manually. I maintain a list of words that I come across and find interesting, along with a set of words that are relevant for students taking their English Proficiency exams. This is how the words are chosen mostly. Occasionally, the words are a bit topical too. For example, during holidays this year, one of our words of the day was ‘bauble’ which are small Christmas ornaments.

In terms of actually designing the artwork. The process involves designing one central element that pictographically represents the word’s definition and then picking up the right typeface that goes with the definition. So if it’s a formal word the typeface is likely to be a formal looking serif font, if it’s more fun, I try new, more eclectic fonts. I do maintain a library of designs that I have created over time, and the fonts I have used, so it’s easier and faster for me to make more consistent designs.

8) LookUp - What was one of the most fun things to build in LookUp? What was the most difficult thing?

Really enjoyed building the Learn feature in LookUp. I spent a few months researching on spaced repetition techniques and learning methodologies, and then designed and built something that took the physical flash card approach and gave an interactive technology-driven spin to it.

Building the Learn feature was an entire summer’s worth of work, but the things I learnt during the process informed me in how I wanted to build things for LookUp.

Recently, the challenging thing I worked on was the Reading Mode feature in LookUp. It’s a mode that the users can turn on to create Live Activity that exposes key LookUp functions in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen.

Live Activities is a new API which also meant that many things that didn’t work were simply bugs that developers at Apple were also working on fixing. I didn’t have an iPhone 14 Pro while developing for the Dynamic Island, so I was really guessing how people would use it. And the feature wasn’t exactly what Apple marketed as a use case for the Dynamic Island, so there was the added anxiousness of whether this’d be something people find useful. But ultimately it was a worthwhile challenge as the people do seem to be enjoying it.

9) LookUp - One of the things I love the most about being a developer is being able to learn different domains for the projects I’m working on. How has your knowledge of words grown since you’ve been working on LookUp? Do you have any favorite or least favorite words?

For example, I’ve learnt about how the same word can not only have multiple definitions but those multiple definitions can have different origins too. So, the word could be the same, but it could have arrived at a certain usage through many different ways.

While I was building the Learn feature for LookUp, I researched heavily on learning techniques and ways in which one could gamify the learning process.

Occasionally in my research of new features, I also stumble across ideas that are relevant to the larger sphere of technology too. So while I was reading about learning techniques, I came across this concept of Habit Loops, and how social media uses these habit loops for engagement, that ultimately makes people addicted to these apps, there’s a lot of work that goes into making sure that the habit we’re encouraging through habit loops are actually positive habits.

I don’t particularly have favourites, but I do find it fascinating to see how words from different languages have landed into the English vernacular. For example, the word cushy is derived from the Urdu word for pleasure i.e. “Khush”. Or, how Shampoo, which wasn’t introduced in Europe until the 19th century, is derived from the Hindi word for a head massage i.e. “champu / champi”.

10) Zones - I love this app so much! I’ve been a Zones user since I think the day you launched it. I work at a company that is fully remote and it’s so nice to be able to quickly see what time it is for my teammates. What inspired you to build Zones? Working with dates and time zones is rarely fun. Did you run into any weird date or timezone issues while building Zones?

The idea of creating a Time Zones app has been on my mind for a long time. My cousins are scattered across different time zones, and it’s always a challenge for us to find a common time to chat.

But this most recent push to build something in the time zones area came in late 2021, when I was scheduled to attend an online meet-up, two weekends in a row and between the two meet-ups, cities in US made a Daylight savings time change. I ended up being one hour early for the meet-up, which given the time zone difference was way too early in the day here in Delhi.

Working with time zones is probably one of the least fun aspects of software development, and there was a fair share of weird date-time issues while building Zones.

I spent a good amount of time building and fixing the time conversion wrapper I had built for Zones. After I thought I had everything ready, I went to WWDC, and there one of my friends shared how they were facing this really peculiar Time Zone issue which was only affecting cities in Australia, so I spent a week locating and fixing more bugs. Did you know that apparently out of the different ways to initialise a TimeZone in Swift, some of them are more reliable than the others?

11) LookUp, Zones - What’s next?! Do you have any future features that you can share with us?!

Zones just had a major update with a subscription roll out and some key improvements to Weather and Holidays data. With Zones, the next few months are going to be about ironing out any issues and working on user requests.

LookUp has a lot of exciting updates planned for this spring. I am working on a redesign of the Learning features and the quizzes. There are other major overhauls planned too, but I hope to be able to talk about them in the coming weeks.

Apart from LookUp and Zones I am building a movie recommendation app. It’s built on a unique take on movie recommendation, helpfully there should a beta available soon.

12) What’s been the hardest part of being an indie dev? What’s the most fun part of being an indie dev?

The hardest part has been juggling the various responsibilities of indie development. Indie Development is not just about the development of apps, it’s also about ideation, design, and marketing of the app. The marketing part can be particularly challenging.

Oddly enough, it’s also fun to be able to gain all that cross-functional knowledge. I feel I’ve learnt more about design, development, and marketing through building LookUp and Zones than I’d have learnt on a job.

The most fulfilling part of indie development is being able to create something and put it out in front of people, and then see them enjoy it. When someone writes in to say that the app helped them prepare for their TOEFL test, I feel extremely satisfied.

13) Is there anything else you’d like to tell the indie dev community about you?

That’s about it. Always happy to help fellow indie developers with anything I can. I am available at mastodon @viditb@mastodon.social and on Twitter at @viditb.

14) Do you have any other indie devs that readers should follow / lookout for?

My following list is almost all indie developers. Everyone in the indie development community is largely welcoming and helpful.

Charlie Chapman of Dark Noise, Mustafa Yusuf of the Task App, James Thomson of PCalc are just some of the indie devs who are incredibly kind have always been helpful.

Newly Released and Updated Indie Apps

Here are some newly released and newly updated apps from this past week! If you would like to possibly see your app in this list, please submit your app to the look at me form 👀

Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊

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And go to Twitter and give @IndieDevMonday a follow… or multiple follows if you manage more than one Twitter account 😜