Dino Builds @highDevGuy

@galshirart if you can't beat it, join it :D Why not just use AI as part of your toolset when working with clients. IMO, much higher chance to hire someone who actually uses latest and greatest AI tools than someone who is doing things the old and slow way without AI 🤷🏼‍♂️

Ouch. @Apple rejected my Flappy Bird remake as SPAM! Apparently, it only has “minor differences” from the original. The interesting part is that, based on the player stats, it looks like nobody from Apple review team actually played it 🤔 So, can I turn this small disaster into shameless self promotion? 😅 Try it and tell me honestly... is it really just another Flappy Bird clone, or is there enough here to make it feel like its own game? You can try it on flappy.fartingpixel.com This might also ruin my 30 day goal to ship something for @shipordie_ 😭

@adamlyttleapps @to10kmrr Even if you have a valid point, no one will or should take you seriously with that attitude. Instead of attacking a person you could have suggested a better way to do it… or just ignore and do your own page better since you obviously know how to do it 🤷‍♂️

You can already try it out here: flappy.fartingpixel.com I am regularly pushing updates there and soon to TestFlight too. I think you should already be able to join the TestFlight beta here: testflight.apple.com/join/aNdHvr3r so you get notified as soon as I push out the first external build.

I just joined @shipordie_ with a small side project that is helping me find my way back into game development, the reason I started programming almost 30 years ago. Somewhere along the way, I drifted away from it while focusing on paying the bills. Now that part time work covers them, I finally have the freedom to build something purely for fun again. I started last weekend, and my goal is to ship within the next three weeks and meet the 30 day deadline.

@adamlyttleapps I stopped using “for you” and now just look at “following”. Value I get is so much higher. I see a lot of the same stuff in “for you”… always same clickbait tricks to make it big by people who haven’t built anything interesting 🤷‍♂️

@thenewboston_og BTW, the app can be found here if anyone is interested: apps.apple.com/us/app/randall…

Today marks 5,555 days since the release of the first iOS app I ever made: RandALL. It started with Objective-C tutorials from Bucky on the @thenewboston_og YT channel... back when Xcode and Interface Builder had a bunch of floating windows, and constant memory management related crashes were just part of the experience. When I started learning iOS development some ~16 years ago, I did not know anyone else doing iOS development. I didn't have a Mac, I couldn't even afford an iPhone. So I dual-booted my Intel gaming PC and turned it into a Hackintosh just so I could learn to build apps. While following tutorials, I started making a simple randomizer app. A coin flip here, a dice roll there, random numbers, random choices. Nothing fancy. Just something fun to learn with. That little learning project somehow stayed alive for 15 years! I recently updated that app for iOS 26 with a brand new design, and a few new features. Over the years, I have tried almost every monetization strategy on this app and it seems that the hard paywall has the best ROI... even though it is not the best user experience. Lately I have had a bit more time for side projects again, so my plan is to polish my existing apps, ship more updates, and slowly build new things. Vibe coding has made the whole process faster, lighter, and honestly more fun. The next experiment: putting all my monetized apps under one subscription, so people get more value and have a better reason to stay subscribed. Also, a few thank-yous to some of the people who made my journey possible: Obviously, @bucky_roberts gets the most credit... without his simplified bite-size approach to iOS development I would have probably given up at the start. @twostraws, thanks for Kickstart. It surfaced this weird little anniversary and made me appreciate how long this app has been around. Also, your YT channel and hackingWithSwift have been a great source of inspiration for both private projects and client work. @adamlyttleapps, thanks for showing what is possible when you consistently work on side projects and actually monetize them properly. @seanallen_dev, thanks for the tutorials and prototype projects over the years. Your code snippets are all over my apps. And most importantly, thank you to my wife for understanding why I still disappear into late-night side project mode after full days of client work. Looking forward to the crazy future ahead!

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At first, I charged $0.99 for the app. It did not really work, so I switched to a freemium model: a few features for free, and $0.99 to unlock the rest. In the first year, I barely made $100. Just enough to cover the Apple Developer license, which back then felt very expensive 😅 I guess the only regret was that I found a job and started working... which workout out great in some sense, but I got locked into the world of building other people's dreams instead of my own... and as my salary grew, it became harder to break free. Now I am working 3 days a week for clients so I finally have some time to try and make something on the side... the only problem is that anyone can ship apps these days... and parenting takes priority over side projects 🫠

@thenewboston_og It is actually funny that @bucky_roberts is the only one on the list that never got a dime from me... and he had the largest impact on my career from the people I've listed :D

@MUITrunkz @Pyrix_RL I guess that is the problem… with age come responsibilities… so the time available for playing begins to shrink to the point that I’m happy if I can play 2-3 hours in a week.

@seraleev Honestly, I hope they do raise the quality bar. App Store is already getting flooded with low effort, vibe coded trash. At the same time, I hope Apple gives faster reviews to vetted developers who have a history of shipping real products and not spamming the store.

Switched from donation/tip model to required subscription... this time next year we'll be millionaires :D #buildInPublic #failInPublic

I feel like I am getting brain damage from all the badly generated AI music playing everywhere 🙉

@elonmusk drone pilot skills... 2/10 :D But a beautiful place and a nice car <3

@andi_losing is it worth doing? I suck with social media and avoid it... but I see a lot of people talk about it being the best way to market the app... I wish there was an easier way to advertise to the right people

@atombraingames I would LOVE if games like this could open some kind of modding ability to use voice models / AI. I suck at reading and fuck up the story because I misread things