Robert (@Developer__Rob) header
Robert (@Developer__Rob) profile picture

iOS indie dev 🚀 Building ComingUp in public | Sharing every win, mistake, and lesson along the way.

Joined January 2023
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The latest version of ComingUp just hit the App Store! New features: •Add attachments to events (tickets, photos, notes) •Share events privately via iCloud (CloudKit sharing) •Improved design + performance throughout #indiedev #buildinpublic apps.apple.com/gb/app/coming…
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ComingUp is in 8 languages, and I don't speak any of them besides English. No translators, no native speakers checking. AI does the first pass, then I check every string against Apple's own wording for that language. Solo devs shipping in other languages: how are you doing it?
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Are you letting your coding agents push straight to main, or does everything go through a branch and a PR? Mine work on a branch and open a PR, and I review it before anything merges.
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ComingUp's Siri answers won't be plain text. They'll show the same ticket cards you see in the app, with the days count matching what Siri says out loud. Still on a branch, but it already feels like part of the app instead of a bolt-on.
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77 followers here last Friday. 214 by Monday morning. No tricks. The posts that did it were the ones where I asked what you're building and actually went and looked. Still working out what to do with that. Thanks for being here 👋
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I use ComingUp every day. I add things in the app, then the widget keeps them in front of me. Plans on the same day stack up, and a tap flips through them on the Home Screen. If you build something, use it every day. That's where you find what's missing. #buildinpublic #iosdev
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Text("+\(count)") quietly ends up in your String Catalog as "+%lld", waiting to be translated. If it's just a number, skip localisation: Text(verbatim: "+\(count)") Found it on ComingUp's Siri cards, where a "+2" badge was sitting in the catalog.
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How often do you ship app updates? I've settled into releasing ComingUp about once a week. Whatever's ready by the cut goes in, the rest waits for next week. Weekly, monthly, or when it's done?
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Something I didn't expect: about 60% of ComingUp's downloads last month came from App Stores that aren't in English. France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, China and Japan. Four of them don't have a single rating. So that's where my App Store work goes next.
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Planned the first slice of Siri AI for ComingUp. You'll be able to ask: "What's coming up this week?" "How long until Mum's birthday?" "Who's going to the gig with me?" "What's my next event?" Four App Intents, plus events indexed so Siri can handle related questions too.
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Apple's new Xcode plugin for Claude Code beats xcodebuild and grepping logs. It can: • check one file for errors without a full build • render SwiftUI previews, no build-and-run • run named tests • search Apple's current docs /plugin install xcode@claude-plugins-official
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I use AI to build ComingUp every day, and I still have to check its work. It'll happily write code that runs. Knowing if it'll scale, stay secure, or fall over in six months takes experience. That's the bit I enjoy helping newer devs with.
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It's Sunday, and I don't really do lazy Sundays. I'd rather be building something. A lot of you followed yesterday, so I want to see what you're building. Drop your app or project below, iOS or not, and I'll go and have a look 👀
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Lots of new faces since yesterday 👋 I'm Rob, building ComingUp, a countdown app that helps you build excitement, on your Home Screen, Lock Screen or with Live Activities. Christmas is 47 days away 🎄 apps.apple.com/app/apple-sto…
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A few events on one day? ComingUp's Journey widget stacks them as tickets. Tap the stack to step through them on the Home Screen, without opening the app. How: Button(intent:) runs an AppIntent that bumps that day's counter in the App Group and reloads only the Journey widget.
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My own scheduler had a bad day yesterday. The X posts went out on time, but two Bluesky posts meant for 4pm and 6pm only went out at 9am this morning. That's the deal with building your own tools: you're also the one on call. Next job is finding out why.
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Convert a project to the new JSON format from Terminal: xcodebuild -convert-project "Xcode Project" -project MyApp.xcodeproj And to go back to the old format: xcodebuild -convert-project pbxproj -project MyApp.xcodeproj Try it on a branch first.
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Just hit 100 followers 🎉 Not a massive number, but every one of them is a real person who cares about iOS dev, building in public or ComingUp. Two months ago I was mostly posting into the void. Thanks for following along. More SwiftUI lessons and ComingUp updates coming.
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ComingUp's TikTok has 6 followers, and Wednesday's three story videos each passed 700 views: 735, 727 and 725. A puppy, Santa, and a son home from uni for Christmas. They sell the moment you're counting down to, not the features. Small account, but people are watching.
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A Live Activity countdown doesn't need you pushing an update every second. Text(timerInterval: start...end, countsDown: true) The system ticks it for you. ComingUp's Live Activity covers the last hour before an event, and this one Text does all the counting.
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Definitely need try this. With the speed AI is breaching everything. Best to check before I get caught out.
This is incredible for app builders
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