Happy 10th Birthday, AppStore!
Ten years ago, on June 10 2008 Apple started the AppStore. With only a few hundred apps in the beginning it’s amazing to see to what it has grown today. Fantastic indie careers have been kicked off thanks to the AppStore. Many new startups are only successful because of the power of the AppStore. On this historical day, I decided to tell my personal AppStore story. This is about how I started to develop apps with iRedstone:
When I created iRedstone, I had no idea what object oriented programming was. I had no idea what a ViewController was. It was all in one UIView. But it worked. You don’t have to be an engineer to create apps.
— Frederik Riedel 🐻❄️ (@frederikRiedel) July 10, 2018
And some other developers started to share their stories as well. Amazing, interesting, hilarious, personal, funny things. I hope that this shows everyone else that there are no magic skills required to create impressing apps. And that releasing an imperfect app in the beginning is not embarrassing at all.
I didn't understand retain/release for years after starting Cocoa development; I was a terrible dev and knew little of the computer science. I still made really cool things — the best way to learn is by doing https://t.co/L6ak1qvz2m
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) July 10, 2018
The first version of @orbisapp had all of its code in the app delegate. https://t.co/PSpw641aDC
— Evan Coleman (@evandcoleman) July 10, 2018
The first iOS app I published had almost all of its code in the app delegate and I spent a very long time figuring out how to implement UITextFieldDelegate https://t.co/fzlPyHDo9h
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) July 10, 2018
When I first started OS X development, I didn’t understand that I could create multiple instances of the same view, so I just created one in IB and called `copy` on it a bunch of times. https://t.co/PSpw641aDC
— Evan Coleman (@evandcoleman) July 10, 2018
When I created @ShufflePlayPlus, it was my first time actually learning Swift and I didn't know the difference between a scrollView and a collectionView. I'm still far from knowledgeable, but I love what I do. https://t.co/edCsTihlov
— Tyler Phillips (@TheTylerJP) July 10, 2018
When I wrote my first iOS App 8 years ago I had no idea what pointers are. I just added the stars when needed and it magically worked. 🙃 https://t.co/Sn7fbDVatU
— Dave (@fossil12) July 10, 2018
Version 1.0 of @eirtext stored all of its message history in NSUserDefaults. I had no idea what I was doing. 😅 https://t.co/JJoN7nYEiM
— Vinny Coyne (@vinnycoyne) July 10, 2018
When the App Store launched 10 years ago, I didn’t know how to program. This year I created my own programming language and IDE. It’s amazing what you can learn on the internet these days! https://t.co/HenS0XOjll
— Louis D'hauwe (@LouisDhauwe) July 10, 2018
When I got started with OS X development I couldn’t get my head around the difference between class and instance methods, I didn’t understand delegates, and I didn’t get why you wouldn’t just type everything as `id` 🙂 https://t.co/MvscBwWpWN
— Tim Andersson (@Boerworz) July 10, 2018
When I first submitted The Christmas List, I ran Shark (today would == Instruments) and found a memory leak. I panicked. Had no idea how to fix it and thought for sure it would cause a rejection. Little did I know 😂 https://t.co/KHo55cFxj9
— Erik Eggleston (@ErikEggleston) July 10, 2018
The first version of Routesy that launched 10 years ago today never released anything, because doing it the wrong way could crash it. So it just retained everything in memory for dear life. 😬 https://t.co/sfkU3zcAoW
— Steven Peterson 🏳️🌈 (@squeakytoy) July 10, 2018
I did my first iOS app excatly at the same way. I started developing with absolutely no experience, but I got a “plan” and that’s all. I was around 4 years ago. At the now I’m working as iOS dev and this is my main job. I love it 😍
— Bartosz Brzozowski (@zmakowani) July 10, 2018
I started iOS development at age 13 with an app called “iDelay Messages” It would take a message and then you could set a date to be reminded to send it later. It was buggy as hell and almost all of my code was written in the View Controller, but here I am as a junior CS major. https://t.co/TcMvUhbXwr
— Keeton Feavel (@Auxel_) July 10, 2018
When @jeff_lamarche and I worked on “Beginning iPhone Development” (one of the very first iOS dev books) we were under a strict NDA.
— Dark Mode Dave (@davemark) July 10, 2018
Extremely frustrating, especially when we hit SDK bugs, couldn’t ask for help. Thank god for Jeff’s big brain.
Amazing to watch this unfold. 😎 https://t.co/aeM15qwD26
I started coding using Objective-C and AppKit 7 years ago. One Mac App Store feature, some interesting client projects through my own company and two scholarships later I am beyond what I thought was ever possible for me.
— Max Langer (@mangerlahn) July 10, 2018
Stick to what you love to do, not where the money is ☺️ https://t.co/XsZvxs9eYt
When the App Store launched 10 years ago, I didn't know what programming was. Barely had access to a computer. 10 years later, I've published 2 apps on the App Store, and worked at a company that created products I used as a child. Look how time flies https://t.co/wFPAyNjBIM
— Andy Liang (@meteochu) July 11, 2018
When I was experimenting with some app ideas, it took me a week to figure out how to add data and create UITableViews. 😬😳🤗 https://t.co/XjnvWcDyrb
— Sai Kambampati 🎁 (@HeySaiK) July 11, 2018
The first app I wrote and published in 2009 was based off the FlipSideViewController template. All the business logic I dumped into the VCs and AppDelegate was the singleton to glue it all together. I had no clue about concurrency, little about memory management. But it worked. https://t.co/cg0I6qF1yS
— Marcus Kida (@Kidmar) July 11, 2018
My first iOS app happened entirely in the app delegate, was just one giant switch case break statement, and somehow managed to implement a UI PickerView
— the year of the bathtub toaster (@MEKohler) July 11, 2018
On top of that, some users recognized iRedstone (someone they know retweeted me). What a great coincidence at the 10th anniversary of the AppStore!
Wow, what a coincidence that I find you here!
— Jan (@D3m3r1on) July 10, 2018
Someone I follow retweeted your story, and I read iRedstone and was like "don't I know that app?"
I downloaded it years ago, and I even remember your name :D
Glad to hear what iRedstone made possible for you!
You have an app on the store as well? Why not share your story! You have an idea for an app? Go out and make it! Did you like this article? Follow me on Twitter, so you don‘t miss any new posts!Dude, I remember using iRedstone. I still have it in my purchases. Like you, I started programming (for real) with iOS apps and made most of the same mistakes. Almost all of my code was in the ViewControllers. Now I’m a Junior in college for CS!
— Keeton Feavel (@Auxel_) July 10, 2018