The Business and the Boutique
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Some apps are made to be big boy business ventures. Some are for the love of the game, man. I’ve been building a business, but yet…the itch remains.
If you’ve been around here a while, you’ll remember Spend Stack, a (if I may) delightful little personal finance app. Or, was it a budget tracker? Or a way to track a running total of stuff? I dunno, it was sort of all those things (which became an issue).
But, for all of its faults, there was one thing it absolutely was: An iOS-first playground for me. Drag and drop, multiple windows — all things that were new and novel at the time — were implemented over any actual product feature. I absolutely loved working on it. I’ll never forget its App Store features, being on demo units, the press coverage, App of the Day!
While Elite Hoops is doing great and it remains my primary focus, it’ll never really be that fun little indie darling. I want one of those, too. I want my cake. And I want to eat all of it.
But over the years, I’ve learned a bit more. If I ever made another “love of the game” app, two things would have to be true:
- I would need a stable, business-could-grow project. I have that now with Elite Hoops.
- And, if I made another love of the game app, it would need a clear audience and “thing it does” defined first.
Introducing Alyx
And so that brings me to Alyx!
It has a clear mission — to track caffeine and see how it affects your body and sleep.
And, it's kinda fun!
So, what does that mean?
- I’ll try to over-polish freaking everything.
- I’ll go 200% in on Apple APIs like Shortcuts, widgets, etc.
- Will I spend each summer integrating Apple’s new toys over anything else? You bet!
- Dare I include an App Shortcut as part of onboarding, and jerryrig a way to detect when it was ran, then update the onboarding UI using
TextRendererAPIs to make a video game-ish text bubble congratulating them? No-brainer!
It’s funny, I’ve actually used Alyx for two years now. I figured now was a good time to ship it out, and have it be my muse. Another “Spend Stack” if you will, but refined a bit from all rough edges I hit releasing, managing and creating it.
I’m trying my hardest to hit iOS 26 with this one, that’s always been a huge goal of mine. Ship a new app with a new version of iOS! I’m looking good so far, and because it’s my playground, the entire app is built around App Intents. Literally anything you can do in-app, you can do via an intent (even small stuff, like setting the app’s theme).
Elite Hoops is here to grow and make money. Alyx hopefully will do the same, but it’ll be my pretty little playground. Now I have a business, and my boutique shop.
Until next time ✌️