This was 2024 (in photos)
A professional and personal year in-review
This was originally going to be a mini-hackathon essay about another VisionOS project. But I scrapped it because the content couldn’t stand on its own (read: it was boring). So, instead, I’m going with a full tumblr/xanga-style end-of-year review (with tons of photos). So get those eprops ready.
Shipped Projects
Some of these you know, some you don’t.
⬆️ The project that kicked this whole writing adventure off.
You can download it here.
You can read about it here.
⬆️ WristCheck is a VisionOS only app. It was part of the old Pixelfits app (more on that in the Flops section) but I wanted it to live on its own so I re-released it as WristCheck.
To the good people at WristCheck.com, please don’t David Chang me for using “Wrist Check”. Thanks in advance.
⬆️ Daylight, LUX, Sunscreend, Sunblockd, Sunscreenr. I’ve gone through so many names and I’m still not sure “Sunscreenr” is the final name. But one thing is for certain, this is the project that finally gave me some purpose again so here’s to finding its userbase in 2025 🤞🏻.
You can download it here.
You can read about it here.
⬆️ A new written interview series I started with developers where we wax nostalgic over the favorite thing they’ve ever brought to life. And all interviewees get some swaaaaag.
Talking w/ Todd Heaseley about building one of the App Store’s first big hits: Dark Sky.
Talking w/ Alvin Yu about making an app for his 3-year old.
⬆️ My friend Saki owns a coffee company based out of Redondo Beach. She’s incredible with coffee, terrible with technology. So I jumped in and gave their digital presence a facelift and improved her ordering system (subscriptions vs one-off text messages).
⬆️ Helping Saki with Azure led to another project with misc.coffee — a new coffee shop in Palos Verdes. Misc is a physical retail space so the priority for them was online ordering.
If you’re in PV, buy some coffee here.
Or follow them on IG here.
Flops
We talked about the good. Now, let’s talk about the flops!
⬆️ Pixelfits gave Alex and I something to do while our minds were in a dark place. It never went anywhere but this experience gave me the push to start writing. So even when projects failed, I could turn them into wins by turning them into content.
⬆️ The Surrogate (or Telepresence) app. This thing got a second life because I posted about it on Reddit four months after I made it 😂. I met the Belkin employee who sheparded this dock into production and his excitement upon hearing about Telepresence gave me the confidence to finally go public with it (even though it never shipped).
You can buy the dock here.
You can read about it here.
⬆️ Murphy. This is the project I referenced in the opening line. I went full nerd and tried to build the Robocop HUD in VisionOS. But without external camera access on the Vision Pro (prohibited by Apple for now), this project was dead in the water. I tried to fake it a few different ways using the new .hoverEffect API but had no luck.
Life in 2024
Switching away from work and to the stuff that actually matters.
⬆️ We adopted Frank in January 2024. I didn’t understand John Wick before, but I do now. Here are some of him with his favorite people. You can find more of Frank here.
⬆️ Croatia. There are not enough good things to say about this country. The food is incredible. The water is incredible. The people are incredible. And since my time at Hodinkee, I’ve been making a point of collecting microbrand watches from countries I’ve visited — like Marnaut Watches.
More on my time in Croatia: Hunting for Dragons at Klis Fortress.
⬆️ Amsterdam. I’ll try to find some nice things to say about this country… It was great to catch up with an old friend from UW and it was fun recognizing a location from Killing Eve? Yup. That’s all I got for Amsterdam.
⬆️ 10 years as an iOS developer but my first WWDC.
Read more about that experience here.
⬆️ And to cap it all off, a random assortment of photos from 2024:
Sorry, but I have to document this. It’s my first hole-in-one. Ever.
FRANK GOT AN IG LIKE FROM !!!
See the post here.Me in January 2024: “You (Frank) are not allowed on the couch.”
Me in December 2024: “Let me tuck you in upstairs in our bed.”
I read through this only for the DO YOU WANT IT??? story. Your thoughts also sum up my feelings on Amsterdam.