Happy new year! In this newsletter: my Unwrap Live event is almost here, coding a game with SwiftUI, and making this the year you succeed on the App Store.

Unwrap Live!

On January 28th I’m running a full-day online event called Unwrap Live, which will cover four key areas: SwiftUI, networking, testing, and performance. These four form the core components of almost all new applications, so getting them right will really set you up for success.

If you’re a Hacking with Swift+ subscriber you automatically get a free ticket to the event.

If you aren’t a Hacking with Swift subscriber you can get your ticket here: https://ti.to/hacking-with-swift/unwrap-live-2023

It’s going to be a fantastic day, and I look forward to seeing you there.

Thanks to sponsors

Last month Hacking with Swift had two sponsors, and I’m really grateful for their support!

RevenueCat make in-app subscriptions straightforward and reliable so you can get back to building your app – and best of all it's free if your app makes less than $10k/mo. Find out more here.

CodeMagic automate building, code signing, and publishing your iOS and macOS apps to the App Store, and you get 500 M1 Mac build minutes for free. Find out here.

SwiftUI… for games?

I’ve been doing a series of livestreams on Hacking with Swift+ about building games with SwiftUI, but at the end of December I did a public stream building a game with SwiftUI to celebrate my birthday – while also helping to raise money to help folks experiencing homelessness this winter.

The entire stream is available to rewatch on YouTube: in under two hours we build something that’s a lot of fun out of nothing more than SwiftUI and SF Symbols. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/TcGnO5VSJlI

My fundraiser is also still available, so if you found the stream useful and want to donate to folks in need you can do so here – thank you!

Finding success on the App Store

There is no better time to get your app on the App Store than now – we have more users available than ever, SwiftUI makes it easier than ever, and I have a huge collection of tutorials to help teach you everything you need to know.

Before writing this newsletter I sat down and made a list of all the reasons I know folks struggle to find success on the App Store. Perhaps I’ll share more of the list in the future, but for now I want to focus on the thing right at the top – the thing that most gets in the way of thousands of people who want to become full-time indie developers.

It’s this: putting everything into the first app idea you have.

There’s a story you might have heard about a pottery teacher who divided their class into two halves: Quality and Quantity. The Quality group had to make one perfect pot in order to get an A, whereas the Quantity group got the highest grade if they made the most pots.

What the teacher found was that all the best pots were made by the ones in the Quantity group, which sounds counterintuitive at first. But it does make sense when you think about it: if you stop stressing about getting throwing everything into your one big idea, and are instead willing to try and fail a dozen times first, you will learn a lot from your mistakes and do better as a result.

This isn’t just theory; it’s exactly the approach I practiced with my apps on the App Store. I’ve shipped well over a hundred of them – most of which were complete failures! – but in doing so I learned a lot about how to get from idea to reality quickly and effectively, got a very clear idea of how to market my work, and also built up a huge library of code I can draw on quickly.

It’s really important you understand that the chances of you hitting it big with your first app are very small indeed – you’d have to be very lucky to get a #1 hit on your first try. So, don’t spend six months writing and rewriting over and over: get something out there that you like and that solves a real problem, and see what the world thinks. Remember, if only 0.001% of App Store customers buy your app that’s still over 10,000 sales!

To give you some context, I launched my first app back in 2009, which was a flashcards app called Flashzilla to help folks learn languages. I built it mostly so I could learn Objective-C and Interface Builder, which back then was separate from Xcode. Fun fact: Apple rejected it at first because it had “Flash” in the name, which back then was a big no-no! Total downloads: ~1000 at $0.99.

My second app was called Brain Party, and was a mini game compilation that I spent a huge amount of time on, adding more and more games to make it maximum value for money. After launch I realized people don’t search for “mini game compilation” on the App Store, so it was basically impossible to find. Total downloads: ~3900 at $0.99.

My third app was called Jewel Jam HD, and was one of the games from Brain Party respun for the launch of the first iPad. This was obviously much easier to make because the code and assets were reused from Brain Party, and because it was much more targeted it had a clearer sales proposition. Total downloads: ~3120 at $0.99 – almost as many as Brain Party, despite being only 1 of its 20 games.

My fourth app was Mancala HD, and was a board game for iOS and later also tvOS. This didn’t take a huge amount of work to make, but it was the first time I actually licensed assets to use to make my work look better. Total sales: ~32,500 at $0.99

My fifth app was called SPQR, and was an app for Latin students to read in two languages, have a dictionary to hand, and also practice their grammar. Total sales: ~56,800 at $6.99.

Those are just five of the apps I’ve shipped, but you can see it took me a while to find success. In fact, that last app was so successful I spun it off into a whole range of apps for a similar audience. It took me a while to find success, but I didn’t stop until I got there – and I didn’t stop even after I got there, either.

So, ship your big app idea, but don’t feel bad if it’s not paying your mortgage by the summer – try again, then try again, then try some more, because nothing you learn along the way will be wasted.

So… how about July?

In 2019, 2020, and 2021 I ran a conference called Hacking with Swift Live, with all proceeds going to charity. In doing so I managed to raise over $100,000 for charity, which has made a huge impact to folks in need.

Last year I was just exhausted so I took a break, but this year… well, let’s just say I’m looking at the start of July very closely 👀

News from friends

Natascha Fadeeva has released her first book, and I already bought my copy: iOS Job Interview Questions & Answers. She’s really crammed in a wide range of topics, including SwiftUI, Xcode, networking, concurrency, persistence, and a lot more.

You can find it here: https://tanaschita.gumroad.com/l/ebook-ios-qa

Discounts on books

Here's a reminder of the supporter's discount codes you can use to save money on all my books:

Pro SwiftUI: https://gum.co/pro-swiftui/hws-thankyou
Pro Swift: https://gum.co/proswift/hws-thankyou
Swift Design Patterns: https://gum.co/swift-design-patterns/hws-thankyou
Testing Swift: https://gum.co/testing-swift/hws-thankyou
SwiftUI By Example: https://gum.co/swiftui/hws-thankyou
Hacking with iOS: https://gum.co/hws-book-pack/hws-thankyou
Swift on Sundays Volume One: https://gum.co/swift-on-sundays-1/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume One: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-1/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume Two: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-2/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume Three: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-3/hws-thankyou
Swift Coding Challenges: https://gum.co/swiftcc/hws-thankyou
Dive Into SpriteKit: https://gum.co/dive-into-spritekit/hws-thankyou
Hacking with macOS: https://gum.co/hwmacos/hws-thankyou
Hacking with watchOS: https://gum.co/hwwatchos/hws-thankyou
Hacking with tvOS: https://gum.co/hwtvos/hws-thankyou
Server-Side Swift Vapor Edition: https://gum.co/server-side-swift-vapor/hws-thankyou
Hacking with Swift Live Series 1: https://gum.co/hws-live-1/hws-thankyou
Objective-C for Swift Developers: https://gum.co/objcswift/hws-thankyou
Beyond Code: https://gum.co/beyondcode/hws-thankyou

Remember, if you already bought books from either the Swift Power Pack, the Swift Platform Pack, or the Swift Plus Pack and want to upgrade to the full bundle, I can create a custom discount code for you that takes off whatever you already paid – just email me.

One more thing…

A few days ago I heard the terrible news that Matthew Garlington, a wonderful, encouraging, and supportive mentor in the iOS community, passed away. We will all miss his relentless desire to help other people achieve their dreams.

Matthew moved into iOS development from working in the healthcare industry, and made it his mission to help others succeed – particularly those who didn’t have a traditional computer science background.

If you’re able to, I would encourage you to donate to Underdog Devs in his name. Underdog Devs is a group of folks who mentor budding software engineers who were previously incarcerated or who came from an economically disadvantaged background, and they do incredible work to help people just like Matthew did.

Donate here

Thank you.

Paul

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: April 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: March 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: February 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: January 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: December 2024

See all posts from Paul Hudson