[Pyramus]

It's one thing to "write an app" and something else completely to bring it to a standard consumable by lay users.

Having published and maintained an app that is in active use by even a couple hundred users gives you an advantage in employability and quite a big one at that.

Your post makes it seem like you have neither published an app yourself nor hired single devs who have, and it's easy to not appreciate.

[Grustaf]

I've been a professional iOS developer for a decade. 6 months is way too long for that app. My very first app took 10 weeks, including learning to program, and it was more complex than MaskerAid. And better looking, was even featured in the app store in a few countries.

[Pyramus]

Well then - congratulations! You are an outlier.

From my experience significantly less than 5% of iOS/Android devs have created a somewhat popular app, and maintained it for some time.

[Grustaf]

Oh, it wasn't popular, only got a few thousand downloads, I was hired by a social media app right when I finished my own app so I never had time to market it. Not that I would know how to do that. It was just an experiment.

[vxNsr]

I just took a look at your website, and your profile there, such as it is, it says you “built product at Apple”. Not sure what that means, though it implies you worked at apple, meanwhile your LinkedIn profile only lists your finance and environmental industry positions, so not really sure what to make of that. Regardless you appear to be a 0.01%er congrats, but no need to talk down to others.

[Grustaf]

Unless you want to hire me or invest, you don't need to make anything of that. Just trust me, 6 months is way too long. Or listen to the cohosts' reaction when he mentions it.

Not talking down, just telling it like it is. There is no rule on HN that you may only post laudatory comments. That would make the whole site useless. My point is that if he wants to be employable, he either needs to become more efficient, or at least hide how slow he is.

I'm sure he's raking in cash from the podcast so he shouldn't really worry about it at all in my opinion.

[scarface74]

It was a passion project. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to make even as much money as he makes from being a cohost on a podcast that charges $5500/ad read * 3 ad reads.

I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get it done either.

[Grustaf]

That's not the impression I got. To me it sounded like he was hoping to earn money from it. He said the same thing about his youtube channel, which also seemed very unlikely.

[scarface74]

He’s been friends with most of the most successful indie developers in the iOS world - his cohost Marco - do you really think that Marco didn’t help set realistic expectations?

[scarface74]

Now let’s say you were already making over a quarter million a year doing one podcast for 3 hours a week. How much effort would you put into an app?

[Grustaf]

Zero, that's my point. It's a waste of time.

[cjensen]

It's something to talk about on a podcast, so it is not a waste of time. Also, for many of us programmers, we really need programming in our lives otherwise we get that itch.

Your comments have been terribly absolutist about your own opinions. Please accept that other people have different priorities than you. Accept that other people have different comfort levels regarding their children's privacy than you. There's nothing wrong with your priorities, but there's also nothing wrong with people whose priorities are different.

[Grustaf]

I'm not saying people don't hide their children's faces, I know they do, saw it first in Japan more than a decade ago.

Im also not saying anything against his priorities, I don't care how he spends his time.

What I am saying is I don't think this app will make money, so if that is his main motivation, then it's a waste of time.

[scarface74]

So you have never done passion projects just to keep your skills up and stay familiar with an ecosystem?

[Grustaf]

No, not really. I've done passion projects for things I have a passion for, but not for keeping my skills up.

[scarface74]

Well many people do. Like Casey, I did a pivot from pure software development to a job that pays much more given my skillset and interest. But is much more of a niche.

I keep an active open source profile just so I can pivot back to pure software development if needed. Casey likely makes more as a podcast host than he would make in corp dev as a mobile developer. Before that he was a .Net developer.