My apps @blackhighlighter.app and @getbarc.app have been updated for iOS 26! Go take a look at what I've been working on all summer: bsky.app/profile/blac...

Barc 25.7 is out now with Liquid Glass, updated app icons, and a small bug fix! getbarc.app/releases/25.7/

Black Highlighter has a ton of new stuff for iOS 26 (and iPadOS 26, and macOS 26…)! Here's a short rundown of some of the cool new things in Black Highlighter 25.5: (Go to the App Store at blackhighlighter.app/appstore to get the latest version)

Getting AI to replace the least-favorite part of any software dev's job: making estimates.

The next release of @blackhighlighter.app is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever even if you *don't* count iOS 26 features. It's just that the new design finally gave me the kick in the pants to figure out where all the cross-platform gaps are and fill them in.

Black Highlighter 25.2 is out with more integration with the rest of your system: - Launch the document scanner from Control Center or Shortcuts actions. - Redact images from Shortcut using your auto-hidden words list. Learn more at https://blackhighlighter.app/releases/2025.2

Black Highlighter 25.1 is out now with a bunch of improvements to Shortcuts, including the ability to choose an output file format. Learn more at blackhighlighter.app/releases/202...

I've been adopting App Intents since day 1 with @getbarc.app to integrate with other apps via Shortcuts, including Maps to Barc's locations. But Apple is deprecating the type I use for this, CLPlacemark, in iOS 26, and its replacements can't be used in App Intents. 😭 Feedback filed as FB18382731

Barc 25.4 was basically built by all of you. ITF barcode support? User request. Pride flag icon? Multiple requests. Better complications support and Shortcuts improvements? All from feedback. Barc users have had some really great ideas. So what's next? What would make Barc more useful for you?

Been hard at work on some iOS 26 (and more!) updates today. I’m pretty excited about what’s going to be possible with Black Highlighter in a few months!

Barc might be a little late in having a Pride icon, considering it's… already halfway through June. 😬 But it's here for good now! It's one of three new custom icons that you can use for the month, for the year… whenever you want!

Barc 25.4 is now out! Now you can put your barcodes more places on your watch, or delete them using Shortcuts. Barc Unleashed users can customize their app icon (including a definitely-on-time Pride flag option! 🏳️‍🌈). And of course, bug fixes. Learn more at https://getbarc.app/releases/25.4

Even though it’s much simpler now than in the past, fuckingappleversionnumbers.com is now up to date with the latest OSes. #WWDC25

Black Highlighter has always been good at turning your scribbles into nice, neat redactions. But what if you didn’t have to scribble? A new tool. Faster redactions. Next week. 🤠 blackhighlighter.app/appstore

When all you have is a Black Highlighter, everything looks… the same. The next version, coming soon, is going to make it a bit easier to tell the eraser apart from the two highlighters.

SwiftData is cool, but Apple’s telling you to hold it wrong: pado.name/blog/2025/02...

Less time to attach, and just as useful.

I see a lot of junior devs get discouraged, thinking that taking a long time to do something means they’re not cut out for coding. I’ve been at this for 20+ years, and it just took me four straight days of focus to write ≈100 lines of code to generate 28 characters. Sometimes things are just hard.

LLMs still have a lot to learn about Swift development. Namely, they’ll spend 15 minutes trying to make sense of a crash instead of doing the appropriate thing: Asking “have you tried deleting DerivedData?”

“Are you two behaving now, or are you still being mean, but slower?” is a real question I just had to ask my cats.

“I’m not snoring, I’m ideating.”

Black Highlighter 24.5 is out now with improvements to the photo picker, Shortcuts, and Ultra Highlighter info page. blackhighlighter.app/releases/202...

Peak comfort.

Finally gave up on having coherent user names for my apps across platforms. Everything is just website URLs now. getbarc.app/contact/blue.... That way, I can change the name if something better comes up without breaking the links to it I have baked into the app or whatever.

We did a special supporters-only episode of the CompileSwift Podcast discussing @pwitham.bsky.social’s M4 Mac mini and using it for iOS development. patreon.com/compileswift Supporters of the podcast get special bonus episodes like this, and ad-free versions of regular episodes.

I’m ahead of schedule for my next app update release (for @blackhighlighter.app), so of course I moved up my own deadline. I’ve become my own unforgiving product manager.

Either I've missed something obvious, or getting Shortcuts to display human-readable text when you throw an error is rather complicated.

This is a fantastic book if you have any interest in the history of Mac games (and you should). US shipping is a little pricey but with this discount it’s a very good deal (around $40 total). Bitmap Books packs things super securely. You get a PDF copy too!

Migrating everything to string catalogs because of Apple’s API choices is going… just swell.

On the latest CompileSwift podcast, @pwitham.bsky.social and I discuss the current Swift on the Server landscape, and how I’m finding it is to run several Swift projects in production: share.transistor.fm/s/93da68b7

Hello, Bluesky! Black Highlighter is an iPhone, iPad, and Mac app for hiding text in images. My Magic Highlighter tool smartly snaps to text, giving a neat, complete result instantly. Or, search for specific words to hide them everywhere. Get it on the App Store: blackhighlighter.app/appstore

Hi, Bluesky! I'm Barc, an iOS app for storing important barcodes such as event tickets and store loyalty cards, and finding them again later. Barc can show your favorite barcodes on the home screen, on Apple Watch, via Siri, and more. Learn more at getbarc.app or download it at getbarc.app/appstore

On this week’s CompileSwift podcast, Peter and I discuss the rise of AI-assisted developer tools and how they can be used to build your app and more: share.transistor.fm/s/0538739d

Every year for Halloween, I do a live-stream of myself doing a "mad science" coding project. One night of asking if I could rather than if I should. Tonight, I conformed String to View and passed it at runtime to an LLM, so you can just write apps like this: ##iOSDev

Hello, world!