Book Tracker is now on Apple Watch! I’ve just released an update that introduces the official Apple Watch companion app. • See the books you’re currently reading • Start your reading timer directly from your wrist • Pause it anytime • Update your reading progress on the go

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The update is available now on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Thanks for supporting Movie Tracker and independent, privacy focused app development. apps.apple.com/us/app/movie...

5. Improvements and stability This update also includes several under the hood improvements on Mac and across all platforms, including better window restoration and smoother scrolling, for a more stable and consistent experience.

4. Interactive charts Tap on any chart to instantly see the list of movies and TV shows watched in the selected period. Statistics are now more detailed and more actionable.

3. Enhanced statistics Explore a new calendar view showing the covers of movies and TV shows watched each day. New daily and monthly charts make it easier to understand your viewing habits over time.

2. New Upcoming section Keep track of upcoming movies and TV shows and see how many days are left until their release. A simple way to plan what’s next and never lose track of what’s coming.

1. Custom Home and Sidebar You can now personalize the Home on iPhone and the Sidebar on iPad and Mac. Add cards at the top and choose from tags, smart lists, spaces, actors, and more. Just tap Edit and build the layout that works for you.

Movie Tracker just got a major update. This release focuses on personalization, planning, and better insights into what you watch. Here’s what’s new.

I often get asked why my apps don’t send notifications or show badges to remind you to read a book, watch a movie, or start a new episode. The answer isn’t technical. It’s about how software makes us feel.

Really happy to share the first Book Tracker update of the year. Every new feature and improvement in this release comes directly from conversations with users, emails, messages, and feedback I receive every day. This is how Book Tracker keeps growing. ❤️

This quote is a good reminder to be cautious. When a product is built mainly to attract investment or an acquisition, user happiness is rarely the final goal. Often the real product is the team, the growth metrics, or the exit. As users, trusting blindly is rarely a good idea.

+1 for this app. It’s great. I use it for all my graphic novels tracking, and will this year be adding prose books to it as well.

A reading app is trending right now. It’s VC backed and heavily built around AI. That’s one approach. Book Tracker was built the other way around. No investors. No growth hacks. No AI deciding what you read or how you should read it.

Another year reflecting on the apps that became my favourite ones throughout the past year. Thank you Tot @iconfactory.com, Book Track @simonemontalto.bsky.social, Reeder @Silvio Rizzi, Croissant @benricem.bsky.social + @vegh.ca, Ripples by #MykolaHarmash 😊✌️ creativerly.com/creativerlys-...

App Store reviews are valuable, but they are also dangerous if you read them the wrong way. I learned this the hard way. Some reviews point out real problems. Confusing UI, missing features, unclear behaviour. Those are signals you should never ignore.

I often receive App Store reviews complaining that my apps are paid while there are “many free alternatives”. It is fair feedback, and it always makes me stop and think. Is my message not clear enough, or do people simply not care.

Shipping software and keeping it alive are two very different skills. Shipping is about momentum. Keeping something alive is about responsibility.

Most conversations about scaling focus on users. More traffic, more data, more load. But many indie apps do not scale in users. They scale in time.

One of the most dangerous traps in indie development is the quick win. A small change that ships fast, feels good immediately, and seems harmless. Until you realise what it actually costs over time.

Rewriting an app from scratch is one of the most tempting ideas as a developer. You see all the things you would do differently today. Cleaner architecture, better naming, fewer compromises. It feels like a fresh start.

People often imagine that “pixel-perfect design” means obsessing over alignment, spacing or visual polish. But the real meaning is much deeper. Pixel-perfect design is not about precision. It is about intention.

Pricing is one of the hardest decisions an indie developer has to make. Not because you want to maximise revenue, but because the price shapes the relationship between you and the user. It defines expectations, trust and sustainability.

I often get asked why my apps do not rely on external servers. No custom backend, no dashboards, no centralised data storage. Just local data and Apple’s sync infrastructure. This is not a limitation. It is a design principle.

There is a common belief that the best design is always the simplest one. But simplicity can become its own form of complexity when it hides structure instead of clarifying it. Minimal does not always mean intuitive.

As a solo indie developer, App Store reviews make a huge difference. If Book Tracker has been useful to you, I’d love your support with a quick review.

There is a lot of discussion about AI in apps, and most of it focuses on capability. What AI can generate, suggest or automate. But the real impact is not about what it does. It is about what it replaces.

I have been reading Cory Doctorow’s new book about enshittification, and it captures something I have felt for years. The idea is simple. Platforms start by treating users well, then slowly shift their focus to advertisers, and finally squeeze everyone to maximise profit.

Most apps are built around the idea of consumption. They want you to stay longer, tap more, return often. The value is measured in time spent, not in usefulness. I never wanted my apps to behave like that.

Releasing a new version of an app looks simple from the outside. You publish the update, wait for the rollout, and move on. But anyone who has ever shipped software knows that the emotional part is much more complicated.

When you build apps alone, you eventually realize that the product starts to look like you. Not because you want to make it personal, but because every decision reflects your own way of seeing the world. There is no committee to dilute your choices.

I work on several apps, and each one has a different age. One codebase is six years old, another is three, another two, and the rest are much younger. Opening them feels like opening old journals. You see who you were as a developer at that time.

Some of the most difficult bugs are the ones you cannot reproduce. They appear on a few devices, under conditions you cannot replicate, and then vanish without explanation. These are the bugs that test you the most as a developer.

One of the hardest parts of being an indie developer is deciding which feature requests to follow and which ones to let go. People often assume that every suggestion should become part of the roadmap, but that is not how a product grows.

Answering support emails is not the most glamorous part of building apps, but it is the one that teaches me the most. It is the closest I ever get to seeing how people actually use what I create. Users rarely write just to report a bug. They write to share a piece of context.

Sync is one of those features that looks simple from the outside and incredibly complex from the inside. When it works, no one notices it. When it fails, everything else in the app becomes unreliable. That is why designing sync is mostly about avoiding fragility.

Most apps today are built around numbers. Clicks, conversions, funnels, retention curves. Metrics can be useful, but they also change the way you think about your product. You stop designing for people and start designing for graphs.

When people talk about UX they usually think about big redesigns or major features, but most of the experience is shaped by the smallest details. Margins, timing, alignment, typography, animations that last just long enough. Things you do not notice unless they are wrong.

People usually see a feature only in its final form, but most of the work happens before a single line of code is written. Designing a feature is mostly about understanding what you should not build.

Privacy is often treated as a feature on a checklist. For me it is the foundation that shapes everything I build. Not for marketing reasons, but because it changes how you design a product from the first line of code.

People often imagine that being an indie developer means freedom. And in some ways it does. But most of what defines this job is not freedom. It is responsibility.

I often get asked why I do not integrate AI into my apps. The short answer is that I do not want them to lose their human intention. But the long answer is more interesting.

Movie Tracker 2.3.4 is out! * You can now mark movies and TV shows as watched on their release date. * It’s now even easier to mark titles as watched directly from the detail page. * Added support for importing from Delicious Library 3. A small update, but packed with useful improvements!

Countdown Widget 1.3.3 is here! You can now keep your countdowns live on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island with Live Activities, watching the seconds tick away as your event gets closer. Plus, you’ll now see a real-time countdown directly on the event page.

I just opened a Discord server for Game Tracker! It’s the first time I’m trying something like this, a small space where users can share feedback, ideas, and discuss upcoming updates. Do you think a similar server could work for my other apps too? discord.gg/2uCpWM9bWG

Book Tracker just got even better. You can now generate shareable images for any finished book, showing detailed stats like pages read, reading time, and progress, ready to post anywhere.

All the apps are now waiting for review… What a summer! Can’t wait for you to see how the app works with Liquid Glass. Let’s see on September 15.

Book Tracker 4.2.9 is out! This update adds support for external barcode scanners, making it super easy to catalog large book collections in no time. Perfect for collectors, librarians, or anyone who wants to speed up the process of adding physical books.

Game Tracker’s first update is here! Now you can customize the app’s tint color, log purchase dates and prices, and track your monthly purchases. Plus, quickly access a game’s detail page from the progress entry. Fixed an issue with upcoming games and added a new ‘Upcoming’ status.

Game Tracker: A Powerful App to Track, Organize, and Customize Your Videogame Library https://www.macstories.net/reviews/game-tracker-a-powerful-app-to-track-organize-and-customize-your-videogame-library/