Tuesday, May 26, 2020

TV Towers USA for Apple Watch

The Series 5 Apple Watch includes a compass. Which necessitated me selling my otherwise nearly identical Series 4 watch, because I knew it was time to write a watchOS app. Also to write something using the SwiftUI framework, and Combine. And get my 14 year old son to write code.

TV Towers USA for Watch

I decided to embed it in the existing TV Towers USA iPhone app and sell it via an in-app unlock method. This is a bet on my reasonably large installed base of happy users being a better source of revenue (all of of which will be going to my son) than the unlikeliness of being found on the Watch App Store. But, like all my other personal App Store projects, the major point is skill sharpening for the future of my day job. There will come a day when I'll have to pull SwiftUI or Combine out of my bag of tricks. 

And we ended up with this gratifying, smooth, simple, useful app, just what an antenna installer needs for getting a quick bead on the local antenna farm. I can only imagine the number of iPhones that have slid off roofs. Or would be antenna installers, so be careful out there and wear a harness or leave it to the pros, or put the antenna in your attic.