😂

It occurred to me that I should perhaps communicate this to y’all, albeit a bit late: I’m out of the iOS Dev Game. For good. I’ve been renewing my membership until 2018, but when it came up again this year, I gave it a miss. $99 saved. I don’t have the hardware to develop anymore, and I’m involved in other projects I find more fulfilling.

While I’ve enjoyed the coding challenges over the years immensely, two factors have greatly contributed to this change of mind:

• getting cancer in 2015, surviving it, and focussing on what really matters in life (which isn’t Xcode, Apple’s products or the way they treat developers), and
• Apple’s continued push to re-write this year what they taught us last year. There’s never a moment in which you can “just write code” and be creative, without having to re-learn how to do it.

I’ll leave this site up for posterity and the occasional outdated tip from yesteryear, but I won’t wrote any more content here. Should I ever pick up another coding challenge (iOS or otherwise), I might do it on this domain. If you want to keep in touch, check out my current active projects here:

• My main YouTube Channel
• The WP Guru
• versluis.com
• Super Survivor
• Creative Minds (coming in 2020)

Have a wonderful Happy Holidays, do what you love, enjoy every moment, be true to your passion, and go out and be happy in 2020 and beyond 😍

Thanks for visiting!

Dear Friends,

today is a very special day for me and the iOS Dev Diary. Since I’ve launched this site in 2012, over two million visitors have come to check it out and find solutions to puzzles this challenging hobby has presented to all of us.

TWO MILLION VISITORS!

That’s a phenomenal amount of people for me, and I’m thrilled that my site has helped so many interested and like-minded folks on this planet.

Keep in mind, this site is a personal note pad on all things iOS, meant as a thinking aid for myself rather than visitors. I’ve started it so that I don’t forget the solutions to intricate puzzles I found answers to. It was never meant to be anything along the lines of “presentable” or “understandable for others”.

Sometimes the best things happen when you don’t really try. This site is certainly proof of that.

To take a look at all the articles I’ve written here over the years, check out the Table of Contents. It’ll tell you that at the time of writing, there are over 400 articles to explore, featuring a total 135,000 words. That’s the equivalent of THREE WHOLE BOOKS.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s been coming over, and for those who continue to drop by, so I’ve prepared a few surprises for ya’ll’s enjoyment:

Continue reading →

Dear friends,

I have some bad news I feel I must share with you: earlier this year I was diagnosed with colon cancer. I’ve spent most of February in hospital for two major operations to remove several tumours and fistulas, and I’m waiting for chemo and radiotherapy to start. The surgery alone has put a major strain on my body and my mind, and I’m not sure how I will react to the next few months of treatment.

This means that I will not be able to write as much content here as I have in the past, if I can produce any content at all. I know this sucks for you as much as it does for me. I’ve been battling with this disease since last year without knowing what it was at that time, and this is reflected in the reduced number of articles I’ve written in 2015.

I will let you know as soon as I feel better, but I fear that it will take the remainder of this year (2016) until I’m whipped back into shape. I have wonderful doctors who look after me, and good health insurance too, who have so far covered all expenses of this distasteful affair. Thank god for that!

If you feel that you’ve been “cheated out of your membership”, please contact me and we’ll work something out. If you need alternatives for learning iOS development, please look into the likes of Lynda.com and Pluralsight.com, who update much more frequently than I ever could. At the same time, they charge you more per month than what I’m asking for in a year to cover the cost of hardware and hosting. And: they’re professional teachers, whereas I am hobbyist hacker.

Thank you for your understanding, and thank you for your loyal support.

All the best, and Happy Hacking,

JAY