In a world where technology is increasingly conspiring to steal our focus and attention, my goal is to teach you how to be more productive with Apple technology. I want to help you achieve what is most important to you and enjoy your life at the same time using technology instead of becoming another one of its victims. Pretty much everything I make points at that North Star. I believe in this message so much that I’ve staked my livelihood on it.
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The Case for a Personal Apple Developer Tier
Published 1 day ago • 4 min read
THE MACSPARKY DISPATCH
Hi Friend,
Something interesting is happening in the app world. With the arrival of more powerful AI, everyone is building their own.
We do weekly meetups in the Robot Assistant Field Guide, called the Robot Builders Club. We cover all sorts of angles for the intentional use of this technology, and several people who have gone through the course have made their own apps.
John Voorhees over at MacStories had an insightful post on the utility app flood and why he thinks it will eventually ebb. We are definitely going through something right now, as my email inbox has mushroomed with new developers wanting me to look at their apps.
The more interesting angle for me, however, is the folks building apps not for the App Store, but for themselves. Most people making their own apps in the Robot Builders Club don’t intend to ever publish them.
Instead, I see a lot of people building bespoke apps to solve a unique problem they have. One guy made an app that lets his elderly father review family photos in a view with no “delete” button he could accidentally hit. Another participant made a time-blocking app that works just right for him. There are a lot more such stories. A few weeks ago, I made my own custom app to drive my Vestaboard.
I once read that Steve Wozniak explained that there wasn’t much software for the Apple II at launch because he thought people would write their own. What was optimistic in 1977 is true now.
These scratch-my-own-itch apps are made by and for one person. I’m sure Apple must be tracking this, but I think it’s time for them to have a different class of developer account for people who want to make their own apps just to use by themselves or with a small team.
Right now, a free Apple Account gets you most of the way. You can build something in Xcode and install it on your own iPhone without a paid developer account.
The problem is that the provisioning profile expires after seven days and you have to rebuild and reinstall your own app just to keep using it. Also, there’s a cap of three test devices per platform and a separate cap of three apps installed per device.
The only currently available fix is the $99/year Apple Developer Program, which is the same account Apple sells to companies shipping software to millions of customers. Paying commercial developer rates to keep an app I wrote for myself on my own phone makes no sense.
I think Apple needs to address this. The easiest first step is to kill the seven-day expiration for personal builds. Give us a free or nearly free tier that signs an app permanently for your own devices and a handful of others, with no option for App Store review and no public listing, since nothing is going public anyway.
Apple already built the pieces. Shortcuts travel person to person with no review at all, and enterprise distribution has put apps on employee phones outside the App Store for years. I think they need to aim that same machinery at individuals. Maybe call it a $20/year “Personal Developer Program.”
While I believe folks madly vibe-coding utility apps for the App Store will be disappointed in the long run, people building their own solutions to a very specific problem will be quite happy. As the models get more powerful, more and more people will do this. Now we just need Apple to acknowledge this new type of developer and find a way to support them.
On Mac Power Users 862, Stephen spent a week living inside Alfred, Raycast, and Spotlight before comparing notes with me. We get into pricing, file search, snippets, and which one actually earns a spot on your keyboard.
We had the August Deep Dive on my analog stack, the paper tools that still earn a place in a very digital workflow, and stuck around afterward for an informal meetup about new iPhones and dictation apps.
I made a video touring my Stream Deck setup, an XL and a Plus wired into Obsidian, HomeControl, Keyboard Maestro, and a growing pile of AI-designed button art.
I published The Lab Report podcast on the macOS screen-sharing hole Apple just patched, plus the Apple Home lineup and why it took two years to show up.
That was a single week, and the Labs run like this every week. If that sounds like your kind of place, come join us.
Today’s issue was about people building software for an audience of one, which turns out to be an old idea with some very good books behind it. Shortform has guides for both of the ones I’d point you to, so you can get the argument in about fifteen minutes instead of a weekend.
The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson. The early personal computer crowd assumed you’d write your own software, and reading it now, with AI making that possible again, is a strange feeling.
Company of One, by Paul Jarvis, is an excellent book. I’ve read this one twice. Small on purpose isn’t a consolation prize. Sometimes it’s the whole point.
Shortform’s guides give you the full argument chapter by chapter, with commentary that ties one book to the next. I’ll read one over coffee and have two more queued by lunch.
In a world where technology is increasingly conspiring to steal our focus and attention, my goal is to teach you how to be more productive with Apple technology. I want to help you achieve what is most important to you and enjoy your life at the same time using technology instead of becoming another one of its victims. Pretty much everything I make points at that North Star. I believe in this message so much that I’ve staked my livelihood on it.
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