neo_cs193p

I really hope it's just a [short] phase, like the butterfly keyboard. I can't stay on Sequoia forever, and I'd like a beautiful MacOS in the future.

Boring is what I wanted on the software side too. I've really tried to like/tolerate Tahoe, but the UI is close to unusable in some places (like System Settings, some icons), plain ugly in other places (like menu bar fonts, window corners, dock etc.), or both (the contrast in most places where liquid glass and text interact). It was messing with my workflow so bad, to the point I've given up. All my Macs are on Sequoia today. One of the main reasons I've been using Macs is because the OS was functional and beautiful. This is becoming less and less true. And it's not just resistance to change. I've also been skeptical about the UI transition from Catalina to Big Sur, but the usability issues were much smaller and I could was able to get used to the new look very quickly.

With Tahoe it's different: its ugliness is uncanny. I've just given up on it.

The spinning picker view is a very cool idea indeed. It looks like the kind of thing Apple could end up "sherlocking" :)

You sound like a great hire to me. A lot of people in tech are somewhat challenged (in one way or another, and usually in several) when it comes to dealing with other people, so I don't see this as a disqualifying trait.

But since you are good at turning ideas into polished products, what about your own ideas? I'm talking about simply creating "catchy" apps and selling them on the App Store. Is there a good living to be made this way, with a skill level like yours? Can you get any predictable/consistent success? I'm guessing no matter how good an app is, you still need a fair bit of luck to get it seen by a lot of people (or perhaps the "right" influencers) to make a hit out of it. And yet when you see something simple and catchy like FlappyBird, made by some seemingly random guy in Vietnam, it seems obvious to everyone other than himself that millions would buy it. I wonder how many nice and catchy little apps like that never catch the big wave, and die after getting downloaded by a handful of people.

Thank you for the resources. I've read some of your posts, and I found them useful, insightful, thought provoking, and pleasurable to engage with. Also, it looks like you are passionate about beautiful and thorough documentation, to a level which frankly I don't remember seeing in my 15+ years of engineering. I find it quite inspiring. When you say your work is high quality, you're not bragging or exaggerating. I admire your thoroughness and attention to detail, and hope to learn from you.

I must say that I wonder how much work you need to put in to get to your desired level of quality. Excuse my bluntness, but would you consider yourself a workaholic? Also, I find it odd that you say you don't make a dime from your work, even if it's mostly FOSS. Surely high quality work should attract high quality rewards.

You sound like a good person to learn from. Do you have any video tutorials about your process (how you go about building complex applications in such a short time, what you prioritize, how you plan your work days etc.). I am also curious about the resources you used to build up your developer & project management skills.

"Changing the world" is not automatically a good thing, and should never be a goal in itself. Same goes for "making money".

You can find a representative screenshot at http://halera.tumblr.com. Basically, you have to remember the flags at the top of the screen, and find them in the bunch below, on the next screen. Then repeat 10 times, before the clock runs out. In the first level, you start with just one flag to remember, and 4 in the bunch to select it from, and end up with 4 to remember, and 16 to select from. That's probably not the best explanation for the game; I think it would probably be best if you could try it out for yourself. Thanks!