Ben Dodson Freelance Apple Platforms Developer

Weblog

Blog Archive

2026

  1. Restoring the traditional icon-based tab bar on iPad with Liquid Glass

2025

  1. Getting the new portrait artwork from the iOS 26 Apple TV app

2024

  1. Getting Hi-Res Album Artwork in Apple Shortcuts
  2. Using your Personal Voice (along with system and novelty voices) in an iOS app

2023

  1. Adding teachable moments to your apps with TipKit
  2. Attempting to connect a tvOS app to an iOS app with DeviceDiscoveryUI
  3. Postmortem of the launch of a Top 10 Paid iOS App
  4. Side Project: Back Seat Shuffle

2022

  1. Return to Dark Tower Assistant
  2. Using a Stream Deck for iOS development
  3. The Dodo Developer
  4. 'Chaise Longue to 5K' and porting a tvOS app built with UIKit to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS
  5. Introducing the Spatial Audio Finder
  6. Unlisted App Distribution on the App Store
  7. Web Inspector on iOS devices and Simulators
  8. Browser Note and the process of building an iOS 15 Safari Extension

2021

  1. Side Project: Stoutness

2020

  1. Exorbitantcy and the fight against the App Store
  2. Side Project: (Feed Me) Seymour
  3. Side Project: Sealed

2019

  1. Revival
  2. Gyfted
  3. Introducing the Apple TV Shows & Movies Artwork Finder
  4. Customising a website for iOS 13 / macOS Mojave Dark Mode
  5. Detecting text with VNRecognizeTextRequest in iOS 13
  6. UKTV Play for Apple TV
  7. Reaction Cam v1.4
  8. Foodim
  9. Announcing the Apple Music Artwork Finder
  10. Hawkker

2018

  1. DrinkCoach Updates
  2. Building a Twitch Panel Extension
  3. Scalable bulleted lists with UILabel or UITextView
  4. Solcaster
  5. "iPhone Only" apps on the iPad
  6. Custom Intents with SiriKit on iOS 12

2017

  1. Developers who work from spectacular locations
  2. DrinkCoach+
  3. Forcing left-to-right text in iOS localizations
  4. MPMediaItem+CanAddToLibrary.swift
  5. Flawless
  6. Great British Bee Count 2017
  7. Reaction Cam
  8. AlcoPath
  9. Building tools for Kylo Ben
  10. Proposal for an Erase Data Passcode
  11. The Checked Shirt #1 - Lost AirPods, iOS 10.3 beta, App Store changes, and Invoicing
  12. Syncing Apple Music with Spotify
  13. Some thoughts on Apple's new Alternative Tier A and B pricing strategy for apps
  14. Sporta 2.0

2016

  1. Booktrim for iPhone
  2. Don't be the idea person
  3. Updates to iTunes Artwork Finder
  4. Vortech
  5. Kylo Ben
  6. Working Remotely
  7. MailRoute blacklisting via email
  8. Pocket Rocket for iOS 10 (now with an iMessage app)
  9. Generating a random colour, with a seed, in Swift 3
  10. Tips for Remote Working
  11. Brapp: Summer Updates
  12. Moonlight tvOS for Apple TV 4
  13. The Divide #15 - Virtually Reality
  14. Media Library privacy flaw fixed in iOS 10
  15. Talking Shop with Ben Dodson
  16. Creating passwordless user accounts within iOS apps
  17. The Divide #14 - WWDC 2016, 'iTunes with tabs'
  18. iOS 10 Wishlist
  19. The Divide #13 - Consoles
  20. HomeKit, AirPlay, and controlling iTunes with Siri
  21. Great British Bee Count 2016
  22. Using a physical button (Flic) with HomeKit scenes and triggers
  23. Fetching RSS Feeds for Steam game updates
  24. AirPlay Alarm Clock with iTunes 12
  25. The Divide #12 - Reboots
  26. Emoji flags from ISO 3166-1 country codes (in Swift)
  27. iPhone 7 headphone predictions
  28. Clinix
  29. Connecting To Host
  30. Thoughts on ringtones
  31. 'Start Me Up' Interview
  32. The Divide #11 - 3D Printing
  33. HomeKit, Wink, and Canary
  34. The Divide #10 - Let us loop you in. Again.
  35. What to expect from the 'Let us loop you in' Apple event
  36. Show Me The Next
  37. Music Tracker v1.3
  38. Brapp 2.0
  39. Sunday Isn't Special
  40. The Divide #9 - Board Game Tangents
  41. Storefront Additions: A simple way to convert SKCloudServiceController store identifiers into country codes
  42. Details on the iOS 9.3 Media Library additions
  43. The Divide #8 - Drunkstarter: A discussion on crowdfunding
  44. Music Tracker v1.1 and Pocket Rocket v1.1 Released
  45. Deleting all NSUserDefaults with Swift
  46. Calm Radio for iOS
  47. The Divide #7 - Mind Missiles and The Internet of Stuff
  48. Music Tracker
  49. Your music library is a security and privacy risk on iOS
  50. Munchkin Report
  51. Calm Radio for Apple TV
  52. The Divide #6 - The 'JJ Abrams' of game lists
  53. Fixing emoji footnote arrow bug in Jekyll
  54. Dodo Apps
  55. Swift extension to make CALayer borderColor and shadowColor work with Interface Builder
  56. The Divide #5 - 'Jar Jar Abrams', a Star Wars special!

2015

  1. iOS developers don't work for free
  2. Pocket Rocket, read your Pocket articles quickly in Safari on iOS
  3. Natural Cycles Apple Watch app
  4. The Divide #4 - Getting into code
  5. Steve Jobs introduces the iPad at Death Star briefing
  6. Using the Siri Remote with the Apple TV Simulator
  7. Introducing 'The Divide'
  8. HomeKit enabled Christmas tree lights with Siri control
  9. Brapp v1.1
  10. Chipp'd, an app for sharing personal messages
  11. A simple Audio Recorder controller in Swift (for iPhone)
  12. HKHealthStore Extension, deleteSamplesOfType
  13. HealthKit Radar 22977320
  14. The Times They Are A-Changin'
  15. Brapp, the rap app
  16. AppIndex Interview
  17. Microsoft Bridge and the "App Gap"
  18. LEGO Scooby-Doo
  19. The mobile web
  20. Finding the next available driving test with Goutte PHP Scraper
  21. TransferWise
  22. UK Apple Pay
  23. Forcing UIStatusBarStyle for UIImagePickerController
  24. Optical media and the pain of Remote Disc
  25. Adding Exercise Data To Activity
  26. Since, an NSDate Extension in Swift
  27. Using an SSD with the Xbox One
  28. Glenfiddich Residence Changhi
  29. Working out with Apple Watch
  30. Using Stripe for In-App Purchases
  31. iTunes Artwork Finder Source Code
  32. A Month-Year UIPickerView Written In Swift
  33. TV for the UK politics fan
  34. The Correct Way To Watch Star Wars
  35. Great British Bee Count iPhone App
  36. Initial thoughts on Apple Watch
  37. Developer pre-orders
  38. iTunes Artwork Finder updated with app screenshots and videos (including Apple Watch)
  39. LOLy 2.0
  40. Albums on iTunes Artwork Finder now at higher resolution
  41. Introducing "Blind Bags"
  42. Three years of WallaBee
  43. IAP and icons in the 'Featured' section of the App Store
  44. Xcode 6 Essentials

2014

  1. SKProduct localized price in Swift
  2. Yosemite WiFi Workaround: Airport Express and USB Ethernet Adapter
  3. Dishwasher tablets and app competition
  4. Speeding up your DNS
  5. Issues with Airport Express, Airport Extreme, and OS X Yosemite
  6. October LEGO Updates
  7. ‘No results found’ on iTunes Artwork Finder
  8. The problem with Allow Full Access on iOS 8 keyboards
  9. Showing TODO as a warning in a Swift Xcode project
  10. Donating blood
  11. Private lives
  12. IslandBreak
  13. iOS using internal reference name for IAP
  14. How not to deliver a speech
  15. The illusion of choice
  16. Font Finder Featured
  17. Retiring TubeUpdates and WikiLocation
  18. Off on honeymoon!
  19. LEGO MINI Cooper
  20. kontent
  21. Blocks Magazine
  22. The joys of running your own business
  23. Apple TV gains iTunes Extras
  24. Awesome Client

2013

  1. Dropping non-retina support in iOS 7
  2. Dr. Frasier Crane
  3. LEGO Super Star Destroyer
  4. iTunes Artwork Finder
  5. Harry Potter at the Warner Bros Studio Tour
  6. ‘CACurrentMediaTime()’
  7. Syncing the WallaBee Store
  8. LEGO: Lord of the Rings (Xbox 360)
  9. Disney MyMagic+
  10. Freelance availability
  11. Passwords and Encryption

2012

  1. Dryathlon
  2. Cleaning Up My Web Presence
  3. iPhone apps on the new iPad
  4. iOS 5.1 Location Services Bug
  5. The curious case of "the new iPad"
  6. Analyzing the iPad 3 invite
  7. I've been looking forward to this day for a long time
  8. Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to their servers
  9. Calling all beta testers
  10. What's happening with iOS 5.1?
  11. Retina display graphics reappear in iBooks 2
  12. A Sneak Peek at Atomix Magazine v2.0
  13. BenDodson.com gets an update
  14. UK Carrier O2 sends your phone number to every website you visit

2011

  1. How not to ask for an iOS app review - A review of Jumpship Thrust Control 2
  2. How's the London Underground? Ask Siri!
  3. Goodbye Gowalla
  4. The API behind Gowalla v4
  5. Highlights v1.1 - Gowalla Trips, Last.fm Events, and Translations
  6. The inside story on powering Highlights
  7. Review: GeoWiz
  8. Does iOS 5 finally allow retina display iPhone apps to run unscaled on the iPad?
  9. AirPlay Mirroring, TV Out, and the Apple TV as a games console
  10. WWDC 2011 Keynote - Predictions vs Reality
  11. WWDC 2011 Predictions - iOS 5, Lion, and iCloud
  12. WikiLocation adds support for 36 locales
  13. One year on: further thoughts on the Gowalla API
  14. Font Finder: Now available for Firefox 4 and Safari 5
  15. Portal 2 on the new iMac (10.6.6)
  16. Review: Worldictionary for iOS
  17. iTunes TV Artwork Script
  18. Gamification, Social Validation, Gowalla, and moving on from Wallabee - What I learned at SXSW
  19. Mobile OS Updates: Android vs iOS
  20. Review: WorldCard Mobile for Android and iPhone
  21. Enabling any HTML5 Video to work over AirPlay
  22. iOS 4.3
  23. Thoughts on the Verizon iPhone 4
  24. The AirPlay Alarm Clock: Turning an Apple TV or Airport Express into an Alarm Clock with AppleScript
  25. The CoverSutra Saga
  26. My take on Microsoft's Keynote at CES 2011

2010

  1. Contact Forms

2009

  1. Why I built an Item Finder for Gowalla
  2. The Apple Magic Mouse: Necessary upgrade or expensive luxury?
  3. How to pitch an app idea to an iPhone developer
  4. Social Beacon: Developing An iPhone App for "The Gadget Show"
  5. Gowalla Tools Web App: Find your missing Gowalla items!
  6. iPhone 3GS: Review and Speed Test (vs. iPhone 3G)
  7. The tale of the "O2 Fail" (starring the iPhone 3GS)
  8. Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management
  9. TwitterFollowers PHP Class - A Better Way To Track Followers, Quitters, and Returning Followers on Twitter
  10. Getting Xbox Live Achievements Data: Part 2 - The AppleScript Solution
  11. iPhone 3.0 "push" Notification Testing with AP News
  12. Duplicate Messages Bug Fixed on TubeUpdates.com
  13. Getting Xbox Live Achievements Data: Part 1 - The PHP Problems
  14. Designing for the Social Web
  15. Poor Usability on the Web - Part 1: Online Banking
  16. London Underground Tube Updates API is live!

2008

  1. Updates coming soon to London Underground RSS Feed
  2. iPhone 2.1 Firmware Update Released - Fast? Stable? Fixed?
  3. How to control a Mac Mini from your iPhone including waking, sleeping, and audio / video
  4. Twitter stops sending SMS to UK / Europe / Australia
  5. Kampyle - An easy way to get web user feedback
  6. Stop! Bug found in "Stop! Hammertime!" Firefox Extension on Windows XP / Vista
  7. iPhone 3G, Apps, MobileMe, and iPhone specific sites
  8. Does anybody really use RSS Feeds?
  9. Website upgrades finally completed
  10. New website goes live!
  11. RSS Feed of the London Underground Tube Status
  12. Firefox extensions updated for Beta 3 compatibility
  13. Google extended encoding made easy!
  14. Firefox Extensions page will be right back!
  15. phpMyOpenID Beta Testers Required!