Many years ago, I remember telling a co-worker of mine that one of my ideal jobs was being able to be a front-end developer while working on iOS apps. At the time, he told me that it didn't really exist and I should essentially choose to specialize in one or the other. Given my background with the web, it was natural for me to choose the web route, but there mobile development always continued to nag me in the back of my mind.
Why not cross-platform solutions like React Native or Capacitor?
It's a good question. After all, why wouldn't I want to repurpose my skills as a web developer to build cross-platform applications?
Well I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of those technologies, and while they're great for general applications, there's a hard limit you run into when you want to explore more cutting edge technology like AR or simply want to build performant apps that run across multiple devices like an Apple Watch.
Have you tried iOS development before?
I have! Over the course of my career, the iOS bug would come to bite me every now and then and I'd purchase a book or course to try and satisfy that itch. With that, I dabbled in some Objective-C and even played around with a little Swift in the time it came out, but nothing really stuck as far as a proper skill I'd comfortable tell people about.
What's next?
Well, it's time for me to properly embark on my iOS journey and I intend to document it from the lens of a web developer. So you can expect to see some new content on mobile development interspersed with the usual web and productivity topics!