Welcome to my journey as app developer

At the beginning of the 90s, when I was about twelve years old, my mother decided to buy us a second hand Olivetti 286 computer. The computer was a hand-me-down from Statistic Netherlands, the company I’m currently working for. I loved the computer from the very start, and especially the games, which came on growing collections of floppy disks (for everyone younger thant 30, those things that inspired the save icon :D). I was so enchanted by those green-and-black games with bleeping music coming from the PC speaker, that I soon decided I wanted to write my own games. I started learning my first programming languages, which had other-wordly names as QBasic and Turbo Pascal. Together with my friend Joep, we spend hours, and countless summer holidays, trying to make yet another idea come into fruition. While we never succeeded to actually finish a game, these days actually were the source of my love for programming and creating things. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that I choose to pursue a professional career as a software developer.

That career however took a couple of side turns however. First, I was working as a scientist, investigating e-learning and finishing my PhD. Then, I became a software engineer working mostly on medical applications, and now I’m a data scientist already for a couple of years. Each of these jobs thought me different things. During my PhD, I came across mobile development. It was early 2007 when Apple announced the iPhone and we were early adopters. Using the iPhone as a learning instrument. After that, while working as a software developer, I honed the skills as an app developer. I loved the tools Apple provided, and also made my first steps developing a macOS app. The last years, working as a data scientist, this love has not gone away. While I didn’t work on apps anymore, I kept following the WWDC and kept having app ideas. I also kept postponing. Until, during those first months of the pandemic, I found Dr. Angela Yu’s iOS 13 App Development Course. Following the course made me realise how much I had missed App Development. Soon I started working on my first idea, TVTastic, and have made small steps every since.

Fast forward three years. I’m still working on TVTastic and having a lot of additional ideas. These ideas combine the knowledge and perspectives I have learnt during my career. I’m focusing on smart apps that will make your life easier. Using AI to automate the boring stuff or be your copilot, helping you be more productive or accomplish tasks that you wouldn’t think of before. Helping you to perform tasks that you feel are maybe out of your comfort zone, out of your competencies. Recently, I therefore started PhotoCraft App, a perfect example of such app. PhotoCraft, helps you create beautiful photographs using generative AI. Now, you do not need to be a start in photoshop or affinity anymore, you just need the idea and some patience. AI helps you being more creative and more productive.

These are the types of apps I want to build in the future. I hope soon I will be able to publish my first app in the app store. Here, I will keep you posted on my progress and on my journey as a solopreneur. I hope you will love reading the articles here and get inspired by it, maybe attempting the same. See you next time!