ZDNET’s key takeaways
- I shipped a Mac app with out writing a single line of code.
- Vibe coding took 502 directives, not one magic immediate.
- App Retailer promo photos took virtually so long as the app.
At round midday on Sunday, Sept. 20, I got here up with an thought for a Mac app. One week later, on Sunday, Sept. 27, additionally round midday, I submitted my accomplished app to Apple. 4 days later, Apple accepted the software, and it went reside on the App Retailer.
Additionally: AI utterly modified how I develop iPhone apps … and I believe I adore it
That is the story of an unrelated project by a ZDNET editor, a contented accident, and vibe coding at its greatest. It started 30 years in the past, with an enormous library of icons.
Icons have been good to me
Once I began my first software program firm, one of many first merchandise I launched was Icon Manufacturing facility for HyperCard. It gained a number of awards. This product supported my firm and our workers for years. These icons have been all black and white, as was HyperCard.
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In 1997, after years of buyer requests for colourful Finder desktop icons, we created a three-volume set of 32×32 pixel shade icons referred to as Icon Gallery. This was a boxed product of greater than 2,000 icons. Icon Gallery bought by retail, mail order distribution, and junk mail.
Icon Gallery was one of many final boxed software program merchandise I produced. I’ll be sincere with you. I can’t recall when or why I finished promoting Icon Gallery, however it most likely tracked with after I stopped bodily manufacturing boxed merchandise. That call, after all, tracked with the rise of the net.
Now, let’s quick ahead to some months in the past. Whereas decluttering some cubbies in my workplace, I discovered the packaging for a few my outdated software program merchandise, together with Icon Gallery. I caught the field on a shelf. As soon as once more, I just about forgot about it.
Then, final month, in honor of this 12 months’s massive iPhone occasion, my editor requested me to jot down a collection of historic Apple tales. Whereas writing ‘AI utterly modified how I develop iPhone apps … and I believe I adore it,’ I dug by my server for a screenshot or field illustration of an AI product I produced for the Mac within the late Eighties.
Additionally: I used Claude Code to vibe code a Mac app in 8 hours, however it was extra work than magic
I discovered that picture, and I additionally discovered an outdated Macromedia Director file containing all 2,338 icons from 30 years in the past. Within the mid-90s, I had transformed Icon Gallery’s icons to Director format and bought the ensuing product to animators as an asset library. Director was massive within the CD-ROM days, and has since pale into Mac historical past together with HyperCard and different classic apps.
However there it was, sitting on my Mac Studio’s desktop: a 30-year-old file containing all these property, in a long-dead file format. I felt like an archeologist cracking open an historical mummy’s tomb.
Claude is my buddy
So, I gave that historical file to Claude. My immediate was easy: “This file is an outdated Macromedia Director file containing a big library of icons. Are you able to separate the icons into their very own folder?”
Claude didn’t put up a fuss. The AI didn’t complain that the Director recordsdata have been so wildly old-fashioned that it couldn’t do something. All it requested was what format I needed the recordsdata in, and whether or not I needed the white edge pixels to be clear.
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In line with the log, this course of took 4 minutes and 30 steps. In much less time than it takes to brew a cup of espresso, I had 2,000-plus PNG photos, organized into matter folders. I didn’t actually have any plans for the icons. I used to be largely shocked at how simply Claude extracted bit knowledge and transformed it into PNG recordsdata.
That was on Sept. 2. I then let the extracted assortment of classic recordsdata sit in a folder on my Desktop.
There may very well be an app for that
Eighteen days later, on a Sunday afternoon, I wanted a graphic for one thing I used to be engaged on. I thought of my outdated icons from Icon Gallery and thought, “Hey, it might be cool if I had an app to browse and resize these icons.”
And, in that second, Icon Gallery ‘97 was born. Why not, proper? I’ve AIs.
I labored in each Claude Desktop (to speak technique) and Claude Code (to construct the Mac app). Inside a couple of hours, I had a working Mac app that might browse the unique library and create completely scaled, hard-edge bitmap icons from 32×32 pixels as much as 1,024×1,024 pixels.
I formally had a proof of idea.
However how would I productize it? Claude really helpful two viable programs of motion. The AI really helpful naming the product Icon Gallery ‘97: thirtieth Anniversary Version, celebrating the hand-created retro icons. This classic really feel may very well be interesting in a world of AI-generated artwork.
Additionally: I used Claude Code to vibe code an Apple Watch app in simply 12 hours
Claude additionally really helpful including a recoloring characteristic, so designers couldn’t solely select the outdated icons, however recolor them to match model or identification colours. The AI additionally really helpful creating collections and favorites.
Then a buddy really helpful I construct in an ‘Export to Slack’ characteristic, as a result of the retro icons could be very cool as Slack emojis. My spouse noticed the identical potential for dragging the icons into texts. I made positive these options have been within the app.
After you have favorites and collections, what occurs if you wish to use the app on one other Mac? Ah, so now iCloud syncing wanted to be added. And so it was.
Lest anybody suggest that vibe coding includes issuing one “Make me an app,” command, let me dissuade you of that notion. I gave Claude Code 502 particular person directives within the 4 days that I actively interacted with it.
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These weren’t full-time coding days. I visited the physician for my yearly bodily, spent Friday with a contractor engaged on the home, and needed to flip in three main characteristic article thought items for ZDNET.
However round that work, I talked to Claude and guided its growth course of. Then I went again to my different priorities.
Utilizing AI to code a Mac app
Again after we first began utilizing AI coding brokers, I developed an inside headcanon that helps me take into consideration tips on how to handle the bots. I view them as working companions on the finish of a chat transcript. I take advantage of this strategy to work with lots of my human companions, so it really works properly.
As such, typically I fireplace off a query to Claude Code. In a single case, shortly after we constructed within the in-app buying mechanism and proved it labored, I spotted that somebody might purchase the app, do a full icon export, after which request a refund. I requested Claude, “Can we care?”
Claude instructed not preventing refunds. That call matched with my long-term software program publishing model. If somebody doesn’t need my code, don’t make them pay for it. However that query fired off a extra fascinating discovery. Claude realized that each one 2,146 icons sat contained in the app as free PNG recordsdata. Anybody who downloaded the free model might right-click it, select Present Bundle Contents, and duplicate the whole assortment with out shopping for something.
We added encryption and packaged the app with a single scrambled file. As photos are requested, they’re unscrambled dynamically.
Earlier than we submitted the software to the App Retailer, we examined it. We intentionally corrupted copies to show the examine would catch them. Then we ran the app’s personal decryption engine over each icon. The decrypted output matched the unique recordsdata, so we shipped it that approach.
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At one other level, I spotted the window scrolled extremely slowly. I needed to persuade Claude to run some exams. Because it turned out, the code compressed full-sized photos for every preview, and one other block of code rebuilt the whole window 482 instances throughout every resize request.
Persuading Claude grew to become a standard theme (very very similar to working with a human accomplice). I needed a variety rectangle that may very well be dragged throughout icons. Claude thought this strategy was pointless. Then I defined that Macs have been capable of drag-select since earlier than 1997. Finally, Claude obtained that one working.
I’ve stated this earlier than, however that is how I spent numerous my profession managing programmers. I’d work with them briefly all through the day, amongst all the opposite actions I managed for the corporate.
Vibe coding with Claude didn’t appear a lot completely different. The AI even pushed again on some directions, copped a ‘tude right here and there, and complained about among the assignments. It might completely have been one other human on the different finish of the chat. In some methods, Claude appeared extra human than some folks I’ve labored with.
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Claude additionally obtained very fussy concerning the assortment’s provenance. I discovered it fascinating how cautious the AI was about ensuring the app would get by App Retailer assessment. Its concern was who owned the icons. I needed to persuade it that my firm created the icons within the Nineties and that my present enterprise was the authorized descendant of the unique enterprise. All of the property have been mine.
Even so, Claude identified some icons Apple was prone to block, together with a Caterpillar brand and an individual’s head that regarded for all of the world like Charlie Brown. We additionally had a bunch of gunshot icons, a preferred theme in 1997 however utterly tone deaf in 2026. I eliminated these icons as properly.
One actually cool benefit of utilizing AI coding is how shortly you possibly can take a look at out concepts. Git can department code. This functionality isn’t AI-related in any respect, however it means you possibly can revert to a earlier codebase or combine adjustments. I blended utilizing Git branches with AI experiments. At one level I requested Claude to strive a very completely different visible design. Claude constructed it inside an hour, and inside 30 seconds I made a decision it was horrid. We have been capable of revert immediately.
App Retailer learnings
I’m not a whole App Retailer neophyte, however I’d as properly be. The final apps I constructed for the App Retailer have been in 2008. The final fee I obtained from Apple for these apps was in 2012. The world, and the App Retailer, have each modified rather a lot since then.
In making ready my submission to the App Retailer, I used Claude to stroll me by every display screen and submission possibility. I took screenshots of each new display screen and despatched them to Claude earlier than hitting the affirm or subsequent button. This strategy labored fairly properly.
I additionally used Claude for recommendation on organising the App Retailer account. The most important recommendation I obtained was that new App Retailer companies (these below $1 million in gross sales) can apply as a small enterprise and commissions will drop from 30% to fifteen%. That’s a giant win.
Additionally: set up and configure Claude Code, step-by-step
Earlier than submitting the app to the App Retailer, I instructed Claude to launch a collection of adversarial brokers to look at the app finish to finish. Though I’d achieved numerous testing, the brokers did discover a couple of issues that wanted to be fastened earlier than submission.
In all probability my largest shock was the graphics that accompany an App Retailer submission. Apple permits as much as ten 2880×1800 graphics which can be displayed with the app in your itemizing. Creating these graphics took me three days round my different work. In different phrases, creating the graphics took virtually so long as creating the app.
That’s as a result of Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT have been horrible, horrible, unlucky, ineffective, and total utterly incompetent at creating App Retailer promo photos. Whereas I’ve had a lot of nice success with AI picture era, there’s one thing about getting the message proper in an App Retailer promo picture that made the AIs fail. So, I did the work by hand in Photoshop, like a caveman. You possibly can see a few of these graphics above, sprinkled all through this text.
Oh, and right here’s a tip. When you arrange TestFlight, which is the software for sharing your app throughout customers and machines, restrict your uploads. On Wednesday, I uploaded 21 builds between 6:49 am and 9:20 pm, whereas fine-tuning the ultimate feel and look of the submission. Apple refused to just accept the twenty-second submission and made me wait a full day to strive once more.
That pause pushed the entire undertaking again a day.
Listed below are a couple of extra ideas:
- Inform the AI to document each choice in an .MD file
- Make the AI measure as an alternative of guess. Metrics work; AI guesses go down just about ineffective rabbit holes.
- Use tooling and deterministic evaluation fairly than simply AI. In different phrases, inform the AI to jot down Python scripts for outcomes, fairly than give its impressions.
- Launch subagents after each session to assessment that session’s work.
- Keep watch over the context utilization in every session. As soon as it reaches about 75%, save progress and restart. The AI begins getting stupider and stupider above 75% context.
- Use outdoors testers. Neither you nor the AI will catch every part.
Signing up as an Apple Developer prices $99/12 months. With out that, you possibly can’t add your software program to the App Retailer or use TestFlight.
Look, I don’t know the way properly the app will do financially, and albeit I don’t care all that a lot. I’m actually not anticipating it to fund my retirement. Nevertheless it was a ton of enjoyable and let me productize one thing I needed to make use of for myself. It was additionally gratifying to present new life to all that inventive retro artwork from the previous. The method gave me a secure and managed option to discover ways to code in-app purchases for my different app tasks, and it was an incredible take a look at case for whether or not you may get AI to assist create an app (within the area of per week) that may be submitted and authorised by the App Retailer and Apple (in simply one other 4 days).
Oh, and I didn’t write one line of precise code. Not. One. Line.
You possibly can comply with my day-to-day undertaking updates on social media. Make sure to subscribe to my weekly replace e-newsletter, and comply with me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz, on Fb at Fb.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, on Bluesky at @DavidGewirtz.com, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
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