It has been one hectic year to say the least. One that has been filled with stress, unknown, and a lot of learning. Starting with me, I have not created a blog post for over a year now, nor have I been too active on my social platforms aside from instagram. However, that does not mean that I have not been putting in work into projects and my brand. Let's take a look at the year I have had since my last post!

2019

After wrapping up work on Habite v1.6, I had some time on my hands to work on other projects and start new beginnings in the summer of 2019. This time allowed me to do research, start a new chapter in my life which included college, and do a lot of learning. A snippet about me, I am someone who plans out their days and organizes work, school, and hobbies. Once I began college in August of 2019, I found myself researching homework apps. This idea had been in the back of my mind for months prior as I had wrapped up an update for Habite. Once I began classes, the idea became a lot more clear to me. It was as if I was planting a seed that would sprout into a new flower! Little did I know what I would be doing for the remainder of 2019.

TimeCrunch (iOS)

Starting college in late August / early September, a new idea sparked that would soon be developed into a product. Initially, I had the idea of building a complex iOS application focused with course work, but it quickly turned into building something small and simple. That allowed my mind to wonder to TimeCrunch, a small homework planner app that allows students, varying from secondary to college / university, to organize and stay on top of their classes. The app has two main functions: assignments and courses. Breaking that down, the app allows you to add, edit, and delete assignments that you may have for the current day, the week, or any day in the future. Connecting this to courses, students can see all of their classes they have during the day going from time to professor name to building and room number!

This app, being relatively small, was not built in the span of a week. The full idea began in early September, the design began that same week and spanned for a few days, and I dove into the code in the middle of September. Though, of course with my new college schedule, I did not have hours upon hours to work on this app. This did, however, allow me to plan and prepare various days to work on this new app that I was planning to ship. Once I did dive into the code in the middle of September, it took about 6-7 weeks to build, test, and ship out. I think this app could have been built a bit faster than that, but with my schedule and building the website, the app did not ship until early November.

Looking back over the past year since TimeCrunch shipped, I have to say that I have learned a lot about various students across the globe on how they stay on top of their schedules in earning some sort of degree. I do plan to add more value to this app in early 2021 and add more support such as macOS and android, but for now, it is serving its purpose for simplicity and ease of use!

2020

The year that has been one to remember, I cannot stress enough how much I have learned through everything that has happened. If I could, I would sit down for hours, and write a book on all of the lessons I have learned. Let's just highlight a few major parts of 2020 so far!

With being in my second semester of college, I had more time to work on apps and websites in my free time, but it was not all the time I wish I had. That would quickly change a couple months into 2020 when the world went in a global pandemic and countries began locking down. Going with the short version, my classes changed to online, my time freed up, and I started focusing more on iOS apps and websites! Let's break down 2020 so far into these categories: Habite v2.0, Other projects, and What the future holds!

Habite v2.0

With the year starting not so lightly, Habite itself was not doing so well. From the backend side, the code was old, there was a ton of garbage, and it was not stable enough for all users. The first major step I took was in March 2020 when I decided to rebuild the app completely from the ground up. This created a lot of doubt, some second thoughts, and long nights. The app was poorly written from v1.6 and down, there were a ton of storyboards, and there was no real value there. So I took the new app step by step, I began learning code only, and focused more on building iOS apps with a MVC pattern. To begin with, I redid the app design completely, looking at common likes that users enjoyed in v1.6, and focusing more on white space and clean looks. This took me about a week of reaching out to users, designing and redesigning, and finalizing my ideas for the new version.

From March to October, I spent countless days and nights rebuilding this app. The process took a little too long in my opinion, I did have to rebuild every controller, delete all the storyboards, write new classes for the databases, and rewire the app to work like before especially for existing users. It was stressful, but fun at the same time, for the first time in sometime I was building and learning something new! I did have a lot of trial and error especially through testing, but the outcome has been incredible so far. Habite v2.0 shipped a week before its' 2 year anniversary (mid October), and has so far been growing everyday since. Although this new update took way too long, it brought me a new way of building iOS applications that has completely changed my vision for future projects. Early in 2021, I plan to launch the macOS version and then a couple months later the android version. Along with this, I will be converting the app into multi device support allowing users to use multiple devices in staying on top of their schedules.

Other Projects

Aside from working on Habite v2.0 for most of 2020, I did dive in react.js and next.js with building websites. So far it has been an exciting experience of building websites in a completely different manner than I had before. I am planning to convert all of my websites in the coming months to react based, and starting a youtube series on it soon!

Building websites has been pretty exciting the past month, but I have also began working on various new iOS apps I plan to ship around the new year. These will start relatively small, and focus on a couple main features that help users from a photography view to a book lover view! I am super stoked to begin sharing more on those soon, to stay updated on them, follow me here!

What the Future Holds

This might be the most exciting part that I have yet to reveal! I have many projects and revisions coming in the next few months that vary from iOS to macOS to websites and even android. Though, one of the most exciting I will be announcing next weekend (Dec 12, 2020). There is still a lot of room for growth in building iOS applications, but I feel that I have a better foundation now than I did a year ago. With this being said, the next few months will also consist of me helping you learn iOS and website development through my youtube channel. I will be posting multiple times a week on various series aimed at different programming structures. Plus, make sure to look out for weekly blog posts here or on my medium page, and a new weekly newsletter that starts next week as well. So much to look forward to, and I cannot wait to begin sharing more with you.

If you have any questions or want to reach out, send me a message through my website or my instagram!

Instagram: @Lzctrl (Posting daily content of my work)

Habite: Download for free

TimeCrunch: Download for free