Rudrank's Dispatch: Try Again.

Well, it has been more than two months since my last dispatch, and a lot has happened since.

I will be honest. I did not like curating articles without putting my non-technical thoughts into my newsletter. It just did not feel to be me.

And instead of doing something about it, I quit altogether. Sigh.

The best way to continue this dispatch is to have both the worlds:

• The first half will have my posts and the curated posts that I found helpful over the week!
• The second half will be more about my personal journey, like how I used to write back in 2021 and 2022. I know more than a few love my writing, and I do not want to disappoint myself by leaving them stranded!

I have written many posts in the past two months so this one will be all about me, haha, and I cannot wait to hear your thoughts!

Posts

• visionOS*: In this post, I share my approach to implementing toast notifications in visionOS using ornaments. I created some visually appealing toasts for my Music Discovery with Fusion app!

Exploring visionOS: Creating Toast Notification Using Ornaments

• visionOS*: Inspired by the iMessage app's multi-window layout and smooth animations, I explore how to create a main window with a conditionally shown side window in visionOS. I also show how I integrated this side window concept into my Music Discovery with Fusion app to display the now-playing queue view. 🎶

Exploring visionOS: Creating Side Window for Main Window with Animation

• WWDC 2024*: After an Absolutely Incredible WWDC 2024, I wrote about my plans post WWDC, and beyond. This is a personal post instead of a technical one, but worth a read.

Exploring Conferences: WWDC 2024 and Beyond!

• Translation*: One of the updated frameworks this year is the Translation framework where you can have your custom UI with on-device translation. I used it in my app, LyricLens, and wrote a post about checking for language availability. This is one of the many I plan to write in the coming weeks. Let's create apps that bring people closer, one translation at a time!

Exploring Translation Framework: Language Availability

I plan to write more in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Sponsor

A shoutout to Runway for sponsoring the website and this newsletter! Death by a thousand branch cuts! Or use Runway for your mobile release management instead.

Oh, where do I even start? The last dispatch was on 14th of April, and after that, there have been some significant events in my life.

Apple and Some Spatial Audio

In the first four months of the year, I worked on a Spatial Audio project with Apple. That project was showcased at the Apple BKC store in Mumbai, India!

I worked on the Ornithoscope app with Apple and amazing artist Ameya and Aaron that was showcased today at Apple BKC! 🦅🦅🦅 pic.twitter.com/Y6fhDPCeGJ

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) April 24, 2024

This project was difficult. I barely worked with Spatial Audio before, and the layout was trickier than I anticipated it to be. I learned a lot on this project over the months. Also, how to ship fast with a not-so-clean codebase. The user never gets to see it anyway, right?!

My Best Talk, Yet

I gave the closing talk at iOSKonf in Skopje, Macedonia, and it was about building a personal brand. I think it was my best talk, yet!

This was the first time being vulnerable on the stage, sharing my story, and hoping to inspire people about the power of the internet.

This was my fifth conference talk in a year, and I still have stage fright. I was sweating like a sinner in church that I had to change my shirt immediately after the talk before hugging anyone, haha. My hands were freezing cold that I could not properly press the next slide button on the presenter. I hope it gets better with more experience. But it all worked out well!

I think I gave my best talk today. 🤎 pic.twitter.com/mGcMaz6cds

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) May 15, 2024

The idea of the talk was to start with half of the famous quote by Steve Jobs, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” Then connect the dots backwards by talking about my journey over the past many years and giving practical learnings about personal branding.

At the end, finish the quote, “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” I can clearly look at all the dots I made, and how they connected together now.

Finally, I left the audience with some homework on starting with personal branding. The talk should be out sooner than later on YouTube, and I will link it in one of the subsequent dispatch!

Stacktrace: Organising a Meet-up and Some 🔥

I started going to Swift Delhi back in 2019, and made amazing friends from there. Attended the engagement of one this month too! 🥰

But, after COVID, the meetups were rare in my city. One of the OG organisers, and we decided to start again.

1st of June. A morning to remember. It was probably 45 degrees out there in Delhi. Yes, 113 Fahrenheit for those who prefer the higher number. When we were setting up the room for the developers, the coworking space's employee turned on one of the AC unit.

Boom.

There was a loud noise from the Air Conditioner, and we immediately switched it off. We continued setting up the room with portable fans instead.

I had a look at the AC again. Gray smoke coming out of it. The gray color turned into black. And as soon as we could process it, there was fire literally falling on the floor. The whole room had wooden furniture. I just rushed and shouted, "There's a fire!" We evacuated the room quickly. Rushed through the stairs, and in like 10 minutes, there were big clouds of black smoke coming out downstairs. The fire brigade came and fortunately got control of the situation.

But we were left without a place to have our meetup. The organizers decided to do it at Starbucks, but one of the speakers negotiated with another coworking space, and we finally ended up having our first successful meetup!

Today was a wild day. 🥵

After the mishap in the morning, I did not think the meet-up would happen at all.

But thanks to the amazing people who quickly arranged for a different venue. ❤️‍🔥

First successful Stacktrace (First Commit) 🚀 pic.twitter.com/q4rgumfJTF

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 1, 2024

The irony – we came seeking cool air and ended up with a fiery surprise! I know one thing for certain – this was a developer meetup none of us would ever forget.

Accepting the Voice

Being vulnerable on stage is scary. In just half an hour, hundres of faces that do not know you, got to know about your whole life story. You know what's scarier? Baring your soul to thousands.

I decided to write more on Twitter. One of the first was is about accepting my voice. The struggles of hating it, to finally being content with it. If it is something that you want to read about, here is the link:

Accepting the Voice.

Growing up, I had a complicated relationship with my voice. As a teenager, I felt self-conscious about my feeble and squeaky tone, especially when compared to my classmates whose voices had already begun to crack and deepen.

Throughout my school years, I…

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 2, 2024

WWDC 2024

I got the chance to attend Apple's WWDC this year. It was amazing. Things worked out well for me, and I attended the conference as I had planned in my post:

Exploring Conferences: Preparing for WWDC 2024!

I will probably write a whole post about my experience, but here is a picture of me with the WWDC banner!

Still feels unreal to be here haha pic.twitter.com/38nidQUeDi

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 10, 2024

I'd Catch a Grenade for Ya

I experienced one of my favorite music artists live. Bruno Mars! 😭

I EXPERIENCED BRUNO MARS LIVE 😭 pic.twitter.com/UDpbEKl9wK

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 15, 2024

I documented my journey of listening to Grenade as an emo teenager, to experiencing Bruno's world in Las Vegas:

Attending My First International Concert.

I vividly remember the first time I saw Bruno Mars's music video for Grenade, probably a decade ago. He was dragging the piano on the railway track, and it ended dramatically, like a Bollywood movie. I watched Rockstar, my favourite… pic.twitter.com/fcP7sNVXVh

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 16, 2024

New Life.

During WWDC, I met some amazing designers from Apple. And I showed them my cute little apps that I thought were only good when free.

I was so wrong.

One of them said, I would not pay much for the app, maybe like 5 dollars? I was like 5 dollars is a lot?! 100 sales a month, and that's Ramen profitability for me.

When I got the mail on June 12th that my developer account renewed, I decided to start a new life: go indie.

I have got enough inspiration from people to give indie development a shot for one year.

Renewed membership, new life! 🥳

I hope y’all follow my journey! pic.twitter.com/BsFcOdNBHM

— Rudrank. (@rudrankriyam) June 11, 2024

I still do not know how it will all work out, but I am giving myself one year. One year to go all in, without any regrets, and trusting myself for once.

It is a win-win situation for me. I work on the apps. I write about the features through my posts. And it cross-promotes the apps, too.

I get to write a lot. Words and code. And some more words. So much to write. So much to type.

I have some freelance work I need to wrap up before going all-in from July, and I plan to document my journey through the weekly dispatches!

6 More Months to 2025.

When I used to write my newsletter in 2021 and 2022, I would mention about my weight loss journey. I ended up back at square one at the beginning of 2024.

But, in the past six months, I lost 10 Kgs through walking and a healthier diet. I plan to continue with it, and use the dispatch for keeping myself accountable, too.

It is going to be a busy year ahead. A lot to explore in this new life, a lot to write about, too.

I hope you all had a good first half 2024, and excited for the next half of it!