Remember to setup Legacy Contacts with your Family on your Apple accounts so you can get into their accounts when they pass away.
Author Archives: Brent Deverman
Well formatted Swift Language ebook
The Swift language has a book in HTML form and here is a repository that generates PDFs and Epub versions of the book. It looks good and you can learn swift offline.
Dynamically generated user interfaces with AI
I saw a demo on X of a dynamically generated user interface, I guess you can say a text to pixel web browser that made an impression on me so I’m noting it here because this is something to watch and I think it is going to be very important in the future. It is very slow like dial-up and it shows to me that we are no where near hitting peak token. This should be disruptive to Apple and they should be working on supporting AI generated interface. I tried to explore what it could come up with about Shenzhen.
Here is the tweet announcement:
It even got a comment from Andrej Karpathy:
Using Encrypted DNS to Prevent Tracking on macOS
Using encrypted DNS is one less way that you can be tracked, and some countries block certain websites through DNS. You can set up your Mac to use encrypted DNS, but you have to install a profile to set it up. A popular profile is this open-source one on GitHub. These profiles also work on iPhones and iPads. I have installed one of the “Cloudflare 1.1.1.1” configurations. The web page gives you installation instructions.
Health And Calorie Tracking Apps I’ve tried
For years I’ve been interested in what was called the “quantified self” space and so I’ve been using apps to track simple bio markers. I even managed the migration of a 13TB database and application migration to the cloud for the AI Vitality Hong Kong tracking app. Wanted to make a list of what I have tried and what I’m using for reference:
Tried but didn’t stick
- Bevel – Was recommended by a friend and tried it for workouts. It seems to be a real “super app”, but I’m not sure why it didn’t stick. I think it was sending me a lot of initial notifications.
- Cal.ai – Tried this one because I heard the first interview from the founder on My First Million Podcast, and what seemed to be a short time after I heard the second interview about how he had a huge exit.
- OpenNutrition – Caught my eye because they have published their nutrition database online that can be downloaded.
Currently Using
- Oura – Been using this app and the ring for like 7 years and really love the design. Check it for my sleep daily and sometimes remember to record my meals here.
- Withings – Using this to take my blood pressure and weigh myself on their scale every day.
- SleepCycle – Monitoring my snoring with this app.
- Fud AI – Open-source calorie tracker written in Swift and Kotlin, just installed and will play around because it lets you bring your own AI key.
Heard about but Haven’t tried
Just heard about these but haven’t tried them noting them in case I would like to come back to them.
AI Follows List on X
I started to put the accounts related to AI that show up own my X feed into an X list. These are the ones that I think are worth following that are either building in the industry or are thought leaders.
Bootleg concert recordings
The Internet Archive digitized one guys bootleg concert recordings. He donated over 10,000 tracks with ~2,500 digitized. I’m listening to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds Live from 1986 as I write this.
Points to know when applying for the Apple Developer Academy in Bali
Want to get into the Apple Developer Academy in Bali? Joel and I have made a short to explain some of the steps and considerations when applying since it both took us two tries.
Advice to a young entrepreneur
The other day I met a young lad who just graduated high school. He had just inherited his father’s business because his father passed away. He was asking for advice on what he should do, including if he should go to college. His mom was currently running the business, but the business was going down a bit.
I want to jot down the advice I gave him:
Should he go to college?
College of course, depends on his goals and if he is driven and can build in public and show his value some other way. Maybe college is not necessary, and he can find a job by just showing off his skills. It is easier than ever to learn some subjects. There might be opportunities in the AI era to go to college and get some domain expertise that would help, such as in the fields of biology, etc. When I found out he had the family business to help run, that seemed to be a pretty clear path.
Talk to the customers
He should talk to them to understand their needs and pain points. Set up a coffee with them and don’t try to sell to them; just show you are trying to learn the business and what their business needs are. Be curious about them and ask if they have any memories of his dad to be vulnerable and make a connection.
Finding new Customers vs Current Customers
It’s cheaper to keep and serve current customers than to find new customers, and the type of business does not make it easy to find customers with digital marketing.
Learn the product
He was confused about what he should prioritize, and he thought he needed to learn the ins and outs of the products first. I told him to just learn the basics, take the product catalog, and put it into AI and just tell the AI to give you the basic understanding of each product. Later, he can go in-depth to learn each product but can probably prioritize that after talking to each customer to understand what are the most important products his company sells.
I forgot to say…
What I forgot to say was that in general, growing an existing business is much easier than founding a new business. I also know people that have recently bought businesses and have taken over optimizing operations with them using AI to extremely good effect with tools like Claude Code. There is probably a huge opportunity to use AI for optimizing the business.
Tokyo Swift conference videos posted

Last year I was able to attend the TrySwift! conference and loved it. Going to Tokyo for such a technical conference is really worth it. They have just released the 2026 TrySwift! conference videos on YouTube.