Dynamic Type & In-App Font Scaling
Feb 11, 2021, 3:01 PM
The Dynamic Type feature allows users to choose the size of textual content displayed on the screen. It helps users who need larger text for better readability. It also accommodates those who can read smaller text, allowing more...
Banks Suck
Dec 2, 2020, 12:00 PM
Banks suck. The financial industry is full of hidden and predatory fees, outdated software, and horrific customer support. From defrauding customers with millions of fake accounts to facilitating crimes against humanity across the globe,...
Swift on Raspberry Pi Workshop: Part 3
Nov 20, 2020, 3:28 PM
This is the third and final post in our three-part series about setting up a Raspberry Pi to build a distance measurement system for an autonomous car. In Part 1 of this series, we set up a basic circuit to control LEDs via the Raspberry...
Swift on Raspberry Pi Workshop: Part 2
Nov 18, 2020, 3:00 PM
This is the second post in a three-part series about setting up a Raspberry Pi to build a distance measurement system for an autonomous car. In Part 1, we set up a basic circuit to control LEDs via the Raspberry Pi. In this post, we’ll...
Swift on Raspberry Pi Workshop: Part 1
Nov 10, 2020, 12:30 PM
The Raspberry Pi is a fun little device that everyone can learn from. From robotics to home automation, you can use it to do just about anything. In September 2019, I hosted a workshop at try! Swift NYC where we used a Raspberry Pi to...
How We Do Sales
Oct 15, 2020, 3:33 PM
Part performance art, part science, and part relationship managment—sales is a complicated process, and it can differ drasticly depending on the people involved and the goals of the organization. There is no one silver bullet technique...
Meet Buildwatch
Sep 29, 2020, 9:25 AM
After a decade of making software, we’re releasing our first paid developer tool today on the Mac App Store. Say hello to Buildwatch—a menu bar app that keeps an eye on your compile times throughout the day.
We’ve been building apps in...
Learning with Lickability
Sep 4, 2020, 3:29 PM
Every Wednesday morning, we congregate on a Screen call for an hour—not to have a meeting that really could have been an email, but to learn. We call it Learn with Lickability.
Conferences Condensed: WWDC20
Jul 9, 2020, 5:57 PM
We look forward to WWDC every year, and we know you do, too. As much as we missed seeing all of our pals in San Jose for the conference, we still had a great time watching sessions online and chatting with familiar faces and new friends in...
Installing the macOS Big Sur beta on a new partition
Jun 22, 2020, 11:07 PM
Big Sur has just been announced, and you’re itching to give it a shot. But wait—you have plenty of apps to support and work to do. Is it worth the risk of things not working or crashing? Probably not. In this blog post, we are going to...
Getting Started with UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout
Jun 17, 2020, 4:03 PM
At WWDC 2019, Apple introduced and later documented an unbelievable API for building complex layouts with ease. UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout promised to simplify collection view layouts using a more declarative approach without the...
Understanding Creational Design Patterns
May 26, 2020, 2:40 PM
Welcome to the third and final part of our series on understanding design patterns in iOS development. In previous blog posts, we explored structural and behavioral design patterns. In this post, we’ll take a look at a few examples of...
Tooling at Home
Apr 1, 2020, 4:20 PM
In the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Lickability moved all its operations remote on March 10th. At this point, we’ve had a few weeks of working together remotely to figure out what works best for our little studio. While there are...
Understanding Behavioral Design Patterns
Mar 26, 2020, 10:15 AM
Welcome back to our design patterns series. In the first part of this series, we discussed six structural design patterns. In this second installment, we will be looking at behavioral patterns. Behavioral patterns allow our objects to...
Testing Push Notifications in the iOS Simulator
Mar 10, 2020, 4:15 PM
With the release of Xcode 11.4, Apple has given us the ability to test push notifications in the simulator. Before this, testing push notifications required using a physical device and a lot of extra work. In this post, we are going to go...
A Lawyer and an Accountant
Jan 15, 2020, 3:14 PM
Starting Lickability 10 years ago was relatively simple on paper. As 19-year-olds, Brian and I hopped on LegalZoom, filled out some form fields, and presto—our company was born. If you’re thinking of starting a company today, tools like...
Our Favorite Apps of 2019
Jan 8, 2020, 3:45 PM
We haven’t shared our favorite apps with you in a while, so as we begin the new year, this feels like a good time to give a shout-out to a few of our recent favorites from 2019. Some of these apps were new to the App Store last year, and...
A New(er) Look for The Atlantic
Dec 11, 2019, 2:59 PM
Everyone loves receiving a good grade. Seeing a giant, red “A” at the top of an assignment is such a great feeling—in fact, that’s the same grade we would give The Atlantic on the new look they debuted a few weeks ago. They redesigned...
Understanding Structural Design Patterns
Dec 6, 2019, 2:51 PM
If you are like me and have a year or less of experience developing iOS apps, there might be some concepts that you use in code without realizing what they are or why you’ve used them—I’m talking about design patterns. These patterns allow...
How Our Engineers Collaborate
Nov 26, 2019, 2:38 PM
Collectively, the engineers at Lickability have worked with dozens of iOS development teams, shipping countless features, new products, redesigns, and Swift rewrites. Ten years in, our processes have evolved into a well-oiled machine with...
Our New Blog
Nov 20, 2019, 12:31 PM
Notice anything different? Welcome to the brand new Lickability blog! In the past two months, we took a bit of a break from publishing new posts while we moved all of our content over to our website from Medium. From now on, all of our new...
Conference Condensed: XOXO 2019
Sep 29, 2019, 8:00 PM
At the beginning of this month, Matt and Jillian went to Portland for another year of XOXO, the “experimental festival for independent artists” that we look forward to every year. It was, predictably, fantastic. We could keep this blog...
Conference Condensed: try! Swift 2019
Sep 23, 2019, 8:00 PM
If you’re in the NYC iOS community and you aren’t following try! Swift, what are you even doing? It’s one of our favorite iOS conferences, especially for folks who are new to Swift. This year, as we did last year, we sponsored a diversity...
What I learned as an iOS Apprentice
Sep 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
There is a saying that goes, “It is not about the destination, but the journey.” This is certainly true — it does the mind good to reflect on the experiences encountered on the way to your chosen destination. My journey into and through...
Conference Condensed: AnxietyTech
Sep 3, 2019, 8:00 PM
A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of checking out AnxietyTech, an NYC conference that explores mental health and self care in the tech industry. We had a great time and learned a lot, and it’s definitely on our list of favorite tech...
Swift on Raspberry Pi
Aug 25, 2019, 8:00 PM
Raspberry Pi is a small, cost-effective, single-board computer with potential only limited by its computing power. It is also well-known by hobbyists and technologists alike. It’s the perfect device for those looking to experiment with an...
Swift Playgrounds is for Everyone
Aug 1, 2019, 8:00 PM
Ever since joining Lickability as an Account Manager three months ago, my responsibilities have included finding and pursuing leads, working with potential clients through every stage of a project, drafting estimates and contracts, and...
Our Swift Best Practices
Jul 25, 2019, 8:00 PM
Code is written for humans. I’m not the first to say that, and won’t be the last. What you write will eventually be compiled away into something unintelligible, so how you choose to write code isn’t for the computer’s benefit. It’s for...
10 Years of Lickability
Jul 22, 2019, 8:00 PM
Wow! Time flies when you’re having fun and making apps. Our company turned 10 this year, so we figured it’d be good to look back over everything we’ve accomplished together over the last decade. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall...
Conference Condensed: WWDC 2019
Jun 13, 2019, 8:00 PM
Last week, we sent five Lickability team members to San Jose for WWDC, Layers, and AltConf. This week, we’re giving you a rundown of some of our favorite moments — strap in.
Yell it into the #void
May 23, 2019, 8:00 PM
We like to try new things in the Lickability Slack from time to time, like inviting friends of the company to join public channels, or using an app called Hey Taco! to give teammates praise in the form of 🌮 emojis. Now, we’ve added a new...
Conference Condensed: NSNorth 2019
May 9, 2019, 8:00 PM
Two weeks ago, I stepped on stage at the St. James Theatre in Montréal to deliver my talk, Growing Pains, to the audience of NSNorth. Before that, I had the opportunity to spend the weekend learning and socializing with a delightful group...