As my one avid reader knows (Hi, Dad!), I’ve recently been learning Apple’s new programming language, Swift. Previously, I toyed around with Mobile Apps a few years ago, and back then, I tried to stay platform independant. This meant that instead of learning to make iPhone Apps only, I wanted to learn to make generic apps that worked with all Mobile Devices, also known as Web Apps. The problem with Web Apps is that they were basically websites built for smaller screens, and while it served the need, you could not just start selling your Web App once it is finished because the Internet is basically free. You really needed to build an iOS or an Android App, and put them in their respective stores. That eventually lead me to a web wrapper tool called PhoneGap that would address this problem. There were a lot of problems with this solution, such as unprofessional looking Apps, but we won’t get into that today.

This time around, I’ve decided to target iOS Apps exclusively. Sorry Android users, but even if your phones do have a decent following, developing for Android is not simple. The ecosystem is quite fragmented with many different phones, each on different versions of the operating system, each supporting a different subset of features, blah blah. This time, it’s all iOS, so what a great time to learn Swift!

I started with porting my Whipped zApp. After all, it got lucky in the media and has a record number of 4 million downloads to date despite being a super simplistic, even silly App. Now I’ve rebuilt my List zApp, which is a simple checklist app, a rite of passage for all Mobile programmers. The goal was to use the iOS TableViews to build something I would use everyday to keep track of tasks, chores, and various things that I need to-do. I have to admit, I’m pretty proud of this guy. It has some complex stuff under the hood that you may or may not be able to appreciate by using the App (like tapping and holding to move items).

Today I present to you the results of that:

Download Lists zApp off the iTunes Store today!

About the Author: Sprawl

Stephen Russell is a Mobile App developer and all around IT geek that spends his days running data centers and his nights coding. This site is the go to place for all of zSprawl's work and the infamous development blog. In his free time, he enjoys tinkering with web code, playing video games, and otherwise plotting to take over the Internets.