We Can Do Hard Things

Years ago, back when I was leading a mobile dev team, my friend had an idea for a business. You see, back then the most frustrating thing about mobile dev was the final step: getting your app on actual phones. Builds, provisioning, and code signing made for a harrowing trial, festooned with obtuse errors and other sharp spikes. So, Dennis had a pitch for me. “What if,” he asked, “we did all your apps’ builds and provisioning and signing for you, in the cloud?” I raised an eyebrow. “Well, obviously that would be great. In theory. But it would be too annoying to build that. Apple drops Xcode versions and switches submission requirements with no warning. And you’d need to make sure that…” He stopped me with a wave. “Right, but: if we did it, and it worked. Would you use it?” “Well, of course we would. But I don’t think you want to run this.” My attempt to discourage him didn’t work. Perversely, the idea that this was a hard problem got him more excited. He immediately dove in. Three…