Developer ships iOS app unplanned, reflects on joy and autonomy in pet projects

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A software developer, while adjusting to new parenthood, unexpectedly released an iOS version of his personal app Kombine despite it not being on the original development roadmap. The project, which started two years ago as an Android pomodoro sync tool, evolved to include a web app and eventually iOS support using Kotlin Multiplatform with Compose. The developer found that fully delegating the web app to AI left him feeling disconnected from the code and unable to debug or guide it effectively, prompting him to abandon that path. He credits AI coding tools like Claude Code for making it affordable to pivot freely, since rebuilding modules became far less time-intensive. His broader takeaway is that pet projects should be driven by curiosity and joy rather than roadmaps, and that losing interest is a valid reason to change direction.

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