Stacktrace

205: “The 2026 edition”

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On this first episode of the 2026 season, John and Rambo discuss how they’re using AI agents when working on different projects, and how to approach...

204: “Ship a prompt”

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Stacktrace is back! John and Rambo check their hype levels for WWDC24, and discuss how AI might fit into Apple’s plans for this year’s releases. A...

203: “The Sherlock Holmes of debugging”

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo reflect on what they’ve been learning and how they’ve been aiming to improve as developers during 2023. Also, tips for getting bett...

202: “Incrementing the integer”

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Reactions to Apple’s “Scary fast” event, Rambo’s review of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and under the hood of CleanupBuddy.

201: “USB-C utopia”

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Will this year’s iPhones switch to USB-C instead of Lightning, what could an Apple Watch Ultra-style action button be used for on a phone, and will ...

200: “Expectation recalibration”

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo’s custom implementation of macOS desktop widgets and how they relate to Apple’s new built-in system feature, why the experience of using Swi...

199: “Taking the cover off the API”

22 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo start diving into the new announcements from WWDC23 — including the Apple Vision Pro and visionOS, the new Apple Silicon-powered Mac ...

198: “WWDC23 Keynote Poker”

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With the start of WWDC23 just around the corner, John and Rambo share their predictions, hopes, and dreams as to what Apple might introduce during thi...

197: “Perceived fluidity”

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Reducing UI flickering, designing in-app purchase and signup flows, and how adding delays can interestingly make a UI feel more smooth and stable.

196: “That new Mac smell”

24 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Integrating AI-powered features into an iOS app, using high refresh rate monitors with a Mac, the advantages of simple abstractions, and how the M1 an...

195: “The Swift historian”

13 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the show by looking back at how their work and the technology they use have changed since the begin...

194: “Definitely not called a puppy”

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How game controllers communicate with a Mac, handling asynchronous data and actions in SwiftUI, and various ways to use view models within a code base...

193: “Build your own Mac”

12 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Thoughts on the most recent Mac Pro rumors, building custom layouts for SwiftUI views in a backward-compatible manner, and the mechanics of making a U...

192: “Sundell Silicon”

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Building computers, running A/B tests as an indie developer, using UIKit as a layout tool for SwiftUI views, and deciding whether to use Core Data or ...

191: “Back to the future”

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Building custom collection view layouts, introducing new features into a legacy code base, and managing patch releases while also working on a major n...

190: “Actual trips to the Dynamic Island“

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John’s got the new AirPods Pro, Rambo’s got the iPhone 14 Pro, so the two share their initial impressions of using these new devices and how featu...

189: “The UI equivalent of a singleton”

15 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss three of the key announcements that Apple made during their “Far Out” event — the Apple Watch Ultra, the new AirPods Pro,...

188: “The least risky of the risky ones”

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With Apple’s upcoming “Far Out” event just around the corner, John and Rambo share their predictions as to what new devices, services and featur...

187: “An endless supply of SwiftUI thoughts”

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John gains a new “job title”, Rambo starts working on an iOS version of AirBuddy, and the two discuss how come the Apple developer community tends...

186: “A relational database using Markdown”

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo share their initial impressions of some of the new APIs that were announced at WWDC22, and talk about managing releases, learning when ...

185: “A big ‘finally’ moment”, the WWDC22 keynote review

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss Apple’s WWDC22 keynote, and share their first impressions of the new features and APIs that were announced.

184: “State of anticipation”

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time for John and Rambo to play another round of Apple Keynote Poker! This time the two place their bets as to what Apple might introduce durin...

183: “Let’s just call it MVC”

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Organizing workspaces and hobby projects, the pros and cons of view models and controllers, and rendering Core Animation layers within SwiftUI view hi...

182: “Are you ready to enter a rabbit hole?”

13 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A deep dive into how WidgetKit and SwiftUI’s serialization mechanism works under the hood, why John removed the ads from the Swift by Sundell websit...

181: “The banner effect”

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Balancing refactoring with feature development, abstracting system services, and building delightful UIs.

180: “Production software is a lot of work”

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Custom macOS virtualization on Apple Silicon, the pros and cons of SwiftUI’s List view, initial thoughts on WWDC 2022, and why Italy is such an amaz...

179: “An iMac without the Mac”

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

New website, new logo, same show! Rambo shares his initial impressions of using Apple’s new Studio Display, along with some interesting spelunking r...

178: “Let’s try something new”

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo celebrate the show’s 4th birthday with a big announcement, and then talk about security research, project priorities, and how to comb...

177: “The stand is included!”

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo share their first impressions of the products announced at Apple’s “Peek Performance” event — including the new iPhone SE and i...

176: “Extra Keynote Poker”

06 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On this extra episode of the show, John and Rambo share their bets, hopes and predictions for Apple’s upcoming “Peek Performance” event.

175: “A Bluetooth fanboy”

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Unit testing SwiftUI-based views, view and data architecture, as well as a behind the scenes look at Rambo’s home automation setup.

174: “An operating system toolkit”

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo speculate what the SDK for Apple’s rumored AR/VR devices might look like, and what sort of user experiences that we might be able to ...

173: “The fabric of space-time”

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

SwiftUI for animations, prototyping, and game development. Plus, a second review of the M1 Max-based MacBook Pro, and an update on how well it perform...

172: “The ‘weak self’ dance”

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How memory management works when using Swift’s new concurrency features, getting out of productivity traps, remote pair programming, and the process...

171: “Three levels of happiness”

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Continued discussions around using SwiftUI for custom animations and layouts, more on phased rollouts and prioritizing bug fixes, content exclusivity ...

170: “Welcome to programming”

26 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo revisit the topic of SwiftUI and UIKit interoperability, and discuss which of the two UI frameworks that’s recommend for beginners to...

169: “Choosing what bugs to ship”

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stacktrace is back! On this first episode of 2022, John and Rambo talk about their holidays, using Swift Playgrounds to build apps on the iPad, Mac ga...

168: “The 2021/2022 New Year’s Eve Special”

31 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Join John and Rambo on this special New Year’s Eve episode of Stacktrace, on which they celebrate some of their favorite moments, products, media, a...

167: “iPad is now Turing Complete”

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo share their first impressions of the newly released Swift Playgrounds 4, which enables developers to build full iOS apps right on the i...

166: “A little bit of compiler magic”

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The importance of sleep for both humans and async tasks, transferring apps and Apple developer accounts, and what things John and Rambo carry in their...

165: “It’s not the technology, it’s the people”

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss software quality trends, async functions and unit testing, Apple’s approach to private data with CloudKit, and dealing with t...

164: “Your wattage may vary”

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time for the first ever Stacktrace Headphone Holiday Guide! Along with discussions about writing technical articles, view models and the MVVM d...

163: “The Rambo Objective-C Manifest”

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo shares his set of principles for when and how to rewrite existing Objective-C code in Swift, John talks about his preferred workshop formats, an...

162: “Hanging on the cliff for a whole week”

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss asynchronous unit testing, using Windows as a development platform, SwiftUI previews on laptops, and conclude their deep dive i...

161: “One big data transformation engine”

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo longs to get back to UI development, John releases a new open source project, and the two embark on part one of their deep dive into Swift’s n...

160: “M1 Macintoshes”

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John shares his first impressions of the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and how he has been utilizing Swift’s new concurrency features to get the most out ...

159: “A really powerful new toy”

27 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After a discussion about Swift generics and when to use them, Rambo shares his initial impressions of using the new iPad mini, and John explains why h...

158: “Double unleashed”

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The 14 and 16-inch Apple Silicon-based MacBook Pros have finally been revealed, and John and Rambo share their initial impressions of these new produc...

157: “Very close to folding”

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo share their bets, hopes, and predictions for Apple’s upcoming “Unleashed” event. Will we finally see a new, Apple Silicon-powered...

156: “That time complexity problem”

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John gets back into game development, Rambo builds a custom Bluetooth packet parser for AirBuddy, and the two embark on another technical deep dive —...

155: “Embrace the bump”, the iOS 15 and iPhone 13 Pro review

29 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What it’s been like for John to upgrade from the iPhone X to the iPhone 13 Pro, Rambo’s continued adventures into the depths of Bluetooth LE, and ...

154: “The App Store paradise we all want”

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After discussing various refactoring strategies and app extensions for iOS apps running on the Mac, John and Rambo dive into the latest App Store news...

153: “California Streaming”

15 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo share their first impressions of the products announced at Apple’s “California Streaming” event — including the iPhone 13 lineu...

152: “Ultra Retina Smoothness”

08 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After a few brief discussions about distributed systems and preparing code bases for Apple’s new operating systems, John and Rambo place their bets ...

151: “The iOS 15 season”

01 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss the iOS 15 beta process, the latest round of App Store debates, Swift concurrency backward compatibility, and whether Apple sho...

150: “A secret Catalyst agent”

25 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this 150th episode of the show, John and Rambo go on a series of accidental deep dives into universal links, how Catalyst and AppKit can be integra...

149: “Apple Watch development chooses you”

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Prompted by recent rumors around a redesigned Apple Watch, John and Rambo discuss the state of the Watch as a platform, both as users, and from a deve...

148: “Do you have a plan for Apple?”

11 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John’s new iPad development setup, Rambo’s widget layout challenges, and Apple’s (lack of a strong) home device strategy. Also, managing deadlin...

147: “The logic behind the pixels”

04 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo’s initial impressions of the Playdate developer tools, John’s process for keeping articles and sample code up to date, Google’s new Tensor...

146: “Another straw on the back of the antitrust camel”

28 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After an accidental deep dive into Git branching strategies and a discussion about app-wide data models, John and Rambo talk about the recent news tha...

145: “Working code is better than good-looking code”

21 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss some of the most recent Apple hardware rumors, how they’ve been John and Rambo discuss how they use unit testing to verify th...

144: “An M1 with some sugar on top”

14 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss some of the most recent Apple hardware rumors, how they’ve been changing their style of programming since the introduction of...

143: “The biggest ‘it depends’ ever”

07 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss the recent announcement of GitHub Copilot and the implications that such a tool could have on the world of software development...

142: “The Sideloading Cartel”

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the Stacktrace App Store special! What could happen if Apple were to enable sideloading on iOS, and what other changes could Apple make to impr...

141: “Going to space is more reliable than Bluetooth”

23 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John’s new daily writing challenge, Rambo’s continued deep dives into Bluetooth and local networking, and initial impressions of Apple Music Spati...

140: “I was applauding from my couch”

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo dive much deeper into some of the key new APIs and system features that were announced at WWDC21, including SharePlay, ShazamKit, Swift...

139: “macOS Monorail”, the WWDC21 keynote review

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss some of the major new announcements from Apple’s WWDC21 keynote, and how they might impact developers building apps for Apple...

138: “WWDC21 Keynote Poker”

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time for another game of Stacktrace Keynote Poker! This time, John and Rambo place their bets on what Apple might announce at WWDC21, either du...

137: “State of the Union nap”

26 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

WWDC preparations, the challenge of building features that rely on wireless communication between devices, Apple’s latest accessibility announcement...

136: “Cascading Device Sheets”

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After narrowly avoiding an accidental web development deep dive, John and Rambo discuss the challenges of open source maintenance, AirBuddy’s upcomi...

135: “No overview available”

12 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo go on a deep dive into Plot’s new SwiftUI-like API for building HTML pages, and discuss 3D printing, API evolution and documentation,...

134: “Overthinking is the enemy of shipping”

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After checking in on the progress of Rambo HQ 2.0 and a visit to John’s Static Site Generation Corner, John and Rambo briefly discuss the ongoing tr...

133: “A flowchart in your head”

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Organizing Combine-based code, the security of smart home devices, whether the Apple TV is gaining eARC support, and how to use compiler directives an...

132: “The 'M' stands for 'Marketing'”

21 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss all of the major announcements from Apple’s “Spring Loaded” event, including the new iMac, AirTags, the M1-powered iPad P...

131: “Apple product therapy”

14 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s finally time for another round of Apple Event Keynote Poker, with John and Rambo placing their bets as to what Apple might announce during thei...

130: “A comedian with code”

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo talk about Kara Swisher’s recent interview with Tim Cook, Apple’s upcoming App Tracking Transparency initiative and the new additio...

129: “Dependencies gone wild”

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John is excited about SwiftUI animations, Rambo updates the unofficial WWDC app, Xiaomi resurrects AirPower, and Apple announces WWDC21. Also, the lat...

128: “They backed themselves into a home corner”

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo launches a new app, John has thoughts about SwiftUI’s heavy usage of Swift’s type system, and it turns out that there might be more to the H...

127: “Apple’s spring cleaning”

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Optimizing the performance of SwiftUI views, mixing client work with indie development, Apple’s recent discontinuation of the original HomePod, and ...

126: “Leaving iOS behind”

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo picks up Android development, John is continuing to turn into a Mac developer, and the two discuss the recent discontinuation of the iMac Pro an...

125: “Build pipelines, not spiderwebs”

03 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Localizing an indie app, the stability of SwiftUI previews, various ways of storing and handling app data, and whether Apple might be building a gener...

124: “All of that Macness”

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

App Clip analytics, building macOS apps using SwiftUI, Apple’s initial response to the latest App Store scams, speculation about what a potential Ap...

123: “Swift++”

17 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After a deep dive into various ways of making Swift interact with C++ code, as well as the latest AirBuddy and humidifier hack updates, John and Rambo...

122: “Raised in a hardware household”

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo hacks a humidifier, John is excited about linting and continuous integration, and the two discuss the most recent set of exposed App Store scams...

121: “Debug-driven development”

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo discuss some of the key new features that are being introduced in iOS 14.5 and Xcode 12.5, as well as their preferred debugging workflo...

120: “iGlasses Pro Max XDR”

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The joy of writing apps using SwiftUI and modern UIKit, a review of the AirPods Max, will FaceID come to the iMac anytime soon, and what sort of thing...

119: “Swift spelunking”

20 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Rambo react to the latest Mac and iPhone rumors, design a new feature for AirBuddy, talk about Swift Evolution and not-quite-public language ...

118: “The real reality is gone”

13 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rambo goes indie, John realizes once again how important breaks are, and the two discuss the latest rumors around Apple’s AR glasses in great detail...

117: “The best not-kept secret”

06 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On the final holiday special for this year (or, last year?), John and Rambo discuss their expectations for 2021, and what products and new developer t...

116: “It wasn’t just a big, long nightmare”, the 2020 Stacktrace retrospective

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this second Stacktrace holiday special, John and Rambo look back at the past year and what some of the highlights were among the hectic, strange ro...

115: “Not a trace of a stack”

23 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On the first ever completely non-technical episode of Stacktrace, John and Rambo answer #askstacktrace questions about everything from local holiday t...

114: “The invisible Bluetooth wire”

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

An accidental deep dive into how the AirPods’ transparency mode is activated over Bluetooth, the launch of Swift by Sundell 3.0, running macOS code ...

113: “The hype is real!”

09 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

More on using the M1 Macs as development machines, thoughts on the newly announced AirPods Max and its pricing, the importance of maintaining URLs as ...

112: “The just is justified”

02 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this slightly more code-focused episode of the show, John and Rambo discuss cross-platform SwiftUI development and techniques for integrating Swift...

111: “Mini reviews, maximum reviews”

25 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

John reviews the M1 Mac mini, and Rambo reviews the iPhone 12 mini. Two “mini products” that turn out to be not very mini in terms of performance....

110: “Intel’s Blackberry moment?”

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Apple’s lower App Store commission, the future of Swift by Sundell, shipping AirBuddy 2, M1 Mac benchmarks, SwiftUI’s potential as a cross-platfor...

109: “The Mac Mini stole my heart”, the November 2020 Apple event review

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The first round of Apple Silicon Macs is finally here, and John and Rambo have lots of thoughts on them. Also, adventures into Multipeer Connectivity ...

108: “The future could be next week”, the November 2020 Apple Keynote Poker special

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time for John and Rambo to place their bets on what Apple might announce at their upcoming “One More Thing” event. Will we see the first Ap...

107: “Context is key”

28 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The story and implementation behind Swift by Sundell Discover, how and why AirBuddy 2 will have an onboarding process, thoughts and comments on the ne...

106: “Do you buy your HomePods in bulk?”

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The success of the AirBuddy 2 pre-orders is immediately followed by a classic Rambo shopping spree, John continues to explore Swift’s function build...