Don't break the HIG

As a result, my first rule I’m adopting for myself in this initial redesign is that I will 100% follow the system guidance and use all default system behaviors.

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That didn’t stop me from trying to see if I could do it anyway. So a bit of hacking around with onChange and other abuse of SwiftUI I got something working.

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The exact thing I wasted a few hours working on was specifically called out as a bad idea.

So that is now my mission for the summer. I want to adapt Widgetsmith and Pedometer++ into the new system without a single hack.

I love David Smith’s work as an indie developer. He has an eye for making useful things.

He’s made a living building apps and creating value for users. In his work he also makes quite a few custom interfaces. Some of which, admittedly, I’ve wondered about. They’re so unique that it’s hard to find the pattern—which is just fine for large numbers of happy customers. With that said, I’m excited to see how he shifts the design in his apps for iOS 26.

Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) are good. They’re considered, and for the most part useful.

David tried an exception to HIG, only to realize that it’s a bad idea. So many times I’m tempted to create a custom UI for a one-off situation. And often I just go for it. It’s almost never a good idea. Using system defaults makes life easier for users and for development as a whole.

I love this personal challenge and want to try it myself—build an app using only HIG, follow established patterns and focus on the experience and value for users.

Via David Smith.