A side project to my side project: Collectibles.app

As too often happens, while working on my side project I had an idea for a new project, and started a side project to my side project.

I was looking for an iOS app that could easily display image NFT's associated with one or more wallet addresses, and work cross chain with either Etherium, Solana or Tezos. When I couldn't find an app like this, I thought this would be an easy project, that I should be able to finish within one week. Now I'm working on it for the 3rd week ...

Why is this an idea worth pursuing?

This is first of all something that I "need" myself. A single place to see all my NFTs, regardless of what blockchain they are on. And the timing looks good now, the market is growing. I'm also designing it in a way where it's easy to add support for new blockchains (by creating a single API endpoint that normalizes api's for all the different blockchains), so that this app can be the first to support new blockchains. For instance I'm very excited about the Chia blockchain, which yesterday announced their CAT1 standard (fungible token support), and that their non-fungible token support also will arrive soon. My idea is to support this from day one.

What's taking so long?

I really like Swift and SwiftUI, but unfortunately I don't get to programming using those technologies in my everyday work (mostly Typescript/Next.js/React). So I have to Google and research most of what I do. Also SwiftUI still has quirks and bugs which I unnecessarily have to spend time working around. I could use AppKit/UIKit, but I still feel like SwiftUI is the way forward, so I rather spend some extra time now, and then have something future proof, rather than having to convert it at a later point. Also SwiftUI is fun! 😊

When will it be ready?

There are lot’s of fun features that could be added to this app, but for now I’ll focus on the «viewing» aspect of the app. I have something working now, but it needs some polishing. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to submit the app to the App Store by friday, november 19th. As a bonus, since I’m writing it in SwiftUI, there will also be a native macOS app. 🥳