Crouton Turns Five

Year of the cube.

Last month Crouton turned five! I had planned to have this post ready to go on the date, but gosh this year sure has been hectic. I can’t quite believe I’ve made it this far. What seems even less believable is just how far my little recipe app has come in the last 5 years. I like to take a moment to do a quick check-in each year on what has changed and how I’m feeling about the year ahead.

In last year’s update I wrote “I bet I’ll have more to say on this next year when Crouton turns 5, but I’m having a lot of fun transitioning Crouton into the world of spatial computing“. 2023 Devin had no idea! The last 6 months since the Apple Vision Pro launch have been WILD, to say the least. Before we get to that, let’s back up a little and look at a few highlights prior to February 2 2024.

Aprons

I’ve always loved the idea of Crouton expanding beyond just the app itself. Late last year I had the idea to get some branded aprons made to use as a gift for a few people who have been supportive in various ways with Crouton. I had a hunt around for options and came across M.N Uniform a New Zealand based uniform company that supplied restaurants, cafes and other professional fields with premium clothing. After a dirty mock up and a few emails back and forth with Matt they became a reality! I’ve been beyond stoked with how these turned out; I use mine every night to cook dinner and it’s been super fun to gift them to others. Sadly Matt is taking a pause with his uniform company, so my venture into aprons has been a little short lived, but I quite like the idea of it being a very limited run. I have strong opinions about cheese slicers and spatulas so down the line I’d love to branch out into some more kitchen products.

Featured in The Obsessor

In December 2023, Matthew Panzarino (ex EIC for TechCrunch) featured Crouton in his new newsletter The Obsessor. This was a super exciting moment and generated a big boost in downloads that lasted almost all the way into the Vision Pro launch. It was really validating to have someone in Panzarino’s position organically find Crouton and start using it to manage his own cooking. (His cooking looks amazing! I want to eat in the Panzarino household.)

Vision Pro Launch

Alright, I guess we should talk about what happened in February. When the Vision Pro was announced in June last year, I knew straight away that I wanted to build apps for it. This is the first new platform from Apple since I had learned app development, so the prospect of being there on day one was pretty exciting. There were a few weeks before the SDK (Software Development Kit, basically just the tools to actually make things work) became available to start developing, but I was so keen I began creating some mockups in Sketch for how I thought Crouton could look. It’s fun to look back at these now, I don’t think I was too far off.

When the SDK dropped I took the day off from my day job so that I could dive straight in and then spent the next 6 months chipping away at it slowly in my evenings. I was fortunate enough to attend the developer labs in Sydney that opened up later in the development cycle, but aside from that all of the development was done in the simulator, so it was a lot of guesswork as to what might feel right on the actual device.

Going into the release I had exceptionally low expectations for how Crouton was going to be received on Vision Pro. So it was crazy when I woke up on embargo morning to a flood of messages all sharing a YouTube link to the Wall Street Journal’s review of the device. There are fewer weird feelings than watching someone else use your app properly before you’ve even had a chance to, let alone Joanna Stern from the WSJ. I have to say it was a rather scary feeling watching it play out waiting to see what the verdict would be. “This is just the coolest“ has lived rent free in my brain ever since.

This review flowed on to a wave of coverage from other outlets and meant Crouton was featured in a number of review videos showing how you could use the device. Perhaps the most “What is my life!?” moment was when late night host Stephen Colbert picked up Joanna’s review and riffed on it in his opening monologue one night.

Safe to say that my low expectations were well and truly exceeded and little did I know, the year was only just getting started.

Let’s visionOS

In April I was invited to speak at a visionOS conference in China, this was one of those pinch me moments. One minute you’re building a little app to simplify your meal planning and the next you’re speaking to 500 people about building for spatial computing in China! Life is weird.

This was my first time speaking at a conference, it was an awesome experience and great to be able to share some of my learnings of bringing an iOS app across to visionOS. I was very grateful to be asked, it was the trip of a lifetime.

A couple touristy shots. Beijing was lovely.

Apple Design Award

It feels like each month of this year has been punctuated by a crazy milestone for Crouton, the height of which was reached in May.

The Apple Design Awards have always been something that to me felt like an unattainable goal. You see other people win them with amazing apps, but it never seemed like something I’d be able to achieve. Just a dream.

To my absolute shock, in May Crouton was announced as a finalist for an Apple Design Award in the Interaction category. I honestly still can’t believe any of this happened and wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out I’ve actually been in a coma for the last 8 months.

Crouton was a finalist alongside Procreate Dreams and the Arc Browser. When I saw the other finalists I thought, “whelp sure was great to make it this far, but there is no chance I win this thing”. Against the odds though, Crouton was announced as the winner of the Interaction category for 2024. What in the world?!

It also turns out I’m the first New Zealander to win (and even be nominated) so that has been quite an honour and even scored a few local articles and a feature on the national news. Something well out of my comfort zone, but has finally given me some validation with my Grandparents.

One highlight for me of the whole experience was getting to chat with Craig Federighi at the award ceremony where they handed out the cubes. I’ve been watching/reading live blogs of the Apple events since I was just a little bean so to meet him and chat briefly was super cool.

It was also great to catch Joanna Stern at the WWDC Keynote to thank her for the feature in the review, I don’t think any of this would have played out the way it has if it wasn’t for that video.

The cube now sits proudly on my desk at home, it really is very surreal to see it there with Crouton’s and my name on it. What a ride.

Full Time Indie

It feels like after a whirlwind six months things are starting to settle down into a new normal. With all of the press and the increased awareness of Crouton over this period it’s given me the opportunity to quit my job and go full time independent (🥳). This has been something I’ve been working towards over the last few years and I thought I was still at least 12 months away from. To have hit it now is very exciting! I’ve been busy getting all of my ducks lined up (metaphorical ducks, it just sounds more exciting than talking about all the paperwork I’ve been signing) which is partly why I’m so late in getting this post together.

I’m still doing a little bit of work with the previous company I worked for, because I love working there and it’s nice to have some stability in case people suddenly realise Crouton is just one of many recipe apps. I’m excited to have more time in the week to spend on the app though! I have had a list of features that hasn’t been getting shorter so it will be great to start making quick headway on those.

What’s Next

As I mentioned before it felt like every month something changed with Crouton, that hasn’t stopped, so I have no idea where things might go next. I have a very open mind to the future of the app but in the short term I’m excited to ship a few fun features for iOS 18 and then finally, hopefully get my big grocery update I’ve been working on released.

I’m incredibly thankful to everyone who has given Crouton a try and shared kind words or feedback! Each year Crouton has exceeded my wildest expectations of where I thought things would go and this year has been that times ten. It can only be downhill from here.

Until next year, happy cooking!