Donny Wals 👾

Interview with Donny Wals: iOS Developer Podcast Episode · Learning to Work · 02/16/2026 · 38m

I recorded my first podcast episode. It’s called “Learning to Work“ I started it for young people and parents navigating careers in age of AI. @donnywals.bsky.social shares his origin story, core skills and his thoughts about AI and coding podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/l...

Wait I can do that??

Of course I can, let’s goooooo

It's all about integrating with the OS these days

Maxine is about to learn a couple new skills!

I've only had this widget for a few hours but I'm in love

AI lets you ship faster than ever. But shipping fast isn't the goal—shipping something good is. The developers who stand out will be the ones who actually use their own apps.

https://www.donnywals.com/the-importance-of-human-touch-in-ai-driven-development/

What agentic engineering topic do you wish someone would explain simply, plainly, and with real examples?

Was reminded today that this exists; smart banners to redirect your users to your app from your website. Easy to add, helps with conversion 👍

https://maxine-app.com

Insights are everything. That's why Maxine will allow you to see your average heartrate per tracked exercise in the workout overview page. Train smarter!

I'm experimenting with some calmer UI options for Maxine. Using colors as accents to make the overall UI easier on the eyes while maintaining the visual information you get from the color (muscle group trained). Also made using workout plans a bit more obvious with a big "add to workout" button.

Migrating an iOS app from Paid up Front to Freemium – Donny Wals Paid up front apps can be a tough sell on the App Store. You might be getting plenty of views on your product page, but if those views aren’t converting to downloads, something has to change.

Changing your monetization strategy isn't always. Easy. That's especially the case when you're moving from a paid up front app to one that's free to try.

I did exactly this last week and figured I'd share my strategy ... https://www.donnywals.com/migrating-an-ios-app-from-paid-up-front-to-freemium/

Maxine now has a new stats overview that shows you the total number of sets you performed as well as the total amount of weight you've moved. It's pretty cool to see that you've moved a couple thousand kgs worth of metal during...
https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/maxine-one-rep-max-tracker/id6615073254

What are some must-have widgets that a workout app needs in your opinion?

Migrating an iOS app from Paid up Front to Freemium – Donny Wals Paid up front apps can be a tough sell on the App Store. You might be getting plenty of views on your product page, but if those views aren’t converting to downloads, something has to change.

In case you missed yesterday's post...

Migrating an app from paid up front to freemium can be tricky. I wrote down my learnings on my blog right here: https://www.donnywals.com/migrating-an-ios-app-from-paid-up-front-to-freemium/

Key lesson: Handling Sandbox and Review correctly can be tricky!

Maxine - Your workout buddy-app - App Store Download Maxine - Your workout buddy van donnywals.com BV in de App Store. Bekijk schermafbeeldingen, beoordelingen en recensies, gebruikerstips en meer games…

It’s Maxine! apps.apple.com/nl/app/maxin...

It’s an app I made so if you try it, I’d love to hear your thoughts

Migrating an iOS app from Paid up Front to Freemium – Donny Wals Paid up front apps can be a tough sell on the App Store. You might be getting plenty of views on your product page, but if those views aren’t converting to downloads, something has to change.

Maxine migrated from being a paid up front app to being free to try. Here's what I did to make sure existing users didn't have to pay again after having already bought the app originally: https://www.donnywals.com/migrating-an-ios-app-from-paid-up-front-to-freemium/

We've got about 100 folks trying Maxine right now (since going free to try on Friday night) 🤯 I think it's safe to say that this move is a success already 😁

A good morning and happy Monday folks! What are your plans for this week? Are you working on something cool? Learning something new? Tell me all about it 😎

I'm not quite there yet with my wrist (injured first week of the year) but we're getting there… deadlifts are now only 10kg under my previous max with the help of lifting straps. 120kg next week?

I know a lot of yall are proficient in the world of AI, but for those of you that aren't… what are the things that you're secretly afraid to ask at this point?

Not specifically. It tracks every workout as a strength workout but it does have support for duration based exercises. So you could log "30 minutes treadmill" for example. Speed and distance I haven't added (yet) because I'm not sure it fits the overall purpose/theme of the app iykwim

A good morning and a Happy Monday to you all! What are your plans for this week? Shipping something? Learning something new? This is the place to share it! I will be working on updates for Maxine and Chrona, planning to ship Maxine v2.6 this week 😱

That’s cool stuff! I should be digging in more tbh…

That looks really cool!!!

Good stuff, I guess 🤔

What are you working on right now?

TIL that Cloudflare uses a wall of actual lava lamps to generate random data for SSL encryption: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/lava-lamp-encryption/

Happy Monday, folks! And a happy new year too!

Hope you're all ready to kick some butt this year. I know I am. This week I'll be catching up, doing some work, and preparing for a great year.

What are your plans? Any big things you want to achieve in 2026? Tell me all about it! 😎

In 2026 you can expect some health / workout app related blog posts for sure 😁

Tracking your goals and making progress visible makes you 33% more likely to actually reach said goals... Maxine can help you do exactly this for your personal fitness goals. Whether it's weightlifting or bodyweight exercises you want to get better at, Maxine can help you: https://maxine-app.com