{"id":136744,"date":"2024-05-09T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=4r9b23wx"},"modified":"2024-05-09T15:00:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T15:00:41","slug":"i-taught-myself-tucker-macdonald-and-the-rise-of-tide-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2024\/05\/09\/i-taught-myself-tucker-macdonald-and-the-rise-of-tide-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I taught myself\u2019: Tucker MacDonald and the rise of Tide Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/div>\n

Lots of apps have great origin stories, but the tale of Tucker MacDonald and Tide Guide<\/em> seems tailor-made for the Hollywood treatment. It begins in the dawn hours on Cape Cod, where a school-age MacDonald first learned to fish with his grandfather.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day, he\u2019d look in the paper for the tide tables,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cThen he\u2019d call me up and say, \u2018Alright Tucker, we\u2019ve got a good tide and good weather. Let\u2019s be at the dock by 5:30 a.m.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n
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Rhapsody in blue: Tide Guide<\/em> delivers Washington weather data in a gorgeous design and color scheme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

That was MacDonald\u2019s first introduction to tides \u2014 and the spark behind Tide Guide<\/em>, which delivers comprehensive forecasts through top-notch data visualizations, an impressive array of widgets, an expanded iPad layout, and Live Activities that look especially great in, appropriately enough, the Dynamic Island. The SwiftUI-built app also offers beautiful Apple Watch complications and a UI that can be easily customized, depending how deep you want to dive into its data. It\u2019s a remarkable blend of original design and framework standards, perfect for plotting optimal times for a boat launch, research project, or picnic on the beach.<\/p>\n

Impressively, Tide Guide<\/em> was named a 2023 Apple Design Award finalist \u2014 no mean feat for a solo developer who had zero previous app-building experience and started his career as a freelance filmmaker. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be a Hollywood director since I was in the fifth grade,\u201d says MacDonald. Early in his filmmaking career, MacDonald found himself in need of a tool that could help him pre-visualize different camera and lens combinations \u2014 \u201clike a director\u2019s viewfinder app,\u201d he says. And while he caught a few decent options on the market, MacDonald wanted an app with iOS design language that felt more at home on his iPhone. \u201cSo I dove in, watched videos, and taught myself how to make it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n

My primary use cases were going fishing, heading to the beach, or trying to catch a sunset.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tucker MacDonald, Tide Guide<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before too long, MacDonald drifted away from filmmaking and into development, taking a job as a UI designer for a social app. \u201cThe app ended up failing, but the job taught me how a designer works with an engineer,\u201d he says. \u201cI also learned a lot about design best practices, because I had been creating apps that used crazy elements, non-standard navigation, stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n
\n

Tucker MacDonald grew up fishing with his grandfather in the waters off Cape Cod.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Armed with growing design knowledge, he started thinking about those mornings with his grandfather, and how he might create something that could speed up the crucial process of finding optimal fishing conditions. And it didn\u2019t need to be rocket science. \u201cMy primary use cases were going fishing, heading to the beach, or trying to catch a sunset,\u201d he says. \u201cI just needed to show current conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019d say my designs were way prettier than the code I wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tucker MacDonald, Tide Guide<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the following years, Tide Guide<\/em> grew in parallel with MacDonald\u2019s self-taught skill set. \u201cThere was a lot of trial and error, and I\u2019d say my designs were way prettier than the code I wrote,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut I learned both coding and design by reading documentation and asking questions in the developer community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Tide Guide<\/em> is quite the upgrade from that initial version. MacDonald continues to target anyone heading to the ocean but includes powerful metrics \u2014 like an hour-by-hour 10-day forecast, water temperatures, and swell height \u2014 that advanced users can seek out as needed. The app\u2019s palette is even designed to match the color of the sky throughout the day. \u201cThe more time you spend with it, the more you can dig into different layers,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n
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All the information you need for a day on the water, in one place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

People around the world have dug into those layers, including an Alaskan tour company operator who can only land in a remote area when the tide is right, and a nonprofit national rescue service in Scotland, whose members weighed in with a Siri shortcut-related workflow request that MacDonald promptly included. And as Tide Guide<\/em> gets bigger, MacDonald\u2019s knowledge of developing \u2014 and oceanography \u2014 continues to swell. \u201cI\u2019m just happy that my passion for crafting an incredible experience comes through,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause I really do have so much fun making it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of apps have great origin stories, but the tale of Tucker MacDonald and Tide Guide seems tailor-made for the Hollywood treatment. It begins in the dawn hours on Cape Cod, where a school-age MacDonald first learned to fish with his grandfather. \u201cEvery day, he\u2019d look in the paper for the tide tables,\u201d says MacDonald. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}