It began with a simple goal: send Tack Mobile to Apple. It ended with a story about beavers, a missing app target, and the most famous minus button in the workshop.
Tack Mobile was already working. It could save notes, photos, files, and activities on an iPhone, then send them through iCloud to Tack Home on a Mac. Time to package it for the App Store.
Apple had other ideas.
Dam number one
The first upload reported problems. There was a missing launch screen. There were empty Document Types entries in the app's settings. The errors sounded small, so the repairs should have been small too.
The launch screen was built. Then came the empty document entries. A Delete key seemed like a quick fix.
It was not.
Instead of removing the entry, that action removed the entire Tack Mobile target from the Xcode project. Suddenly, the app had no target to build.
It was the kind of moment when a person might stare at a screen for a very long time.
The rescue mission
The code was still there. The project settings were the part that had been damaged. Using a Time Machine backup of the project configuration, Tom restored the target, kept the newer source files, and built the app successfully again.
Then came the real solution to the first problem: open the app's Info.plist file, select the Document Types property, and click a tiny minus button. Gone.
Sometimes the hardest part of software development is finding the right button.
Enter the beavers
From that point on, each new App Store requirement became a log in a river. Screenshots? Another log. Encryption questions? Another. Privacy policy? The beavers had built an office.
Instead of treating the setbacks as a disaster, Tom gave the whole thing a running joke. Apple was the dam inspector. The submission was the river. The last gate was the hydroelectric plant.
There were real jobs inside the joke: a support page, a dedicated privacy page, App Store descriptions, new screenshots, a better Note screen, and a second uploaded build.
One item submitted
At last the screen appeared: “1 Item Submitted.” Tack Mobile version 1.0, build 2, had gone to Apple for review.
That was not the same as being approved or publicly released. But the submission was real. The work had reached the next gate.
Tom saved the moment in Tack, the very app whose iPhone companion had started the adventure.
The river was flowing again. The beavers, for the moment, were out of work.