dev.to article #28 (paste-ready) — Building 2 SwiftUI apps in parallel: TipJar Now + HabitHash dual launch (8-week plan)

Calendar : 2026-05-29 09:00 PT (1 week after dev.to #27)

Tags : #ios #swift #swiftui #indie #productivity

Word count : 2000 (technical + reuse pattern + lessons learned)

Series : "Day 60 indie iOS dev" (part 4)

TL;DR

I built two iOS apps in parallel: TipJar Now (one-tap QR code tip jar for service workers) and HabitHash (pseudonymous habit tracker with git-like commit hash). Same SwiftUI / StoreKit 2 / @observable pattern, copy-paste-modify ~80% of code from existing apps. Each MVP is ~8 Swift files, ~600 lines total.

Here's the engineering approach + reuse pattern + 8-week plan.

Why 2 apps in parallel (instead of 1)

Conventional indie wisdom: ship one thing, focus, iterate. But:

Marginal cost is near zero when you reuse 80% of code (IAPManager, SettingsView, paywall, OnboardingView all identical)

2 apps = 2 ASO slots + 2 keyword landings .…