Top all-time · #4312
Mike Swanson
Personal blog · blog.mikeswanson.comprogramminghardwareculture
Mike Swanson's personal blog at blog.mikeswanson.com covers programming, hardware and culture. Since 2012, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 36 times, most often “Backseat Software”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mike Swanson's posts on iOS icon and corner shapes, Apple's curve geometry and related scripts. Commenters cite them as sources for discussions of iOS 7 and iPhone X design.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Backseat Software5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2026-01-18
- Unleashing Genetic Algorithms on the iOS 7 Icon3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-09-26
- My Year-Long Struggle Against a Call of Duty False Permanent Ban2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-11-26
- Spatial Video Tool2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-27
- Spatial Video Tool for MV-HEVC2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-05-26
- Immersive Video Production Tips2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-21
- /apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-12-19
What Hacker News says?
Nice to see these updates! I maintain a free/open-source Adobe Illustrator plug-in for generating Canvas drawings: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/ai2canvas
Comment linking /ai2canvas
on “It's always been you, Canvas2D”Submitted I Have No Idea [Why Apple Featured My App] as a story · 117 points
HN discussionThis outlines how Apple approaches the immersive video format to put the most pixels on the horizon line: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/apples-mysterious-fisheye-proje...
Comment linking /apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection/
on “Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro”Submitted Apple's mysterious fisheye projection as a story · 38 points
HN discussionI've described what kind of video this camera is intended to capture: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/apples-mysterious-fisheye-proje...
Comment linking /apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection/
on “Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro”Submitted Achieving 2.5Gbps with the UDM Pro as a story · 24 points
HN discussionOn iOS 11, CALayer has a `continuousCorners` private property [0]. I did a spartan reverse engineering by recreating the UIBezierPath equivalent of the two types of radii found in the Apple Design Resources [1], then adding a convenience initializer on UIBezierPath that recreates the shape with arbitrary radius of the chosen kind (either UISwitch-like, or App Icon-like). Earlier attempts include the fascinating Unle…
Comment linking /post/62341902567/unleashing-genetic-algorithms-on-the-ios-7-icon
on “No Cutting Corners on the iPhone X”Submitted Unleashing Genetic Algorithms on the iOS 7 Icon as a story · 11 points
HN discussionApple used straight segments and circular arcs on its icons upto iOS 6, and switched to 2nd-order continuous shapes on version 7. Here is a side-by-side comparison : https://blog.mikeswanson.com/photoshop-script-for-ios-7-roun... Your visual system can actually see those discontinuities.
Comment linking /photoshop-script-for-ios-7-rounded-rectangles/
on “Hobby's algorithm for aesthetic Bézier splines (2020)”Submitted Instagram Name-Squats Indie Developer as a story · 8 points
HN discussionVery cool. For those who want to follow along at home: http://blog.mikeswanson.com/iosroundedrect I modified this myself to produce better background colors for testing different icon designs with an angular gradient and some layer cropping. This script and a script to save icons at different sizes really helped when making 30 iOS apps for iOS 7 recently. (I don't have time now to share my changes but if anyone's in…
Comment linking /iosroundedrect
on “iOS 7 and the Iconography of ‘Alien’”Submitted Encoding Spatial Video as a story · 4 points
HN discussionNot too many steps away from this: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/spatial/
Comment linking /spatial/
on “Civil War in 3D: Stereographs from the New-York Historical Society (2015)”Submitted Spatial Video Tool as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThis is probably the best analysis that I've seen of the iOS 7 icon shape: http://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/62341902567/unleashing-gene... (I am slightly biased, though.)
Comment linking /post/62341902567/unleashing-genetic-algorithms-on-the-ios-7-icon
on “Making iOS 7 squircles using CSS3”Submitted What I've Learned About Apple's Spatial Video as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSounds like: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/backseat-software/
Comment linking /backseat-software/
on “The Last Quiet Thing”Submitted Freemium Distaste as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Smaller Apps with vector images as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Immersive Video Production Tips as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Spatial Video Command-Line Tool as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Year-Long Struggle Against a Call of Duty False Permanent Ban as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Year-Long Struggle Against a Call of Duty False Permanent Ban as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted 27 WatchKit Development Tips as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Backseat Software as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Software Interruptions Became Normalized as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Backseat Software as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Backseat Software as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Backseat Software as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted MV-HEVC with X265 and Nvidia as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
