After over two years of developing ShelfPlayer, it is time for me to say goodbye to this project and the amazing community around it!
When I started, I was seventeen. My life back then was simple: go to school, write code there, come home, and write some more. I had nothing better to do, and all the time in the world to do it. That is no longer the case. Since then I have started a Duales Studium (a German program that combines studying for a degree with working at a company at the same time), picked up other side projects that began just for fun the way ShelfPlayer once did, like a personal finance tracker and some home automation, and I want to spend more of my life with friends and away from a screen. My days simply look nothing like they did at seventeen, and the time ShelfPlayer requires has become harder and harder to give. It has not received the updates it deserves lately, and there are already thousands of hours inside this app.
It is also at version 3.3.0 now, which means I have rewritten it from scratch twice and built it three times in total. Both times, I was unhappy with the architecture and knew I could do better. Getting there meant countless hours obsessing over details most people would never notice, in the code and in the interface alike, because I wanted it to be as close to perfect as I could make it. Doing all of that a fourth time just does not appeal to me anymore. A watchOS app might have been a fresh challenge, but I would rather take on something completely different.
So when the Italian company Space Mushrooms approached me about buying ShelfPlayer, I thought about it for a long time. This app is very close to my heart, and letting go of it was hard. But in the end I decided to sell, because it means ShelfPlayer can keep getting the care and attention it needs from people who have the time for it, while I get some of mine back. I have handed over full control of the IP and development, and there is currently no further involvement from me planned. Contributions were not part of the deal; they were excluded and replaced in the sold source code.
Honestly, this project has meant a great deal to me. I started it when I was in a pretty dark place, and it helped me cope with the loss of a close family member. Thankfully, things have gotten a lot better since then, and I think ShelfPlayer helped. Having a project of your own to pour yourself into is a real source of resilience.
What surprised me most is how far it went. On the App Store, ShelfPlayer has sold all over the world, which is amazing to me. Sixteen people contributed code and translations, and many more reported bugs and tested early builds. The beta testers were fantastic, and their feedback shaped almost every release.
Building ShelfPlayer taught me that you can simply build the tools you wish existed yourself. To me that is the whole idea behind SwiftUI: everyone should be able to build the apps they want, and it is easier now than it has ever been. I doubt I will be the last person to build the exact thing they were missing.
TLDR: When I started this over a summer break, just to kill some boredom, I never imagined it would end with an Italian company asking to buy it off me. Yet here we are.
This will be my final public contribution to ShelfPlayer. Thank you to everyone who used it, and especially to the contributors and beta testers. I am proud of what it became, and I am excited to see what comes next.
~Rasmus
PS: I don't really use GitHub anymore, so if you feel like it, feel free to check out my SourceHut page.