This is an article about iOS 7 that never was. It could have been a great write-up, full of insightful ideas and clever comments about Apple’s new version of its flagship operating system. It could have had critique, analysis, maybe a dash of speculation, just a couple of educated guesses about the future and how it will affect our lives as users in general, and my life as a developer in particular. It could have been all that and more, and yet it is none of those things. It looks like I’m spinning, I know. Just bear with me.

The thing is, I actually wanted to write an article about iOS 7, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought about it long and hard, and despite my initial excitement in the moments after the keynote, deep down I kind of always knew I wasn’t really going to do it. Writing about these topics has been tough for me lately. Every time I sit in front of a keyboard I get this nagging feeling that every idea I have has already been posted somewhere else and repeated ad nauseam, often in a much more articulate and coherent way. So, I slacked. I began trusting others to make the points I wanted to make. To express opinions that, while my own, are not unique. Not even slightly.

The most difficult part for me is finding something that hasn’t been said before, adding something of value, which is the whole point to begin with. I don’t like being an echo chamber. Citing John Gruber or Matt Gemmell is fine every now and then, but it’s not cool when that’s all you ever do on your own site. And I can’t escape the feeling that that’s what I’ve been doing. Let me be clear: I have strong feelings about Analog Senses. It may not be much in the general context of the Internet, just a tiny space nobody really pays attention to, but this little site means the world to me. It does not sit well with me to let it languish into oblivion. I know exactly what I want it to be and it pains me to see that I have not lived up to that idea. And so here I am.

Of course, I have my excuses and justifications. Too much work, not enough time, I could check all the usual items off the list. They’re all true, but it doesn’t matter. There’s always an excuse if you want to find one. But even then, I still wanted to write about iOS 7. I really, really did. I felt like, if I care about this at all, I should add my voice to the conversation. I should have something to say. Even if I had no idea what it was, I wanted to try and find it. However, that’s beside the point now. There is a far bigger task ahead of me, and it starts right now.

Excuses aside, the fact remains I haven’t truly committed to writing. I don’t mean it in the sense of writing something remarkable, like a novel or a scientific article. My goal is much simpler: I just want to write. About something, anything. Write every day, as the saying goes. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pile of garbage, so long as I keep writing. There was a time when I used to do that. And maybe I’m idealizing it a bit, but I remember it as a good time. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I want to write every day because writing makes me happy. Wait, I need to say that again. Writing makes me happy. Heck, it’s as good a reason as any. When I look back at some of the things I’ve written in the past, I can’t believe I some of them are actually mine. It makes me proud, but it obviously makes me sick as well, to see that I have it in me, to know that I could do it and yet, day after day, I choose not to. Because in the end, that’s what this is: a choice.

This is not an article about iOS 7. This is me, committing. This is me, choosing to show up every day to tell you a story that only I can tell. I can’t promise it will always be good, or even interesting. All I can promise is that it will be honest.

I’d love to have you along for the ride.

See you tomorrow.