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Stephen Robles

Things Stephen Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Stephen Robles hosts and writes Mac Power Users , hosts and writes Primary Technology and hosts AppleInsider Podcast . They have also been a guest on Clockwise (13 times) , The Vergecast (2 times) , 9to5Mac Overtime , Rich On Tech , Focused and The Talk Show With John Gruber .

Recently: “Why your favorite creator is building an app” on The Vergecast (October 2026); “HomeView First Look with Jennifer Tuohy” on Primary Technology (October 2026); “871: AI Can't Fake Taste with Emmy-Winning Composer Michael Whalen” on Mac Power Users (October 2026); “Who is HomeView For? Apple’s Fight for the Smart Home, Anthropic Thinks Claude Has Feelings” on Primary Technology (October 2026); “870: The Full Sparky” on Mac Power Users (October 2026); “Muse AI is Useful and Horrible, Apple Home Event, OpenAI Crossed a Line” on Primary Technology (October 2026).

What They Said

“I do not consider myself an app developer and would never call myself that. I would say I'm an app project manager and a vibe coder. Because I could not look at the SwiftUI code in these apps and tell you anything.” — Stephen Robles, The Vergecast

YouTuber Stephen Robles, who has shipped paid and free apps built with AI coding tools, asked whether he now thinks of himself as an app developer. He sees the apps as another spoke in his creator business.

The Vergecast · 2026-10-19 Permalink → Listen →
The Vergecast Around 30:34 into the episode
Stephen Robles

…on my desktop. And then when I sit down on my Mac, you know, I'll just go over to Claude, give it all the screenshots, tell it to work, and then I go do something else. So collectively, it's probably a couple of hours, but I'm multitasking. You know, it's just kind of working in the background.

David Pierce

…think about. And part of me wondering is like, do you look at this and say, okay, I've built a thing some people like. I'm starting to make money from it. Should I start pouring more of my time into this? And I wonder if you even have an idea of where that time would go if you decided to do so.

Stephen Robles

I think about that. I do not consider myself an app developer and would never call myself that. I would say I'm an app project manager and a vibe coder. Sure. You know, because I could not look at the Swift UI code in these apps and tell you anything. I just could not. And people have asked, like, do you get curious now about learning this stuff? And it's like, maybe, but like you, I have three kids and they're all older and like life is busy. And I do want to keep making these apps. I want to keep making CanDo. I think maybe a year from now, I'll try to figure out how to put it on Windows and the web and do collaboration. But I also need to remember like what is my business. It is shortcuts. That's why I have a pillow on it. You know, but it also kind of plays into that. Like many of my apps now have shortcuts actions. And so I can kind of, and that's the other thing too, is I was in my YouTube videos and my shortcuts community, I talk about other apps that have these features. And it's like…

David Pierce

My wildest take on this is that I actually think app development is going to become a core part of being a creator in a way that I really did not expect. And it's probably not true for everybody, but I mean, truly, it's gotten to the point where everybody on YouTube who like makes videos about…

Stephen Robles

Yeah, I mean, I see the trend. You know, my initial desire was this is a huge part of the tech news sphere. And so I need to know how these things work and how to use it. And then. And that turned into all of this. You know, I do think for some, maybe it'll be part of the business. It is…

David Pierce

Yeah, I tend to agree. And I think, frankly, the idea that a lot of people who have built sort of shady courses to make money from their community are going to build software, I think, is actually in a lot of ways just a gigantic improvement. So I will take that. For you in particular, right?…

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