Latest blog posts

June 7, 2024 11:14

Radix Colors palette

Need color inspiration? The Radix library offers a nice color palette with accesible colors. From backgrounds to borders to text, everything is included.

Radix colors palette

November 25, 2023 15:03

Privacy friendly iOS app analytics

Add privacy friendly analytics to your iOS app with the Simple Analytics swift package

Check the Simple Analytics swift package on Github

November 25, 2023 15:03

Pientere Tuinen app

My newest product: an app for the Pientere Tuinen sensor.

March 29, 2023 12:06

Spotify lanched new “niche” mixes, which combine your favorite music and new tracks into weirdly specific mixes, like “170 bpm”, “saturday uplifting” or “funky carioca”. You can find them in the “for you” section of the app.

Spotify’s Niche Mixes spare you from building your own weirdly specific playlists

March 29, 2023 11:59

New life simulator: life by you

Paradox announced a new life simulator: Life by you. I’m playing Sims 4 pretty regularly and this trailer looks awesome! It features an open world, and every character in the game is simulated.

Life by you interview on TheVerge

March 10, 2023 15:10

New series: Silo

I completely missed that Apple was developing a TV series based on one of my favourite sci-fi novel series: Silo by Hugh Howey. Until the trailer dropped, and it looks awesome!

If you haven’t read the 3 books that this is based on, I can recommend them!

March 10, 2023 15:10

How to build a cablecar

Last week I was in Kitzbühel, and took the 3S cablecar to Jochberg. It was terryfing and impressive at the same time. The cablecar spans over 3 km and only has a single support. It flies over the valley below at 400 meters above the ground. I looked up how it was constructed and found a whole channel of cablecar company Doppelmayr where they show some of the incredible things they build.

March 8, 2023 16:40

Cities Skylines 2 trailer

Cities Skylines 2 was announced yesterday and it looks great! I’ve played the original Cities Skylines for hours and hours so can’t wait to play this! Only problem is I have a mac and the game will only be released for PC and consoles..

You can wishlist Cities Skylines 2 on steam already, it will be released later in 2023.

February 19, 2023 21:14

Review: Falcon Lake

3.5 / 5

Bastien, a young teen, spends his summer with his parents at a cabin with their friends and their daughter. She is a bit older than Bastien and he is immediately drawn to her. And she to him. This is a friendly coming of age movie with mysterious elements in it which I liked. Some scenes felt a bit awkward to watch due to the age of the characters.

Watch on Picl

February 8, 2023 9:16

Review: M3GAN

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

I’m a sucker for the whole “human creates robot and things go horribly wrong” movie genre. And M3GAN is a prime example. First it made me want to own a perrrpetual friend toy (a modern furby), but at the end of the movie I was ready to remove all smart home tech from my house and never use siri again. A sequal is already planned for release in 2025..

Watch M3GAN

February 1, 2023 21:20

Review: Puss in Boots: the last wish

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

Puus in Boots: the last wish is beautifully animated. Every scene with fast paced action switches to a comic book style with lower frame rates and popping colors. And the animation of puss is really cute, when he switches from humanlike to cat like behavior is really funny. The story is a little weak however, and I altough i giggled every now and then, it wasn’t really funny either.

Watch via Google Play

January 30, 2023 21:29

Roel radio on Spotify

Now that my first song is released on Spotify, they created a “Roel van der Kraan Artist Radio” playlist. And it is awesome! Just of the one song that I’ve uploaded, the Spotify algorithms created a list of nice instrumental electronica, including some artists that I absolutely love, like Jamie xx, Plaid and Weval. Give it a listen!

Listen to Roel van der Kraan radio on Spotify