This year marks 10 years since I released WikiTest. At the time, I had no intention of releasing it, which feels an odd thought to consider now, given I’m currently working on its 59th App Store update.
I’d already released a couple of apps by 2016, but WikiTest was one of the dozens more I’d settled on keeping just for myself and a few close friends. I’d already learned that there’s a huge difference between creating an app that works well enough for a handful of people, and building something polished and robust enough for release. WikiTest was particularly troublesome because it needed to support simultaneous performances on the same website. This wasn’t an issue with a small group of performers, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to make it scale.
At the time, I was consulting on David Blaine’s Beyond Magic TV special, working with a world-class team of magicians to come up with bespoke ideas especially for the show. Blaine liked WikiTest, and it ended up being included as the only fully formed preexisting routine.