Scott Grant, founder of Bad Yorkie Studios

Scott Grant

Founder & Developer

Scott Grant has been programming since 1983, when a Commodore 64 arrived and, in a manner of speaking, never left. Bad Yorkie Studios is what that turned into: a place to build the apps he wants to exist.

He created Tantrum Tracker in 2011, after his own son's autism diagnosis, when his family needed a clearer way to understand what was happening day to day. It became one of the first behavioral-tracking apps on the App Store. Today Bad Yorkie Studios is the independent home for the apps he ships under his own name.

Two and a half decades of work came before it. A gallery of his past projects lives at scottgrantapps.com.

Code wrangler. AI enthusiast. Unapologetic Apple fan. Hamish's staff.

Writing

Books and articles

Alongside building software, Scott has written about it. He co-authored Professional JMS Programming (Wrox Press, 2001), served as technical editor on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition with BEA WebLogic Server title, and contributed a half-dozen magazine articles on enterprise-Java topics, from JMS and Enterprise JavaBeans to JNDI/LDAP and distributed enterprise systems.

Scott's workspace: three monitors with code, a framed Apple rainbow-logo poster, and a Star Wars print
Where it happens.

Principles

A few things we believe

Character over templates

Every Bad Yorkie app has a point of view. We would rather make something with personality than something instantly forgettable.

Respect for the person using it

Calm interfaces, no dark patterns, privacy taken seriously. Software should quietly work for you, not the other way around.

Craft as a habit

Software is as much an art as a science. We sweat the details, the ones you notice and the ones you only feel.

The name

Why "Bad Yorkie"?

Every studio needs a mascot. Our mascot is Hamish, a Yorkshire Terrier with firm opinions about delivery schedules, a gift for sitting on keyboards at decisive moments, and just enough mischief to earn the "bad" in Bad Yorkie Studios.

He is, for the record, a very good boy. The name stuck anyway. You'll find him in our logo, watching.

Hamish, the studio mascot, lying with his ears up, looking straight at the camera
Hamish, on duty.

App support

Questions about Tantrum Tracker, or anything else the studio has shipped? Email reaches Scott directly.

Curious what we're building?

Tantrum Tracker version 4 is in development for iPhone and Android. More apps are on the way.