T&L: Learn Foreign Words
Returning an Objective-C learning app from 2011 to modern devices without erasing what made it a product of its time.
T&L combined pictures, native-speaker audio, and text to teach vocabulary. The assignment was to take the original project off the shelf, make it work again, and preserve it as a living artifact rather than redesign it into something else.
- Status
- Restored and available on the App Store
- Engagement
- Legacy iOS recovery
- Technical context
- Objective-C · Legacy iOS · App Store · Compatibility work
The brief
A decade of platform change had accumulated around an Objective-C codebase and an interface built for a different generation of iOS devices. The emotional value was inseparable from the software itself.
Engineering work
- 01
Recover the legacy project and establish a buildable baseline on current tooling.
- 02
Repair compatibility and layout behavior for modern Apple devices.
- 03
Disable unavailable legacy stages cleanly while preserving the original learning flow and visual character.
Outcome
The app returned to the App Store as a working piece of software history. The client got the original product back, along with the nostalgia attached to it.
Open in the App Store