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  • This mitigates problems with LLMs' low quality code. For a single user, the bar is much lower. The app doesn't have to have all the features that work for everyone's edge cases, implemented in a way that other devs can maintain. It only needs to be good enough for one user, and can be discarded and recreated when it gets too messy.
    by pornel
  • Resolves the copyright nonsense too.

    Programmers want you to review and own the code or they'll dismiss it as slop. Then the lawyers come in and say that doesn't give you copyright over the result. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

    Maybe it's better to just stop publishing stuff. If everything is uncopyrightable slop, the rational move is to just keep it to ourselves. So much for the free and open source software commons.

    by matheusmoreira
  • > can be discarded and recreated when it gets too messy.

    That's the result of poor quality, how is wasting time redoing an app mitigate itself?

    by eviks
  • If you want toys then sure. If you want something that, say, reliably calculates your taxes you might want a little more...certainty.
    by pydry
  • It's somewhat unfortunate that programming is still pretty hard to start with.

    Early home computers would boot up with BASIC. Granted, the user experience was horrible, but at least you could start programming right away.

    What is stopping us from creating an operating system that has programming as a first class citizen?

    There is JavaScript in the browser, but that still feels as an afterthought, and incurs all kinds of security problems.

    Why must we wait for AI to work around this? Is it really true that only very few people are interested in programming? Why not teach it in primary school, along with reading and writing?

    by smokel
  • I really want to use a scheme based operating system where all processes are continuations and people boot into a REPL instead of a unix shell. something like a modern version of the symbolics lisp machines. Instead of using fork() and exec, spawning a new process would be a call/cc. can you imagine?
    by s20n
  • > What is stopping us from creating an operating system that has programming as a first class citizen?

    Isn't that just any computer booting into a terminal?

    by ben_w
  • Funny he said "Good APIs matter more than ever". My software for one these past few weeks has been my mega archive project, making an APIs & UIs out of 50+ providers whether they like it or not. I'm calling it clump chart. I even got into my turbotax TaxML files.
    by mac-mc
  • This is nice, but Apple essentially blocks sideloading (outside test flight environment) and Google is moving there as well. While it has never been easier to produce individualized software, it was never more difficult on the official platforms, unless one wants to create their own OS (at some point that might be possible as well).
    by storus
  • maybe we need more like raspberry pi smartphone-sized tablets projects so people can sideload whatever they want like like "RasPad" (or other devices like the Pinephone)
    by erelong
  • GrapheneOS/LineageOS/e/OS is fine. And if I were to choose between ad infested cookie cutter app store and a handful of app crafted specifically for me the choice is really simple.

    As for the banking and identity apps, I probably shouldn't be keeping them on my big cool phone that might eventually get stolen.

    by scotty79
  • > outside test flight environment

    This is the way. I have a setup that refreshes all my apps at 4am so they never expire. To get around the 3-app limit, I build all the features I need into one super app.

    by vagab0nd
  • What's the current state of web apps on IOS? Does Safari yet support local databases well enough to build useful web apps?

    Pretty much every app I can think of building for my family could just be a website iff local browser-resident persistent data was a thing. (And in some cases I wouldn't even need that if they were going to be always-online.)

    by dreamcompiler
  • Plenty of Android phones run Linux. If you're the kind of person who's going to AI-develop your own software for personal use, I can't imagine being adverse to running a non-mainstream OS (and it can always be a secondary phone).
    by WhyNotHugo
  • I joked a while back that it was faster to vibe-code a white noise generator than to download a white-noise app.

    I've since tested that theory on the Google Play Store (iOS has one built in), and it was depressingly true. The slow part was trying to find an app that didn't waste your time with ads.

    by yen223
  • cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp
    by zh3
  • Tangential but I've recently discovered that an app I've written and published on F-Droid has been forked and put on Google Play with ads on by some Chinese forefront along side a lot of other open source apps without any mention of their GPL of course (and Google making it ridiculously difficult to take down thoses for normal folks, having to use a legally binding DMCA form).

    Thoses marketplaces are filled with cheap softwares made to make a quick buck by any means without a thought for the whole user experience, with no way to flags grifters for a better community driven experience.

    The economy must thrive I guess.

    by tsylba
  • I mean white noise generators are literally less then 20 lines of JavaScript. I wrote one (without an LLM) just now in less then 10 minutes:

        const audioCtx = new AudioContext();
    const sr = audioCtx.sampleRate;
    const buffer = audioCtx.createBuffer(2, 2 * sr, sr);

    for (let channel = 0; channel < buffer.numberOfChannels; channel += 1) {
      const data = buffer.getChannelData(channel);
      for (let frame = 0; frame < buffer.length; frame += 1) {
        data[frame] = 2 * Math.random() - 1
      }
    }

    const source = audioCtx.createBufferSource();
    source.buffer = buffer;
    source.loop = true;
    source.connect(audioCtx.destination);

    const button = document.createElement("button");
    button.append("Play");
    button.addEventListener("click", () => {
      source.start();
    });

    document.body.append(button);
    by runarberg
  • The signal to noise will be so high that we will resort to technical magazine to find out useful apps. Just like the old day without search engine.
    by cavoirom
  • Loved reading your story. Personal apps are great even they have only one user - the creator itself.

    But if only a handful people use the app and it stores data to a single device does the app need authorization / 2FA / login at all as these usually needs a 3rd party service or API (you need to pay for?).

    So I've gone a bit different path and cut the costs to about 0$ for creating, publishing and running an app:

    1. For someone that could not afford 160$/month subscriptions the alternative is to use cheap/free Chinese models through the chat (not VB code, extensions etc. that needs paid APIs). They are not so bad and generate code that is almost production ready (and free if used through their homepage AI chat).

    2. Creating my apps as web apps as PWA and host on my own shared server for 2.50%/month. This set costs for deploying an app to almost 0$ (no AppStore fees, no 12 testers approval on PlayStore needed). Just upload the code and it is live. Everything else is marketing and SEO

    This way I've made 50+ apps and games. They are simple but does the job, and the whole process from idea to a final product is less then a week (usually 3 days or the weekend) including basic SEO, submiting to sites like ProductHunt, social media, some basic SEO and link building.

    I'm going to write a detailed post about how I'm doing it soon. Till then enjoy some of my apps and games:

    https://nonconfirmed.com/miniproductivity/ https://nonconfirmed.com/app/dataset-toolset/ https://nonconfirmed.com/fisher-boy/

    by colenikol2
  • I've been building these same personal apps but on Firebase. They have a generous free tier that includes hosting and you can add real user auth, again all for free.
    by dugmartin
  • Side note, why not just deploy onto a VPS and save the money from using hosted services, as well as protecting yourself from when they inevitably go down? The CBA clearly shows that while active development is going on its trivial to have hosted service subscriptions because the AI sub is way more, but what if that sub disappears? You're left paying (relatively) exorbitant amounts compared to $1-10 per month per VPS for life, or less if you have the privilege and wherewithal to self host. It's also dead easy with AI. Maybe this just reinforces how much a personal runtime solution is needed, as stated in YC's recent RFS.
    by rrvsh
  • Yeah Vercels an awful service for stuff like this, paying $20/mo may not seem like a lot but its $15/mo or $180/year more than you need to be paying.

    It still baffles me why the heck people pay for services line neon and supabase as well. Utter madness imo. If you add that on to something to get rid of OP could've saved $540 per year.

    by esskay
  • Almost $2000 a year is beyond ridiculous and would make me question the author's ability to write software on his own (but I'd get downvoted for insulting him or not realizing some kind of time savings they help with).

    I spend $2/month on my VPS, write my code in HTML/CSS/Javascript with Posgresql along with other Unix (FreeBSD) tools and the standard languages and get similar things done.

    by assimpleaspossi
  • Thought the same thing, sounds like the apps are web apps based on the stack, which means all these apps could be build with Go, Datastar (or htmx), and sqlite and hosted for a fraction of the cost.
    by kettlez
  • Yeah this is what I did. All my personal services are running on one EC2 instance and I use subdomains to separate them. If I need more memory it's easy to scale up. I just use sqlite on the instance for my database. You don't need a postgres service if it's just for you.

    Hosted services are only great for setup and scaling. You're not going to need scaling. Infra setup can now be done easily with AI and terraform.

    by mattm
  • That's what I did after I realized how much I'd pay for managed databases and auth.

    I now have 3 VPS on Hetzner that run about $14/month in total (the old pricing, thankfully). I mostly got three so I wouldn't worry about wiping one if something terrible happens.

    Works like a charm. Even with the new pricing, Hetzner or DO would be cheaper than what OP uses. And the maintenance isn't that hard.

    Easier to leave vulnerabilities but you can also do it on Vercel and Neon.

    by ymolodtsov
  • This was really interesting, but I admit I bumped on this throwaway detail:

    > Our sleep consultant's plan arrived as a PDF full of conditional logic: wake windows, nap caps, what to do when a nap fails

    Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed.

    by JeffRosenberg
  • This person seems insane. You don’t need to pay a “sleep consultant” to make a plan for your child’s nap times. It’s really not that complicated.
    by what
  • > Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed.

    I had no idea that people did this. This sounds expensive.

    Just like other people have no idea that we (Scandinavia) let babies sleep outside in a baby carriage wrapped in a tiny sleeping bag. Fresh air is awesome. Cold air is even better.

    This works for some babies and is not universal in any way.

    by wojciii