Notebook
Launches, notes, and the occasional process post.
No app can tell you that ground is open. Gold Story (on the App Store as Prospecting Log: Gold Story) maps 75,000+ historic USGS gold records and dated BLM claim-record packs for 11 covered states, shows the PLSS reference and source date behind every record, and keeps a timestamped log of what you checked. Then it works as a GPS field journal for finds, trips, and breadcrumb trails, offline.
Read moreHone Math (on the App Store as Mental Math Puzzles & Practice) teaches 66 named mental-math methods across nine units, from filling a ten to working a discount back to the original price, then drills them in a 15-problem Daily Workout that takes roughly three minutes. Smart Set follows your practice history, three number puzzles cover the days a quiz sounds like work, and a 0 to 1000 Mental Math Index tracks recent accuracy, difficulty, and speed. English and Spanish, iPhone and iPad, no account and no ads.
Read moreMost houseplants die on a blanket weekly reminder or on no reminder at all. Plant Story (from Studio AM) puts each plant in one of five categories and applies a built-in routine across watering, fertilizing, repotting, pruning, pest checks and grooming. Logging care restarts that task's clock, so a reminder fires when care is due. iPhone and iPad, no account, works offline.
Read moreSafe Crosswalk is a free iPhone app from Studio AM for the moment a driver turns across your path without looking at you. One tap flashes the screen and the rear torch together and speaks the word "Crossing"; a tap anywhere stops it, and it stops on its own after 45 seconds. It makes you easier to notice. It does not make you safe, and it is no substitute for making eye contact and waiting until the car has actually stopped.
Read moreA practical routine for rehearsing real English conversations, reviewing grammar and more natural phrasing, and trying the improved version again without sending your recordings or transcripts to an AI server.
Read moreA 15-minute routine for adults and English learners: recall the main idea, answer real questions, learn words in context, then reread with purpose.
Read moreA plain answer to "what is on-device AI, and is it actually private?" It runs the model on your phone's own chip, so the AI feature can process input locally. An airplane-mode test is useful evidence, but the rest of the app still matters.
Read moreNotion AI vs a private on-device second brain: both answer plain-language questions about your notes, but the durable difference is where your notes are when they get read: Notion AI reads them in the cloud, while Second Brain answers on your device with citations and no Studio AM account.
Read moreFor non-native English speakers who want to fix grammar and sound more natural without sending words to a server, Better Writing (from Studio AM) fixes your sentence, offers a "More natural" rephrase, shows a word-level diff so you learn, and tracks recurring patterns. It runs on a compatible iPhone or iPad after local model setup.
Read moreBetter Writing vs Apple's built-in Writing Tools: both run on-device, but Writing Tools needs Apple Intelligence while Better Writing also runs on non-Apple-Intelligence iPhones and iPads when a compatible downloaded model is available. Better Writing adds a dedicated editor, grounded drafting and replies, word-level changes, coaching, and saved-history tools.
Read moreWondering if there's a grammar checker that works offline like LanguageTool or ProWritingAid but keeps your writing private? Both are cloud-first by default; Better Writing edits English on a compatible iPhone or iPad after local model setup, with no Studio AM AI server. Here's an honest comparison.
Read moreHow do I learn essential travel phrases before a trip without the internet? Load a curated, situation-based phrasebook onto your phone and drill it offline. Here's how Pocket Lingo pairs arrivals-to-emergencies phrases with practice, quizzes, and native pronunciation, all on-device.
Read moreLooking for the best offline camera translation app for reading menus and signs abroad? Pocket Lingo reads and translates text on your iPhone with no signal and nothing leaving the phone. Here's how it handles restaurants, stations, and pharmacies, and where it's honestly weak.
Read moreLooking for an offline alternative to DeepL that works in airplane mode? DeepL translates in the cloud; Pocket Lingo runs on your iPhone, so it works with no signal. In-app translation stays local; optional web search opens externally only by choice.
Read moreA journal can compare health signals with mood, but Daily Vibe does not currently read Apple Health. It shows patterns in the mood and energy you record, without implying that correlation is diagnosis or causation.
Read moreDaily Vibe offers both disposable on-device dictation and saved spoken entries with local audio, on-device transcripts, and word-synced playback.
Read moreA source-linked comparison of Daily Vibe, Stoic, and Reflectly, focused on where journal AI runs and what the public privacy documentation actually supports.
Read moreDaily Vibe stores entries locally by default and analyzes them on-device. Here is the precise difference from Day One’s encrypted sync and opt-in Daily Chat.
Read moreSecond Brain 1.0 ships grounded recall on a roughly three-billion-parameter on-device model: every answer cites the notes it came from, and it abstains instead of guessing. Here is the pipeline in plain words, what runs on older phones, and what it costs.
Read moreA fair, sourced look at how ask-your-notes apps handle your data, and why Second Brain processes notes on-device, with optional private iCloud sync off by default.
Read moreWe make one of these three apps, and we use the other two every week. The difference that decides it is who does the organizing work: you or the software. We compare them on that, and recommend by person, not by winner.
Read moreGrammarly, QuillBot, and many writing tools use remote servers. Better Writing keeps English editing on a compatible iPhone or iPad after local model setup. Here is an honest comparison of where each tool processes your words.
Read moreMost captured notes are never opened again. Memory research points somewhere specific: retrieval practice, spacing, and a system that resurfaces old notes without you scheduling anything.
Read moreSome translators process text online; others can translate on-device. Here's a verified comparison of where each one does the work, and how optional web handoffs affect privacy.
Read moreWorking memory is tiny, and unfinished thoughts keep tugging at it until they land somewhere safe. The research points away from elaborate folder systems and toward one thing: capture you trust. Here is the case, and what a trustworthy inbox needs.
Read moreOur AI line began on Apple's roughly three-billion-parameter on-device model. Current versions may use Apple's runtime where available or compatible downloaded models on other supported hardware. Here is what worked, what did not, and the patterns that make a small model shippable.
Read moreA current, source-linked comparison of private journal apps: what stays on-device, what is sent for AI, and which privacy promise each app actually makes.
Read moreEveryone ships "AI on your iPhone." Almost nobody publishes how often the on-device model is actually right. We built eval harnesses for four of our apps, ran them on-device against the shipped code, and here are the unedited pass rates, including the two we are not proud of.
Read moreOur whole website gets three clicks a month. Here is exactly what Search Console showed: which of our content can rank, which never will, and the three-question test we should have run before we built the pages.
Read moreLast week we said the AI in your iPhone isn't very smart on its own, and that a good harness is what makes it trustworthy. Here are three of the tricks that harness is actually made of.
Read moreMost AI apps send your words elsewhere for processing. Ours run the model on-device; storage choices such as optional private iCloud sync are explained separately and plainly.
Read moreHow we shipped three on-device AI apps in one day, and why the small model in your iPhone is enough if you build the right cage around it.
Read moreWe renamed. Same two people, same work. But "studio" captures what we actually are better than "team" ever did. Why the change, what moves, and what does not.
Read moreWe shipped one app per niche (Car, Bike, Moto, RV; Pup, Kitty, Paws) and then deleted five of them. Here is why the niche-per-app instinct was wrong for a two-person studio, dead-ends included.
Read moreWe turned App Store screenshot production into a one-command factory, then spent the day watching the human quality gate catch failures that all looked finished. The story, dead-ends included.
Read moreBehind most of our apps is a structured dataset: maintenance schedules, care routines, reading passages. We publish that data twice: as a private app, and as a free tool anyone can use on the open web. Here is why, and how.
Read moreWe are running a small app studio where AI agents do the production work and a human owns the quality gate. Here is what that is actually like, dead-ends included.
Read moreThe database that powers Car Story is now browsable on this site: service intervals and cost estimates for over a thousand vehicles, free for anyone.
Read moreOur first app is live on the App Store. Car Story is a private, local-first maintenance tracker for everything you drive.
Read moreA new home for what we build: apps, visuals, and the things in between.
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