GoKawiilIn 2020, Robin Sloan wrote about BoopSnoop, a messaging app he built for his family. Four people downloaded it. He considered this a resounding success. His point was simple: an app can be a home-cooked meal. You don't need scale. You don't need users. You cook for the people you love.
The app took him a week to build, half of it lost to code-signing purgatory. He wrote: "In a better world, I would have built this in a day, using some kind of modern, flexible HyperCard for iOS."
The time is now
Six years later, the essay resurfaced on X when Thariq wrote that "personal software was a bit early in 2020 but in 2026, it really can be as personal as a home cooked meal, or a handwritten letter."
Lee Robinson wrote about the same shift. AI has made "personal computing" actually personal. He and his wife built a baby tracker because they didn't need "user profiles, badges, subscription tiers, or any other extra features."
My smoothie knows my mileage
I spent the past six months building way too much personalized software:
A sleep app that runs our sleep consultant's plan
that runs our sleep consultant's plan A fitness app that sizes my smoothie to that morning's run
that sizes my smoothie to that morning's run A marathon plan built from my races, not my age
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