Scene 01 · The app studio

Small apps,
made after hours.

Embers.cafe is where my apps live, on iPhone, Android and the Mac. Each one is built to do a single job properly on the device it runs on. Nothing is rushed out to hit a date, because nobody is waiting on a roadmap but me.

iOSAndroidmacOSWeb

Visit embers.cafe → See the apps

3Apps live

3In the works

4Platforms

1Person, start to finish

How they're built

Small apps,
built properly.

At home on the device

Each app follows its platform: widgets and the watch on iPhone, the menu bar and notifications on the Mac. Gestures, animation and battery behave the way people expect.

One job each

Every app does one thing and stops. That is why they stay quick to open, easy to explain and cheap to keep running.

Shipped when ready

Built in the evenings, released when the last rough edge is gone. Waiting a fortnight beats shipping something I would need to apologise for.

Edge for the backend

Anything that needs a server runs on Cloudflare, close to the person using it, and costs almost nothing to keep alive.

The catalogue

Three live,
three on the bench.

On the shelf

KumaAlert

Uptime Kuma monitoring, on your wrist. Your self-hosted monitors on the home screen and the watch face, so an outage reaches you before your users do.

iOSAndroidLive

LumenCounter

Daylight, tracked from sunrise to sunset. A quiet record of how much light you actually got today, for the months when the answer is not much.

iOSLive

Amidly

WhatsApp, given a proper home on the Mac. Keep work and personal accounts signed in side by side, with quiet hours, reminders and saved replies.

macOSLive

On the bench

Pipmo

A little planner that finds room in your day. Tell it what is on your mind and it fits the work around your real calendar. Runs in your own Cloudflare account.

iOSAndroidWebSoon

PushCloud

Push notifications, built for the AI era. A simple way for scripts, servers and agents to reach your phone when something needs a human.

iOSAndroidSoon

Wallos Go

Your self-hosted Wallos subscriptions, in your pocket. See what this month costs, renew in a tap, and get reminded before the money leaves, even when your server is offline.

iOSSoon

Why it exists

Three rules,
no roadmap.

Build the thing I wanted to exist

Each app started as a gap in my own day. That is a better brief than a market gap, and it means there is always one user who cares whether the detail is right.

Keep it small enough to finish

An evening project dies the moment it grows a backlog. Scope stays tight on purpose, so the app reaches the store instead of the graveyard.

Look after it afterwards

Shipping is the start. Bug reports get answered by the person who wrote the bug, and every app on the shelf still gets updates.

Small apps,made after hours.

Small apps,built properly.