One Feature
Designed, built, and shipped a one-note app for iOS in six weeks. Solo. No team, no client, no handoff.
usebarely.com ↗6 weeks
- · Product design
- · iOS development
- · Design systems
- · Accessibility
- · Xcode
- · SwiftUI
- · Figma
Notes apps compete on features. Folders, tags, databases, backlinks, AI summaries. Bear has nested tags. Notion has 50+ block types. Apple Notes keeps adding drawing tools, scans, tables, shared folders.
Every app in the category assumes that more organization means more clarity. But most people open a notes app to write one thing down, and the interface makes them think about where to put it first.
Design, build, and ship a notes app that does one thing. No folders, no tags, no second note until the first is archived. Prove that constraint is a feature.
Instead of competing on features, remove them. One note. No folders. No tags. No second note until the first is archived. The constraint is the product.
Three layers, each one barely enough:
- One note. Open the app, start writing. Archive when done. Blank slate.
- Time-aware tone. The background shifts through the day: warm parchment in the morning, clean neutral at midday, deep ink at night.
- Weekly surface. Archived notes live for seven days, then disappear. No records haunting you. Just this week.
One note
No title field. No formatting toolbar. Tap and write. Camera and Done sit above the keyboard. The bottom bar appears when the keyboard dismisses: archive, share, delete. All three disabled when the note is empty.
Time-aware themes
Automatic mode shifts the palette through the day. Manual override locks a tone. Five premium Bokashi themes (Japanese colour gradients) open up with a one-time purchase. Each theme changes the app icon to match.
Widgets and Live Activity
Three home screen sizes, three lock screen formats, and a Live Activity on the Dynamic Island. Your note is visible without opening the app. Every keystroke syncs in real time.
Onboarding
Three swipeable screens that double as the pitch: one note, archive when done, barely enough. Shown once, resettable from settings.
Demo
type, archive, theme shift, widget sync
Drawing was the hardest cut
Tested it. Theme conflicts, gesture conflicts, broke widgets. The strongest version of the app is the one that doesn't have it.
140 names, three rounds
Barely won because it describes the product and the philosophy in one word. "What notes app do you use?" "Barely."
Ship the whole surface
Widgets, Live Activity, Dynamic Island, onboarding, share sheet, camera. A notes app that only lives inside itself doesn't feel like a tool. Shipping every iOS surface made it feel native on day one.