Build (1)

About a month ago, I set out to prototype the revival of an app I loved—one that existed back in the day, back when Instagram had 8 photo filters and no reels.

My main trade is software design, not engineering. I can hard-code HTML/CSS, I understand the basics of React but I know nothing, absolutely nothing about Swift.

For this app, I wanted to build it on my own—for two simple reasons: the complexity of the App seemed relatively low, and I wanted to move quickly while I was still excited about it.

I found in the past that, yes you can go further with the help of friends or others but the effort to coordinate and/or agree on the smallest details take the fun away from these type of side projects.

For this one, fun is the main goal. So over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a couple of hours here and there, dabbling in what the used-to-be cool kids call vibe coding.

A couple of prompts to Cursor, and the app was running locally on my phone. I specifically skipped the step—I’ll focus on the UI later.

For this V1, I just wanted the app to run. Run smoothly, so I could show it as quickly as possible. Right now users can pick between two audio loops and record a video from the back camera.

The recorded video only includes the audio from the loop. If I remember correctly, that wasn’t possible with the original app, maybe due to some technical limitations.

I showed and shared the prototype with a couple of friends—some familiar with the original, some not. So far, the feedback and process have been nothing but positive. We got some good laughs out of it.

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