Wow! This is so cool.
I really need to get my hands on TUI. It seems to be a growing trend. Maybe it's a stupid question, because I know about family members that have never opened a terminal - can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it?
> can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it?
Almost certainly. I personally don't use clicky things to the extent that I am able to avoid them, so I can't describe the specific mechanism or name any of the nouns/tools involved, but I'm pretty sure this exists.
What prevented you from creating a PWA using pure HTML, CSS and WebAudio for text to speech? Would have given you instant feedback, hot reload, no deployment - maybe an idea for your next trip.
You are absolutely right. A PWA would probably have given us a much lighter workflow. Instant feedback, hot reload, no deployment cycle, no TestFlight delay. From a purely practical perspective, it would have been more efficient.
But the truth is we wanted to build a native iOS app. It was less about optimizing the workflow and more about the excitement of trying something new. I had never built a native iOS app before, and part of the motivation was simply curiosity and the challenge.
We also wanted to test the limits of Claude Code. That part honestly surprised us. We never had to roll back once. Every issue we ran into we were able to solve remotely through vibecoding. The entire development cycle happened over SSH from a phone, and it held up better than I expected.
Another important reason was offline usage. We generated the audio files asynchronously using ElevenLabs TTS and bundled them into the app so everything worked fully offline. We did not want to depend on a server connection while traveling. Especially in Japan, where you are constantly moving through stations, underground areas, or rural zones, reliability matters.
So yes, a PWA would have been technically cleaner. But this project was driven more by exploration and constraints than by optimizing for the perfect setup. And in that sense, going native was part of the fun.
Now I am working on another app, a multiplayer party game to play with friends, and for that I am exploring a PWA approach using Firebase. And honestly, for this kind of project it works really well.
The development flow is much smoother. Instant updates, no App Store review cycle, easy real time features with Firebase, and the ability to test quickly with friends just by sharing a link. For a social, fast iteration type of product, it makes a lot of sense.
If it gains traction and people actually use it consistently, then I would consider migrating it to native iOS and Android later. Starting as a PWA feels like the right balance between speed, flexibility, and validating the idea before committing to the overhead of native apps.
I always wanted a minimalistic CSS framework for my projects, so I started to create my own: THINK
THINK is a modern CSS-first UI framework built on semantic HTML, custom elements, and data attributes. Uses :has(), container queries, and density scaling. No classes, no build step.
It‘s work in progress but I‘m pretty happy with the outcome so far, especially the data table component and automated Insights. I know it‘s not AI driven - but it works pretty okay for quick insights on the loaded data.
I've been starting with Tiny11 and then running the debloat scripts against it. Reduces the memory footprint to about 2GB and have found zero compatibility problems with doing this. You just have to use curl or something to download a browser because you won't even have Edge.
Rookie developers who use hundreds of node modules or huge CSS frameworks are ruining performance and hurt the environment with bloated software that consumes energy and life time.
Totally agree!
I‘d pay definitely $300 (lifetime license) for a productivity suite like Windows 95 design and Office 95 with no bloatware and ads. Just pure speed and productivity.
I still use Office 2010 to this day and feel like absolutely nothing is missing that I truly need. The only issues are Alt-Tab and multiple monitors have bugs. But functionality? 100%.
Or controlling the heating and AC systems at 19 schools under its jurisdiction using a system that sends out commands over short-wave radio frequencies
I remember the QNX Demo on a 1.44 MB floppy disk. It booted straight into a full blown window manager and had a basic web browser. That was 1999 and I never saw anything like that afterwards.
The first time I booted menuet OS (2005? high school?) I was absolutely floored at how capable (and decent looking) an OS that lives entirely on a 1.44mb floppy could be.
reply