ba.ris.ta
An iOS app for brewing coffee — built solo, available in the App Store.
overview
I built this because the alternatives didn't fit the ritual. Making a good cup of coffee is unhurried and precise. The tools around it — scattered across Notes, Clock, and whatever recipe app I'd last downloaded — weren't. The app I wanted was minimal, native, and smart about staying out of the way. So I built it.
On going fully native
The most important early decision was committing to Dynamic Island and Live Activities. It sounds like a feature; it was really a philosophy. If the app required you to look at it, it wasn't solving the problem. Live brew timers on the lock screen. Method and ratio visible in the Island during an active session. The phone goes down; the coffee gets made. SwiftUI made this achievable without compromise.
On building with AI
I used Claude and Cursor throughout — not as a shortcut, but as a way to close the gap between design intent and implementation. Descriptions became working code. Iterations happened inside a single session rather than across days. The creative judgment was mine; the tools removed the translation cost. What I didn't expect: AI-assisted development forced me to articulate decisions more clearly. You can't be vague with a prompt.
On listening to users
TestFlight changed the product. Recipe navigation went through three redesigns based on what early users actually did — not what I expected them to do. The journaling feature I thought would anchor the experience turned out to matter less than frictionless recipe access. Shipping early was the right call. I should have done it sooner.
key takeaway
The best tools get out of the way. Whether it was committing to Live Activities so the phone could go face-down, shipping early enough to let real users reshape the product, or using AI to close the gap between intention and execution — every meaningful decision was about reducing friction, not adding features. Build for the ritual, not the résumé.