jordanmorgan10

I made Alyx as a caffeine playground for iOS 26. It's actually been on my phone for a few years, but I decided to pretty it up and ship it. If you're keen on iOS 26, these are some things I am proud of:

- Visual Look Up: You can scan coffee and it'll use AI to figure out the contents. This was a new API that iOS 26 brought and I thought this was kinda fun.

- Logging with AI: Apple shipped Foundation Models on iOS 26, and while they are far less capable that flagship models, they are great for bite sized tasks. Plus, they support tool calling - which means they can fire up tools that you give them when they are generating responses. So, I feed it caffeine data and people can type in what they're drinking, and it'll give you a reasonable estimation of how much caffeine is in it.

- Tons of Siri stuff: If you're into automation, every single thing in the app works as an action in Shortcuts. This was a lot of work, but was a goal from the start. Even small things, like changing the app's theme, can be done in Shortcuts.

It turned out pretty good I think! Excited that some people seem to dig it too. I never know how to make these Show HN things super interesting, but if you like caffeine logging and have iOS, I think you'll like this.

Back when we had 3D Touch, there was UIForce which did this. I still lament the loss of 3D Touch to this day :-(

...I....I didn't?

I’m at a point my life and career where I’d never entertain working those hours. Missed basketball games, seeing kids come home from school, etc. I do think when I first started out, and had no kiddos, maybe some crazy sprints like that would’ve been exhilarating. No chance now though

The only that hasn't changed in this industry is that engineers apparently can't stand new, green beginners getting into the field.

"They ship buggy, insecure messes" "They don't know how to fix what AI gave them" etc etc etc

Right. Like that same thing hasn't been happening literally during the entire existence of programming. I, for one, welcome the vibe coders. I hope it grows their interest in the field and encourages them to go deeper and learn more. Will some be lazy and not even try? Of course! Will some get curious and learn the ins and outs? Absolutely.

The interesting thing with my side projects is that they are ever so close to being a full-on business, but they are slightly under the threshold where I could go all in (stay at home wife, three kids, American healthcare costs). So, it’s hard to think of them as “side” projects when in reality they’ve become a “side” business. It’s like I have no choice but to take them a bit seriously, though I do hope to find the time for a “love of the game” side project. Great post.