Why it exists

Nobody fell out. The messages just got further apart.

I live a long way from the people I grew up with. There was no argument and no falling out. The gaps between messages got a little longer every month, and then one day it had been four months with somebody who used to know everything about me, and I could not say when that happened.

I tried a repeating calendar event. It went off the day after we had spoken, because a calendar counts from a date and has no idea you already called. I ignored it, then I deleted it.

So I built the one that counts from the conversation instead.

Simo, who made this

Marco's card in Ciao! just after a swipe right: a happy fox, You talked today, and buttons for WhatsApp, Message and Call.

Why you have to tell it yourself

This is the question everybody asks, so here is the honest answer: it is not a choice. iOS gives no app access to WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Instagram or anything else. There is no notification listener. Every clever way around it is either impossible or gets the app removed from the store.

So the job was never to get rid of the tap. It was to make the tap take two seconds. That is why the whole week is one swipe deck instead of a form.

There is a quiet upside. An app that read your messages would be an app that read your messages.

Sunday morning, a note if anyone is waiting
A small stack of cards, only the ones who drifted
Swipe right if you talked, left for “Not now”
Done until next Sunday. In the week, a note only when someone is due.

Why a face, and not a number

“38 days” is arithmetic. It is also an accusation, and nobody thinks about a friendship that way. A number can be failed, and a thing you can fail is a thing you will eventually delete.

A face that looks a little worried is not scoring you. It is showing you where things are, and you understand it before you have finished looking at it.

That is also why the app never says a number out loud. It says “a few weeks ago”, the way you would.

A number you can fail