Lessons and discoveries made while crafting Minimal. Covering design, engineering, and philosophy
Writers are constantly moving text between apps, and rarely do the various apps honor each others’ formatting quirks. We solved this problem in Minimal. Now, when writers share notes between Apple Pages, Google Docs, email clients, other apps, Markdown files, and other texts, Minimal seamlessly persists the intended formatting
Minimal now supports importing and exporting across Markdown, Rich Text, HTML, PDF, plain text, and our proprietary format MNML. The following essay describes how we accomplished this system in the Swift programming language. To read about the human-centered design and how we fit this new technology into our
At Minimal we deliberately took our time to decide how we would integrate generative AI. There is a lot of hype, and we wanted to let the dust settle before building Large Language Models (LLMs) into our writing app. Quality is one of our critical values. When embracing a “
A technique for focusing and optimally allocating effort. The 60 Choose the single-most important goal in life and dedicate 60% of effort to accomplishing that goal. Once it is completed, re-examine goals, identify the most important one, and dive back in.  The 30 Second-order important goals
Let's have three abstraction layers: nature, middle, and human. The Human layer is designed for humans to effortlessly engage. The buttons on a dishwasher, the knobs on a stove. A keyboard. Paper with words on it. Door knobs. The Nature layer is designed for the laws of physics
It’s hard to design and build collaborative software. Everything is tied together, so a small change in one place has far reaching impact. It is also extremely valuable. We’re a social species. Think back to your most memorable meals, favorite travel destinations, and biggest personal breakthroughs.
If you look closely, you’ll rarely find a sharp corner in any Apple product. From the HomePod, to keyboard buttons, to elements in Apple’s own apps, the shapes are so smoothly-rounded that it’s not apparent where the straight lines end and the rounding
While a large portion of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac userbase speak English, most do not. Even for those who do speak English, many would prefer to write (and think) in their native language. Minimal is all about language. It’s a writing app. It needs to be internationalized
My journey as an indie developer crafting my favorite notes app I’m a software developer, and yet I delight in coarse technology. I love a comfortable pair of pants, paper that prevents ink bleed, a table that doesn’t wobble, and a sharp knife for cutting vegetables