The build, day by day·Sunday 19 July 2026

It works with the phone locked

The side button records now, even with the phone locked and the screen dark. Every take goes up to our own server, and the server checks it arrived whole — byte for byte — before anyone relaxes.

Proper transcription switched on mid-afternoon. The phone makes a quick rough version of what you said the moment you stop; the server then makes an accurate one and swaps it in. Two goes at the same words, so you get something instantly and something right.

And a habit that stuck: bugs get reported by pressing the button and saying so. The tool takes its own complaints.

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Day by day

Where it stands: it records, uploads, works out what you meant and suggests what to do next. It has started learning the business it works for. One firm uses it every day while we toughen it. Not in the App Store yet. Aiming for September 2026.

18 Jul — Day one. One red button that records. First rule written down: never lose a take.
19 Jul — It records from the side button with the phone locked. Every take goes up to our server, and we check it arrived whole. Bugs get reported by pressing the button and saying so.
20 Jul — It starts picking jobs, materials and prices out of what you say. Receipts by camera.
21 Jul — A hard day with the camera. Four tries before it behaved. Every build now shows what changed in it.
22 Jul — This website goes up. A web twin of the button, so every change is tested in two places.
23 Jul — The suggestions inbox: it proposes, you say yes or bin it. We build it a marked exam, scored on its worst answer.
24 Jul — A day spent writing down, in plain words, what this thing actually does and does not do.
25 Jul — The rules for earning trust get written: it drafts, you press send. Every action asks first until it has earned better.
26 Jul — Four recording bugs found by using it on real jobs. All fixed, with tests so they stay fixed. The six o’clock morning sweep switches on.
27 Jul — The locked-phone puzzle cracked: press the side button, the screen stays dark, it records and uploads anyway. Missed transcriptions get a second chance. Fixed a rare bug where two copies of one upload could tangle.
28 Jul — A night of field tests. Eight takes on a locked phone: none lost. Learned when iPhones really allow background sending, and planned around it.
29 Jul — It now reads the company knowledge before deciding what a note means, and offers to save new facts it hears — nothing is saved without a yes. Field tests on holiday Wi-Fi: locked-phone takes landed in under a minute, and one recorded in airplane mode arrived all by itself.
30 Jul — Caught a ghost: an old broken upload the phone had been retrying for days, wasting data. It now spots and cancels those, and stops doubting a take the server already holds. And the change log inside the app now reads in plain English, like this one.

Plain words on purpose. Tap a day for the whole story.