Lights out, first light

Most apps are designed for the middle of the day. Bright screens, quick thumbs, someone sitting upright with both eyes open and a little time to spare.

Two of our first three apps live somewhere else: at the edges. One is for the end of the day, while one lamp is still on. The other is for the first few minutes after waking, while you still remember. We can’t say much about them yet. But we can tell you what those hours have taught us so far, because they decide almost everything.

The room is dark

At bedtime, the phone is the brightest thing in the room. A white screen there isn’t a screen any more. It is a torch pointed at someone’s face, and sometimes the face is a small one.

So the first rule of the evening is that nothing glares. Dark by default, warm rather than blue, nothing that flashes or jumps or makes a sound nobody asked for. Every colour has to pass the same test: lights off, brightness all the way down, seen from a pillow.

The evening also asks for an ending. Most apps are built so that there is always one more thing. At the end of the day, that is exactly wrong. A bedtime app should know how to finish, the way a book has a last page, and the last page should leave the room quieter than it found it.

At the end of the day, the kindest thing a screen can do is go dark on time.

One eye open

Mornings are difficult in a different way. You are awake, but only just. Your thumb works; your patience doesn’t. And whatever you were dreaming is already leaving. Give it a few minutes, and most of it is gone.

That makes the first seconds precious. No welcome tour, no loading screen to admire, no decision to make before the one thing you came to do. If you have to think about the app, you have already stopped thinking about the dream.

It has to be gentle, too. The room may still be dark, someone may still be asleep beside you, and the day hasn’t started asking things of you yet. An app shouldn’t be the first to ask.

Putting the phone down

The two hours look like opposites, but they want the same thing. In the evening you are trying to let go of the day; in the morning, to hold on to the night. Either way, the phone is only a bridge, and nobody wants to live on a bridge.

So the moment we care about most is the last one: the moment you put the phone down. Face down on the bedside table with the lamp switched off, or dark again before the kettle has boiled. If you put it down a little calmer than you picked it up, the app has done its work.

That is where the hints on our apps are pointing. 灯 is a lamp, and 夢 is a dream. The rest, we’ll tell you when they’re ready.