Grainient is my first iOS app, and this is a short story of how it came to life.
I’ve had a long-standing obsession with grainy gradients for a while now. It probably started with Arc (the one true browser from The Browser Company), and with my completely healthy habit of wanting to steal every beautiful color combination and pattern I see around me. More recently, I also became a huge fan of the React Bits component library, especially its grainient component.
On their own, these facts are not particularly remarkable. But the other day, Tornike and I were sitting in the office after an exhausting workday and decided to block off an hour to brainstorm random, non-work-related ideas and build something small for fun (yep, I sometimes question our definition of fun too).
As you might have guessed, almost 45 minutes of that hour were spent criticizing each other’s ideas (iykyk). But in the last few minutes, the core idea for Grainient suddenly clicked for me: turn photos into grainients. I was basically in my “I have a pen, I have an apple” era (if you are googling it, you won’t regret 🤭). The main requirement, though, was very simple: zero AI features. I repeat: ZERO AI features.
I mapped out the most primitive version of the app:
- A home screen with a
+button that opens the camera or photo library - A photo selection flow with zoom support
- Extraction of the three main colors from the selected photo
- Turning those colors into grainients, along with matching color swatches
And that was it. Nothing more. With the help of Codex, the implementation went quite smoothly.
I was already enrolled in the Apple Developer Program, and I had Xcode and the simulators set up from another project. So naturally, OF COURSE, the part I spent the most time on was designing the app icon (classic Anita 😏) which, honestly, turned out to be the least impressive icon on earth. After that came the fun of preparing everything for the App Store.
The next day, I put together the App Store preview screenshots and submitted the app for review. As you may have already guessed, there wasn’t much to review, and the app was approved and published the following day.
After that, I started grainienting everything around me. For marketing, I did my best to post on LinkedIn and share a few samples. I also went to Twitter, scrolled through random viral photos of cherry blossoms, colorful Portuguese tiles, Zendaya’s blue dress from The Drama, and similar visual treasures, and then commented on them (totally by chance ofc 🤫) with my grainients. I have zero regrets 💅.
For the next iteration, I worked on albums and the ability to categorize grainients into them, which makes perfect sense if you know me. Once those basics are fully in place, I already have a few more ideas I want to implement.
In short, Grainient is a tiny app that encourages people to capture the vibe and atmosphere around them and turn those moments into beautiful grainients. It is not a technological miracle, and I am not some engineering marvel.
BUT there is nothing wrong with enjoying the world around us.
Check it out here and let me know if you love it or love it. And don’t forget to share your favorite grainients.
Cheers,
🤸🏻♀️
Thanks to Tornike Onoprishvili for not reading any drafts of this.