A daily ritual for couples: one shared question, private answers, a simultaneous reveal. Built and shipped solo, from concept to App Store.
The Problem
Long-distance couples and busy partners know the problem: real conversations get pushed out by logistics. "How was your day?" doesn't build intimacy. Generic chat apps aren't designed for meaningful connection. They're optimised for volume, not depth.
Couples wanted a space for genuine reflection and shared discovery. Something that created a ritual rather than another notification. Something that didn't require both people to be available at the same time.
Chat apps optimise for quick responses. They don't create space for thoughtful reflection or genuine answers to meaningful questions.
Couples in different time zones, or with different schedules, can't always connect at the same moment. A ritual had to work asynchronously while still feeling shared.
The couples app market was dominated by shared calendars and task trackers. Nothing was built around the specific mechanic of mutual vulnerability and simultaneous discovery.
The Solution
Elumi is built around a single mechanic: every day, both partners receive the same question. They answer privately. Neither can see the other's answer until both have responded, then both unlock at the same time. The ritual works asynchronously, but the reveal happens together.
Beyond the daily question, Elumi builds a shared timeline of photos, answers, and memories. Future Letters lets you write a message that will only be delivered on a future date. AI-powered recaps surface things you'd forgotten.
The product respects the user's time. The daily touchpoint is intentionally small. It doesn't demand attention; it rewards it.
Product
Under the Hood
Building a couples app end-to-end means solving real engineering problems: real-time synchronization, subscription infrastructure, background processing, and a native UI that feels polished without a design team.
Built with modern SwiftUI and Swift 6's strict concurrency model. Uses @Observable and @Bindable for state management. Async/await throughout, no Combine legacy.
Firestore for real-time data sync between partners, Firebase Auth for account management, Cloud Functions for server-side logic (question delivery, recap generation, notifications).
RevenueCat manages subscription state, paywalls, and entitlements. Handles App Store receipt validation, grace periods, and billing retry logic without custom server code.
Home screen widgets surface the daily question directly from the lock screen. Live Activities let both partners see the unlock state without opening the app.
A native Share Extension lets users add photos from any app directly to their shared Elumi timeline. No friction in the capture-to-memory workflow.
Cloud Functions synthesise couples' shared history into periodic recaps, surfacing patterns across past answers. Server-side AI keeps the model off the device.
My Role
Elumi is a solo product. I conceived the idea, designed the experience, wrote all the code, and handled the App Store submission. There was no handoff to a design team, no backend engineer, no QA. Just me and the product.
This kind of work is where product thinking and engineering thinking have to live in the same head. A feature that's technically interesting but doesn't make the daily ritual feel better gets cut. An interaction that's beautiful but causes performance issues gets redesigned. The constraint is real.
Outcome
Elumi is live on the App Store. The product went through full design iteration, technical architecture, and a complete App Store review and approval process. All solo.
The subscription model is live via RevenueCat. Couples can use core features for free and unlock premium features with a subscription. The paywall and onboarding flows were designed to convert without being pushy.
Building Elumi demonstrated what a single focused engineer can ship: a polished, technically sound iOS product with real infrastructure, subscriptions, and App Store distribution, built to the quality bar people expect from native iOS apps.
Elumi went from concept to a live App Store product with subscriptions, widgets, Live Activities, and real users. Built by one person. If you need that kind of end-to-end iOS execution, let's talk.
Reach me at hello@skywaylabs.io