Everyone knows what a PC is. I assume most also know what it stands for1.
For all the recognition, the presence of the word “personal” in “personal computer” is under-considered - it implies the default condition of a computer is to be shared.
The “P” distinction is a vestige of the days of the mainframe, when computers were expensive and bulky enough to be impractical to own personally. Those days are long gone, and we all own many different “personal” computers in all shapes and sizes.
There is a newer, less-ubiquitous phrase, not yet acronym-ified, that has recently been floating around Twitter, LinkedIn, and Hacker News: “personal software”. It refers to digital tools that have been created to fulfill an individualized use case. Traditionally, “personal software” is the realm of the True Nerds (not derogatory); the tinkerers and the impassioned few who were dedicated enough to the craft to write code for fun and moderate utility. Software, the impersonal kind, is understood to be prohibitively difficult and time consuming to build for anyone else.
Some AI acolytes will have you believe that these days, too, are behind us, and shared software is going the way of the mainframe. “Personal software” will become the default - synonymous with its unqualified predecessor in a strange merger where we all just dictate to Siri and then it writes us an app2. If only “P.S.” wasn’t already taken.
There’s something to that notion. I have felt a decrease in the cost of digital creation, using Claude to help me with some projects I've already documented. None of these I would think of as “personal software”. Finally, rather than try to search for an app that already existed and met my specific criteria, I’ve built some “personal software”3.
My creation: a bare-bones mood and habit tracking app. In part because of the noted lack of structure in my life, I’ve been wanting to capture some data about my mood and a couple personal things I’m working on. There’s a million apps on the App Store that do this. Mine is generic enough that you could probably apply it to anything from CBT 101, to “grindset” mentality. I am sure that something out there is better, but after spending even just 5 minutes looking through all the colorful, “In-App Purchases” emblazoned offerings, wondering what they were going to do with my data, I decided to build my own and open source it. It took me about a week of working in my spare time.
If anyone else uses it, great. I have no plans to promote it, but it’s out there !! “Personal”, and “public” - bet your PC can’t do that.
P.S. deployment is cumbersome and requires you to download xcode, etc. Instructions are in the README. I’m not going to pay $100/yr to put it on the app store, sorry !! (unless…)
kids these days !! you never know
genmoji, i’m looking at you
yes i’m procrastinating on my YC app okay !!!!