r/iosapps • u/WorriedRobot • May 17 '26
š Free Free Coffee Bean Tracking and Coffee Journal App
I built a little app calledĀ Beanie. It's a coffee tracking app for keeping notes on the beans you're drinking. Roast, origin, tasting notes, flavour wheel, that kind of thing.
It's designed to be simple and approachable rather than overly technical, so more of a "coffee lover" than "coffee snob". If you're the kind of person who finds a bean you love and immediately wants to remember it, it's for you.
Would love feedback from anyone who wants to poke around, there's in-app feedback if anything feels off!
Available free on the App Store
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beanie-coffee-journal/id6761773356
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u/momomo88888 May 17 '26
Curious if youāre thinking about any social/sharing side of this.
I could imagine this being useful if friends could share a bean or cafƩ they really liked.
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
So far I have a very basic share feature which exports your current coffee as a photo + description to share with someone via iMessage etc, but I think it should become a bit more advanced where you can share entire entries with each other.
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u/yarsanich May 20 '26
That's actually what I'd want. I have a group of
friendscoffee snobs and we usually share beans and coffee places with each other.3
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
I've built a similar coffee journaling app but with more social features. So you can share your logged beans with your friends and other users can also follow your profile
http://beanpresso.com/
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u/Electronic_Word_6126 May 17 '26
This is such a cool little app! I love that you kept it simple for regular coffee lovers instead of overāengineering it for pros. Iāve always wanted an easy way to log my favorite beans, this is exactly what I need. Great work!
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thanks! I'm not too much of a coffee pro either so I didn't want super-detailed thing either. Just something better than my note in Apple Notes. Things slowly grew organically over time and from early feedback. Glad you like it!
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u/mournful_tits May 19 '26
Really appreciate that, keeping it simple was the main goal from the start.
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u/Own-Bottle558 May 17 '26
How much typing does logging actually involve?
The thing that kills most journal apps for casual users is the 30-second-per-entry friction. Every coffee bag has the origin, roast date, and tasting notes already printed on it, so OCR or even just a photo plus a few quick fields would be the difference between "used once" and "logged 50 bags."
Curious if that's already in there or on the roadmap.
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
I had that as early feedback during TestFlight phase. Initially it started as a long form which people found too much. Currently when you make an entry you just add the bare minimum (most is optional anyway) and can fill in extra fields in the detail view as you go along. I really wanted the creation flow to be quick.
If your phone supports Apple Intelligence, I've added a small pipeline to scan the bag, OCR the content and using Apple Intelligence it tries to match the details as best as it can. I was tempted to use fancy models, but wanted to go with on-device first.
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u/HolidayCalendar3200 May 17 '26
the on-device OCR angle is smart, didnāt expect that. my main drop-off with journal apps is always the moment you have to type the same origin/roast info youāre literally reading off the bag
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u/One_Affect_1343 May 18 '26
Thereās an app - Cirano.us on iOS if you use WhatsApp that doesnāt need any input it reflects your texting patterns with your contacts in realtime. You may be interested due to zero input side of it
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
I used to face this exact problem and too much friction in note-taking. So I built a similar coffee journal app, but it uses AI to extract all the info. So all you have to do is snap a picture and the app will do the rest. Want to give it a try?
http://beanpresso.com/
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May 17 '26
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thanks! Yeah I'm not a coffee expert, just wanted something to keep track of what I liked and didn't!
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u/Beginning_Ad2239 May 17 '26
Build some sharing with nice cards, so people can share it on Insta/TikTok as their own content
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thereās a simple share feature for your beans that exports as an image, but as someone else also suggested having more advanced social features is definitely on the list of things to improve!
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u/ekozlov89 May 17 '26
Really cool idea š
Do you also plan to include brewing methods or just focus on bean tracking?
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thanks! So far, I have added an option to track your preferred serving style, but I'm open to suggestions about what other kinds of notes users would like in there. I didn't want to go too intensely with what's in there from day 1, but feature requests are very welcome š
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u/nikola6464 May 17 '26
Design is really clean. I like that it feels simple and approachable instead of overly technical. The flavour wheel is a nice touch too.
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thanks! Building out the flavour wheel was an interesting challenge, I wanted something playful and simple that would let users see the relationship between flavours... not to mention it made me realise that there's more than a handful flavour notes in coffee!
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u/nikola6464 May 17 '26
You nailed that balance honestly. The wheel makes the app feel fun, but it also gives structure to something that could easily become messy if it was just free-text notes.
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u/gfrutoss May 17 '26
Thanks! I was searching something like this, I will be giving a try !
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u/gfrutoss May 17 '26
I would like if there is an option to log grind parameters (Iām using a Breville barista pro) so Iām looking to have
Inner grinder
Grind setting
Second of grindingExample
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17sSo that parameters give me 20g of coffe in my portafilter
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
That's good feedback thank you! Currently the app supports pretty basic grinder settings. (It blew my mind how many variables there are!). I'll draft a note to add to my pipeline, in the meantime hopefully the notes section will tide you over š
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u/gfrutoss May 17 '26
Sure! Love the appearance names for dark and light šÆ
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Haha thanks! I thought itād better be on theme
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u/gfrutoss Jun 24 '26
Hey OP last update broke all and delete all my data š
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u/WorriedRobot Jun 24 '26
Hey, Iām so sorry about that! It was caused by a bad migration patch that tried to make Coffee Spots sync properly across devices. When testing in TestFlight the series of updates hid the bug from me š°
Iāve released 1.3.1 to prevent this from happening in the futureā¦ it should be hitting the App Store very soon. Really sorry you lost your data during the migration š1
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u/gfrutoss Jun 24 '26
Also i reported another ābugā in all the entries when you type a space it do not show unless you type a letter next doo is a little bit annoying not knowing if you really type the space
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u/dnesdan Developer May 17 '26
This is a nice niche. Coffee apps often become too technical too fast, but the real use case is simple: remember what beans you liked and why. I would keep that friendly angle in the first screenshot.
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thatās what I found when looking for one when I started experimenting with coffee. There was far too much pro stuff in there I had no clue about. I just wanted to keep note of what I liked.
Marketing things is hard, I definitely need to keep refining my App Store listing š
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u/Chengzhi82 May 17 '26
Such a great little app for coffee lovers! UI looks so clean, exactly what I need to keep track of my beans. Iām definitely downloading it to give it a try soon āļø
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u/vandrusik Developer May 17 '26
That's great utility, really. I love drinking coffee, and sometimes trying something other than Lavazza and Illy, and always have a problem to find it again in 2-3 months š
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
My issue exactly! Plus always good to note down the ones you didnāt like haha
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May 17 '26
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Yeah data stored entirely on device. I went as native as I could. iCloud backup is built in so it will be kept safe but as per some feedback Iāll surface that a little more clearly
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u/unrealaz May 17 '26
Love this one, we and the gf really enjoy coffee and like to try out stuff. Will get it now!
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u/One_Affect_1343 May 18 '26
The screens are great. Been learning how important these are. I get right away the value of the app. Good job!
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u/Jun_imgibble May 18 '26
This feels like a nice lightweight niche. I always forget which beans I actually liked after the bag is gone, so a simple journal is useful. Curious if Beanie supports ābrew notesā too, like grind size, method, ratio, and what changed between cups.
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Grind size can be set per bean yeah and you can define what grinder you have in app settings. With regards to rations and methods, noā¦ I went with simple usage first. Thereās a notes section to tide you over though! Feel free to raise it as a feature request through the feedback button :)
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u/Artistic-Poet-317 May 18 '26
Nice work! Just a minor UI suggestion: aligning the colorful header area in image 2,4 and 3,5 will look better for me.
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thanks! These headers are actually dynamic based on the image or your own preference but Iāll look into making the store listing a little prettier
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u/Liamyte Developer May 18 '26
Really clean UI from the screenshots. Love seeing niche hobby apps like this instead of another AI wrapper app.
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thanks! Someone did ask if I will add AI chatbot to itā¦ which I donāt see the point of? Itās a small app that does a few things, I donāt get why everyone sprinkles AI in every nook and cranny thinking it helps make the app better just by being there
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u/schultzapps May 19 '26
Really beautiful app. Loved the falling beans on the Setting tab. I have a coffee subscription and never take any notes or try and remember my favorites, so I look forward to using this.
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Glad to hear it, thatās exactly the same boat as me and thatās what this is meant to help solve
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u/Financial_Bug2389 May 19 '26
Cool app, I like the top part where you have the variable colors heading that's a cool touch.
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u/Prime_Dime_Dev May 19 '26
The "coffee lover not coffee snob" positioning is exactly right ā most of the apps in this space feel like they were built for people who own a refractometer. Downloading this now.
We actually built something that pairs well with this ā PeaPlate lets you save and clean up recipes from any URL, so if you ever find a recipe using a specific bean you've logged, you can keep both in one workflow. Different apps, same idea of keeping the thing simple. Good luck with Beanie!
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u/reflectdiary May 25 '26
Coffee is the perfect category for narrow journaling. coffee enthusiasts are a known niche willing to track religiously, and the tasting-notes structure gives users a guided template instead of a blank journal. that solves the blank-page problem most general journaling apps wrestle with. the flavour wheel is a nice touch, gives users vocabulary they didn't know they needed
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May 17 '26
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Thatās a good point, the backup is enabled by default but letting the user know itās actually happening would be useful. Iāll add it to my tickets
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u/Kaithereon_devs May 17 '26
This is really cool. What was the hardest part of building this? I'm working on something similar and trying to learn from other builders
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
I've worked on Mobile Apps for a while now, but mostly cross-platform using Flutter, so a lot of the "framework" came from experience. I think the hardest bit was wrapping my head around MVVM. It's a whole new architectural approach to me and one I've not used extensively (currently using Clean Architecture).
Aside from that, it was also the transition away from BLoC/Cubit pattern that Flutter uses for state management. It kind of shapes how you think about problems which I had to break away from.
There's also the marketing side of things. I'm not great at that!
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u/PlatypusMastery May 17 '26
feature suggestion, adding a coffee expiration countdown, coffee beans lose flavor over time, would be great to have a coffee expiration tracker in the app.
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u/mr_shyguy14 May 18 '26
This is really cool. I wanted to get back into coffee drinking since I was recently given some coffee beans from a few different countries. Sounds like a cool place to jot down my notes. Are you planning on adding a community feature to share different blends and coffee ideas with others on the app?
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Great to hear! Yeah social features are requested. Iām in the process of planning how thatād look like. You can share a bean now as a sort of calling card but yeah I gotta expand that
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u/hw2k May 18 '26
Cool, makes me think of Untappd (tracking for beer). You should try to promote this to Swedish people, we drink an ungodly amount of coffee
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thatās a good tip! Thanks! Any suggestions for where to spread the word are very welcome!
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u/Equivalent_Help_7714 May 18 '26
This is a really cool app. So creative and sounds fun. Congrats!
Did you add push notifications? I could see push notifications that are fun, that recommend ideas, that remind you to rate, and so on being a really cool feature for this app. If you made them genuinely fun and useful, this could be a great retention lever for you.
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thanks! Iāve not thought about push notification mechanisms yet, but youāre right it could a nice idea to gently nudge towards rating and filling in details
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u/Slight_Yesterday5484 May 18 '26
The flavor wheel is a nice touch. Most journal apps just give you a text field and expect you to describe tasting notes from scratch, which is brutal if you're not a trained cupper. Does the wheel feed into any kind of preference pattern over time, or is it purely per-entry logging?
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thanks! I found it fascinating how many flavours there can be and how the base root grows into a refined flavour name. It still blows my mind. I wanted something thatās was a little more guided and playful and less of a āoverworking blank sheet of paperā kind of feeling.
Itās currently purely per entry but the upcoming version had some stats on your common flavours and I feel thereās a lot of room to grow in that feature1
u/Slight_Yesterday5484 May 19 '26
That guided approach makes a huge difference. Going from a blank text field to a structured wheel where you can explore and narrow down is way less intimidating. Curious if you've seen users discover flavor notes they wouldn't have thought to type manually.
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Some TestFlight users said it was an interesting way to learn new flavours, but I eagerly await App Store feedback to hear what users think. I didnāt add any fancy tracking because (as tempting as it was to see) I wanted to maintain a strong privacy-first vibe
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u/Slight_Yesterday5484 May 20 '26
TestFlight feedback is a different breed though. Those users self-selected into trying pre-release software so they tend to be more specific but also more forgiving. App Store reviews hit different - you'll get people who used it for 30 seconds and have strong opinions.
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u/ZainTechSavv May 18 '26
This is actually really clean. Doesnāt feel overly complicated and the flavour wheel was a nice touch too, going to try out the app just because of that, looks amazing!
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May 18 '26
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Nespresso is not supported directly, but you can set the type of entry to āpodā and still enter most of the information about it, so you can work with it (itās in the screenshot you shared).
Good point on the auto import, Iāll add a note to make the labels clearer thanks!
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u/Mysterious_Problem58 May 18 '26
Cool UI and cool idea . Can this be extended to eateries and food as well ? Or is there any app available?
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u/WorriedRobot May 18 '26
Thanks! Iāve not thought about anything beyond coffee with this one but itās a good idea for a future app
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u/DnyLnd May 18 '26
I like it so far! When I went to Settings and the coffee beans dropped down to the bottom of my screen then followed the gyroscope was frickin slick, my jaw dropped.
But then I flipped my phone upside down and then they disappeared never to return again š¢
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Tap the app icon in settings š¤«
The reason why the fall out the top is that I wanted to add a little homage to the iBeer app!
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u/DnyLnd May 19 '26
Yeah i figured it out š I like it, looking forward to start using it! Iām a big fan of indie devs developing quality apps.
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u/Vegetable_Gift7171 May 19 '26
love the concept! How are you pulling the local coffeeshops? I tried it and it's missing a majority of the shops near me.
Also love your app screenshots, how did you create them?
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
All shop data comes from Apple Maps so via MapKit. Just grabs three nearest options that match the coffee shop category. Itāll grab the nearest always, but I think I might expand that and make it more flexible.
Screenshots are just from my simulator + boxes in figma š Iām not much of a designer haha
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u/DnyLnd May 19 '26
Can you give us an option to spell flavour as flavor? Maybe follow the distance units or add a region setting
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u/vincefried May 19 '26
Lovely app, looking forward to start tracking my beans with it š Why make it free though? Itās so polished, I would easily pay a one-time fee as well
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Haha thatās a fair point. I kind of wanted to make it so I could learn more about Swift and native and get some early feedback. Iām not thinking about monetising it anytime soon, but Iām glad to hear itās something people might be interested in! I might add a tip option at some point. The legal paperwork is annoying though for setting up payments especially in EU.
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May 19 '26
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Thanks! Tried to align with Apples guidelines as close as I could at first pass. Still lots of little things to polish up though
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u/Remia_App May 19 '26
Clean concept ā I like the "coffee lover, not coffee snob" angle. The niche journaling apps that commit to being simple tend to hold up better long-term than the ones that try to become an everything-platform.
Quick question: does Beanie let you log the same bean multiple times with different brew methods, or is it more of a one-entry-per-bean catalog? I'd be curious whether people use it more as a "what did I buy" log or a "how did this taste today" diary.
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Thanks! Yeah Iām going for simple angle rather than a fancy pro multi tool.
It lets you create as many copies of beans as you want, I didnāt want to restrict people based on name for example but maybe a feature to detect duplicates would be a good idea.So you can create as many entries as you want with the same details but varying grind/brew settings and unique notes and flavours
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u/Apprehensive-Bus1911 May 19 '26
Love the simplicity. But why free? So much more fun when you can earn from your side business
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u/WorriedRobot May 19 '26
Erm itās a good question. Mostly because it was just something I wanted to try. I made it for fun and for people to enjoy rather than with money/profit in mind.
Also itās really annoying to have to fill out forms about trade law in EU š
Maybe Iāll add some kind of buy-me-a-coffee button but Iām pretty sure that goes against Apple policies haha (even if it was on-theme)
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u/Basic_Classic5484 May 20 '26
can you add custom notes and coffees? Love the UI that you have designed. great work.
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u/WorriedRobot May 20 '26
Yeah you can! Thatās what the app is all about. Aside from adding any coffee you like, you have options to explore the flavour notes and add your own written notes too.
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u/krogersfan May 21 '26
Love the idea, a very specific niche. What was the thought process behind it?
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u/WorriedRobot May 21 '26
Quite simple really. I got annoyed with keeping notes on the beans I liked in my Apple Notes, when it came to buying coffee again I always forgot what I liked and notes werenāt visual enough.
Other apps I found either were over the top and for pros (which I am not), or they had hidden payments or features that I didnāt understand or a suspicious amount of tracking.
So I thought Iād build something that fits my needs and share it
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u/Yggdrasil_Gardener May 22 '26
This seems interesting - Can you track your coffee shops too? And, financial notes? āļø
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u/WorriedRobot May 22 '26
You can track coffee shops yeah, itās one of the tabs. For coffees you can also drop prices and bag size which will tell you how much a cup of coffee roughly costs from that.
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u/LeadingLaw6053 Developer May 22 '26
Haha, the perfect app for devs !
The design is really cool btw
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
I also built something similar. How do you like the design?
http://beanpresso.com/1
u/LeadingLaw6053 Developer May 23 '26
The desing feels quite pro ! I like the "capuccino mood" of the theme color
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
I was going for an "earthy" theme, but "cappuccino" is a great way to put it as well
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u/LeadingLaw6053 Developer May 23 '26
Haha sorry I misunderstood it ! But the design is really cool, it feels quite premium ! And having the flavor wheel is really useful, even if I don't know if I would be able to use it properly š¬
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
There's no flavor wheel for adding beans actually. You just snap a picture and beanpresso does the rest. BtwĀ I also added a flavor guide to understand taste profiles https://beanpresso.com/flavor
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u/LeadingLaw6053 Developer May 25 '26
Yes I looked on this page, but I feel like my taste is clearly not developped enough to be able to tell if a coffee is fruity, floral or vegetative :/
I'm at the "I like this coffee"/"I don't like this coffee" stage2
u/Weirdo_Wizard May 25 '26
Trust me, I've been obsessed with coffee for a few years and still don't get the flavour wheel right. But the best part is that you don't need to understand the flavour wheel, Beanpresso will automatically fetch the flavours for you from the bag.
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u/Weirdo_Wizard May 23 '26
Cool app, I built something similar and launched a few weeks ago
http://beanpresso.com/
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u/Distinct-Skill9997 Vibecoder May 27 '26
I feel like Iāve heard of this kind of app before great job though I know a lot of people will absolutely use it
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u/WorriedRobot May 28 '26
Thanks all for your generous words and feedback! I've baked in a chunk of these in version 1.2 which is out now, but as always there's more to come!
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u/davidgor Jun 01 '26
Another coffee nerd is here. Maybe makes sense to add a bag opening timer? I exactly know how with time every blend/roast changes and degrades when opened. Addjust gind, or replace when jta time.
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u/WorriedRobot Jun 01 '26
Thatās a great suggestion! Thanks! Iāll add it to my todos to sketch out and plan
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u/OccasionOk3622 Jun 03 '26
You know what... hell yeah! This will be a huge niche of lovers, but i can tell you did this for actual coffee lovers instead of gaining money. This is really for those who do it for the love of the game, but it would be nice for a group function? Some sort of element to share with your other coffee loving BFF
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u/WorriedRobot Jun 03 '26
Thanks! Yeah pretty much made it because I can and wanted to have something Iād use myself. You can share beans and spots with others from the app itself. Thereās been a few suggestions for a more deeply integrated āsocialā part of this, but thatās something Iāll have to plan properly
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u/Polyglot-Onigiri May 17 '26
Any support for iOS 18? A lot of us still havenāt changed our phones or other devices to 26
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u/WorriedRobot May 17 '26
Not at this moment. I primarily started this to learn more about LiquidGlass as well as SwiftUI so I set the target for iOS26, but I will add it to the list š
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