This is the reason. I have just been vibe-coding my way for a few months now, got almost all the tools (except Browser and Mail) that I use daily, designed by me (with the help of LLM).

I'm curious what you mean by that. Tools I use include git and jj. I don't think I want my own versions of those. I use VSCode and Sublime Merge and gg. I'd be curious how far I could LLM code those. It'd be certainly easy to pull up Electron with Monaco but I'd probably just LLM code extensions. And I use lots of software via the browser (maps, google docs, chat, slack, discord, ...), I don't I'd want to make those. iIterm2, XCode, zsh, I don't think I want to LLM code a shell but that might be cool.

And the biggest thing is that: software the way we want is much easier. No ads. No monthly cost.

Exactly! One of the reasons I vibed my own Ulysses/Bear similar app for journaling and notetaking with the essential features I need and no subscription.

That's amazing!!

Can I ask, do you pay for any server service or run your own or are these standalone apps?

For me, many of your ideas, if I was to implement them, I'd want them to have a server. Habits Tracker, need to access from whatever device I'm on at that moment. Grocery List. Same thing, and multiple users so everyone in the same house can add things to one list.

Etc....

This is not really LLM related but I feel like I have a blindspot, or hurdle or something where I haven't done enough server work be comfortable making these solutions. Trying to be clearer, I've setup a few servers in the past so it's not like I can't do it. It's more a feeling for comfort, or maybe discomfort.

Example: If you ask me to make a static website, or a blog, I'd immediately make a new github repo, install certain tools (static site generator or whatever), setup the github actions, register a new domain if needed, setup the CNAME, check it it's working. If I think it's going to be popular put cloudflare in front of it. I'm 100% confident in that process. I'm not saying my process is perfect. Only that I'm confident of it. I also know what it costs, $10-$20 a year for the domain name and maybe a yearly subscription to github

Conversely, if I was to make anything that was NOT a static server but actually a server with users and accounts, then I just have to go read up on the latest and cross my fingers I'm not leaking user data, have an XSS, going to get a bill for $250k from a DOS attack, picking the right kind of database, ID service, logging, etc... I could expose a home server but then be worried it'll get hacked. Need to find a backup solution, etc....

I know someone will respond I'm worrying to much but I hoping for more example of what others are doing for these things. Is there some amazing saas that solves all of this that most of you use? Some high-level framework that solves all of this and I just pick "publish" don't have to worry about giant bills?

You're looking for something like Vercel or Firebase

Most all of the apps sync with iCloud so it syncs across all of my devices.

However the MediaWatch app syncs between me and my wife which iCloud does not support (as a sidenote, this is one of the hallucination traps that both Claude and ChatGPT led me down -- both said it was possible, and after a few weeks and many, many hours, I learned the major constraints. I was not wanting any of my apps on the Appstore, so that blew that option). Anyway, I ended up making a small simple SQLite database using python on my Pi and use that for my sync needs. The devices only sync while at home, which was not a problem for me. Also I'm not exposing the database to external security issues.

Protip: you can install Tailscale on both phones and the Pi and then the phones can connect to the database from anywhere using the Pi's Tailscale IP.

i think a server would be overkill for most of these things, even the grocery list where youre sharing between multiple people. something like syncthing would be enough. its p2p so it just syncs over the network whenever both devices are available. for the grocery list theres definitely more chance that you could run into sync conflicts but you could grt around that easily by just having each person add items to a separate list then have the app show all items merged together into one list. basically something like todo.txt but with the ability to use multiple files