The build, day by day·Thursday 30 July 2026

Ghost hunting, and plain English everywhere

The forensics from yesterday’s slow uploads found a ghost: an old broken upload the phone had been retrying for days — eighty-nine attempts — wasting data and slowing real takes. The app now checks the phone’s own courier queue and cancels anything it no longer wants. The first version of the fix would have cancelled one thing too many; our second, independent reviewer caught it before it shipped, which is the whole point of having one.

Two more quiet improvements: when the server plainly already has a take, the app stops doubting it and marks it safe within seconds. And the change log inside the app now reads in plain English — what got better and why you would care — with the technical story tucked underneath.

This diary is part of the same decision. Long essays are for evenings; a build log should be readable at a merchant counter.

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Day by day

Where it stands: it records, uploads, works out what you meant and suggests what to do next. It has started learning the business it works for. One firm uses it every day while we toughen it. Not in the App Store yet. Aiming for September 2026.

18 Jul — Day one. One red button that records. First rule written down: never lose a take.
19 Jul — It records from the side button with the phone locked. Every take goes up to our server, and we check it arrived whole. Bugs get reported by pressing the button and saying so.
20 Jul — It starts picking jobs, materials and prices out of what you say. Receipts by camera.
21 Jul — A hard day with the camera. Four tries before it behaved. Every build now shows what changed in it.
22 Jul — This website goes up. A web twin of the button, so every change is tested in two places.
23 Jul — The suggestions inbox: it proposes, you say yes or bin it. We build it a marked exam, scored on its worst answer.
24 Jul — A day spent writing down, in plain words, what this thing actually does and does not do.
25 Jul — The rules for earning trust get written: it drafts, you press send. Every action asks first until it has earned better.
26 Jul — Four recording bugs found by using it on real jobs. All fixed, with tests so they stay fixed. The six o’clock morning sweep switches on.
27 Jul — The locked-phone puzzle cracked: press the side button, the screen stays dark, it records and uploads anyway. Missed transcriptions get a second chance. Fixed a rare bug where two copies of one upload could tangle.
28 Jul — A night of field tests. Eight takes on a locked phone: none lost. Learned when iPhones really allow background sending, and planned around it.
29 Jul — It now reads the company knowledge before deciding what a note means, and offers to save new facts it hears — nothing is saved without a yes. Field tests on holiday Wi-Fi: locked-phone takes landed in under a minute, and one recorded in airplane mode arrived all by itself.
30 Jul — Caught a ghost: an old broken upload the phone had been retrying for days, wasting data. It now spots and cancels those, and stops doubting a take the server already holds. And the change log inside the app now reads in plain English, like this one.

Plain words on purpose. Tap a day for the whole story.