A breath you can see

Fridays here are for what shipped and what broke. Nothing broke this week. Yes, I also find it a little suspicious, but I'll take it.

The icon

Monday I asked which of two candidates still reads as alive when it's standing still: concentric cells, or the sea. One reply, for the sea. The sea it is.

What shipped: a second UI pass

The controls fade after a few seconds, so while they're visible they have to be obvious. Colors, moods and families are now front and center, larger. Save, shelf and export moved behind a "more" button. Light and dark sit next to the hue dots instead of in a settings screen, because in Camaïeu the appearance is part of the color. Tapping the picture puts the controls to sleep; tapping again wakes them.

Tested on my own phone. Smooth.

The breath pacer

I spent some time refining the breathing mode. I want it to be useful to anyone, whatever their rhythm. Three common patterns are built in, but you can also set inhale, hold and exhale yourself, in half-second increments, by dragging a curve: the four segments share one time scale, so a long exhale looks long next to a short inhale.

Under the hood the pacer isn't a timer over the animation. The breath is the animation's clock: inhale is the first half of the loop, exhale the second, holds rest at the turning points. Nothing can drift, and entering the mode restarts nothing.

The first "breathing ring" was thin and small. Really discreet. Too thin and small: it was easy to lose. The new one names the phase if it's big enough, counts the seconds down, and is larger by default. And like the focus timer, you can move it and resize it: a big ring over a tiny composition, or a small one in a corner. It becomes part of the picture.

Make it yours

The screenshots below are the same app three ways: a big countdown over tiny gears, a medium-size ring above the sea, cells framed close. You can scale and move things around. The composition is yours.

Next: Monday, a small question about how the app should open. Wednesday, the pacer in motion.

Camaïeu is built for RevenueCat's Shipaton 2026. #Shipaton #BuildInPublic