frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Launch HN: Bitrig (YC S25) – Build Swift apps on your iPhone

23•kylemacomber•2h ago
Hi HN, we’re Kyle, Jacob, and Tim. We’re building Bitrig (https://www.bitrig.app).

Bitrig lets you create native Swift apps for your phone, on your phone, just by chatting with AI. It’s like Lovable for iPhone apps.

Here's a video of Bitrig in action: https://youtu.be/CUlWhF3ERME

We created SwiftUI at Apple to help developers make better apps with less code. Bitrig lets anyone build at this level of polish. If you've thought about making an iPhone app, Bitrig is the easiest possible way to get started with Swift.

Bitrig uses Claude Sonnet 4.0 with a simple system prompt and tool definitions to generate native Swift code. Normally running this on an iPhone would require compiling and signing it with Xcode, and you can’t run Xcode on an iPhone. So we did something… creative. We wrote a custom Swift interpreter! Among other things this lets you instantly preview your app in Bitrig and share it with just a URL.

If you have a paid Apple developer account, you can connect it with Bitrig. We’ll compile your app on our server and upload it to App Store Connect, so you can distribute it on TestFlight or the App Store. This last step also gives you a fully optimized build of your app that you can install right on your Home Screen.

We think there’s something electric about building apps directly on your phone. We hope you give Bitrig a try!

We’re ingesting Apple’s SDK frameworks into Bitrig piece by piece. If you try to build something and hit a missing framework, let us know and we’ll prioritize adding it.

Download Bitrig on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bitrig/id6747835910

Comments

kylemacomber•2h ago
On a personal note, I wanted to thank the HN community. I’ve been reading HN since college (for over 15 years now!) and it’s been formative in my development as a software engineer and leader.

I don’t pipe up very often, but I visit HN almost every day. Many of the books I read, blogs I frequent, and podcasts I listen to, I found via HN. I think it’s fair to say, if it weren’t for HN, that Bitrig wouldn’t be Bitrig and SwiftUI wouldn’t be SwiftUI.

HellsMaddy•48m ago
Very cool! Was it difficult to get Bitrig approved on the App Store? If I had to guess just based on the idea, it seems like the sort of thing Apple would take issue with.
kylemacomber•36m ago
Heh... it definitely wasn't an overnight approval. However, Apple has relaxed the guidelines for developer tools compared to the early days of the App Store. If you look today there are Python IDEs, Jupyter Notebooks, and various other apps that execute user generated code. The key guideline to be mindful of is 2.5.2.
FlamingMoe•37m ago
Neat. I just tried it out and one thing I was pleasantly surprised about was the styling it came up with. It was sleek, and it did not have the purply gradienty tailwindy styling that I always get from Claude. Did you do much to adjust the prompt for custom styles?
kylemacomber•31m ago
Styling apps is an area we're excited to spend time exploring. Today in our system prompt we say "ALWAYS make the design Apple-like. Use clean typography and consistent padding/spacing." However, tbh it's not something we carefully tested.

For the most part, I think the look and feel of the apps benefits from SwiftUI baking Apple's design system into the defaults so heavily.

avarun•36m ago
Seems like a cool concept! I downloaded and entered an email address but haven't received a verification code yet after 10 minutes. It's an Apple Private Relay email if that matters.

Also, side note: magic link or email-based OTP login is by far my least favorite method of login, especially for a phone app. It's cumbersome, annoying, and completely unnecessary now that passkeys exist. Barring that I'd still rather use email/pw login any day of the week.

jacobx•21m ago
That's weird, can you try hitting back and then the forward arrow again? That should resend the email. If that still doesn't work, let me know and we can investigate on the backend.

We've definitely been hearing from users who don't like OTP, we'll try to get additional login options added soon.

Johnny_Bonk•26m ago
So I have an existing typescript project, can I still use your software to build the app part of it in a monorepo?
jacobx•16m ago
We don't currently have support for editing code directly within a repository, but that's something we're excited about adding.

In the meantime, one thing that's worked well for us is building a component/screen/etc as a standalone piece in bitrig, and then bringing it into a larger project from your computer later. You can easily export the code you make in bitrig for those kinds of workflows.

saadn92•26m ago
This is a really good idea, but I’ve noticed that, even with developer experience and using Claude code, building a complex app is extremely difficult and takes dozens of prompts to get things actually working. This is probably a great prototyping tool, but I’m curious to know how far this can go to build production level apps.
jacobx•4m ago
With what we've tried so far, Bitrig already works well for prototyping and making smaller apps.

Really large and complex apps will probably require improvements to both Bitrig and the underlying models. However, both those are coming :)

ForceBru•24m ago
Are there iOS apps that let me create native Swift apps for my phone (including execution on my device, not in the cloud), on my phone, but _without_ chatting to AI? Just by writing code, the "old" way?
CharlesW•19m ago
There's the excellent Swift Playground for iOS, requires an iPad: https://developer.apple.com/swift-playground/
kylemacomber•12m ago
You can edit the code directly in Bitrig, but we haven't optimized the experience around that.

Are you imagining you'd be editing the code with the software keyboard or a paired hardware keyboard?

Erazal•3m ago
I’ve just tested it out, and purchased a subscription within 5 minutes, for an app we were seriously discussing with a friend over the last days.

Keep crushing!

Intel details everything that could go wrong with US taking a 10% stake

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/intel-details-everything-that-could-go-wrong-with-us-...
1•ndsipa_pomu•1m ago•0 comments

Robot Fleets at Changi Airport in Singapore Powered by Open Source

https://www.changiairport.com/en/corporate/our-media-hub/publications/changi-journeys.html
1•kscottz•1m ago•0 comments

Chef Creator Unveils AI Platform to Fix Flaws with Infrastructure Automation

https://thenewstack.io/chef-creator-unveils-ai-platform-to-fix-flaws-with-infrastructure-automation/
1•wmf•2m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why does macOS assume apps can reliably maintain settings files?

1•amichail•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Play a game to learn what products/services were killed by Google

https://killedbygoogle2048.com
1•spillman•4m ago•0 comments

Nx NPM Packages Compromised in Supply Chain Attack Weaponizing AI CLI Tools

https://socket.dev/blog/nx-packages-compromised
1•feross•4m ago•1 comments

Study Links Thumb Length to Brain Size and Cognition

https://neurosciencenews.com/thumb-length-cognition-evolution-29623/
1•begueradj•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Whose p*nis is that now? Probably the weirdest website I've ever made

https://whosepenis.com/pages/fun
2•acofranc•10m ago•1 comments

Google Pixel 10 Pro Review: This A.I. Phone Can Save Time If You Surrender Data

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/technology/personaltech/google-pixel-10-pro-review-ai-phone.html
1•mitchbob•11m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Open-source SDK for AI agent audit trails

https://www.traceprompt.com/
1•paulmbw•12m ago•0 comments

The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project (2011)

https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html
1•redbell•15m ago•0 comments

Europe's 'century of humiliation' could be just beginning

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-century-of-humiliation-could-be-just-beginning/
1•silverkite•15m ago•1 comments

The Gunther Werks F-26 Takes the Porsche 911 Design Somewhere New

https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-gunther-werks-f-26-takes-the-porsche-911-design-somewhere-new
2•PaulHoule•16m ago•0 comments

"Ratfucking" – American political sabotage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
5•Kapura•18m ago•1 comments

PromptLock: The AI-Powered Ransomware – A Dive into ESET's Discovery

https://blog.sofiane.cc/post/the-growing-threat-the-dark-side-of-ai-and-llms
1•SofianeHamlaoui•18m ago•1 comments

Datacenters face rising thirst as Europe dries up

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/27/datacenter_water_challenge/
1•rntn•20m ago•0 comments

WordPress Infrastructure in 2025: Time for a Modern Approach

https://eric.mann.blog/wordpress-infrastructure-in-2025-time-for-a-modern-approach/
1•eamann•21m ago•0 comments

Researchers say AI 'deadbots' are primed for monetization

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/26/nx-s1-5508355/ai-dead-people-chatbots-videos-parkland-court
1•anigbrowl•23m ago•0 comments

Statistics Done Wrong

https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/index.html
2•pykello•23m ago•0 comments

Large Behavior Models and Atlas Find New Footing

https://bostondynamics.com/blog/large-behavior-models-atlas-find-new-footing/
1•levlaz•24m ago•0 comments

OpenAI, Anthropic Team Up for Research on Hallucinations, Jailbreaking

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-27/openai-anthropic-team-up-for-research-on-hallu...
2•htrp•24m ago•0 comments

Trump Team Weighing Options to Extend Influence to Regional Fed Banks

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-26/trump-team-is-weighing-options-to-extend-influ...
3•throw0101a•25m ago•2 comments

Common Antenna Integration Challenges (In Gaming Mouse) and How to Handle Them

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/industry-articles/common-antenna-integration-challenges-and-how-...
2•giuliomagnifico•27m ago•0 comments

Astrophysicists Find No 'Hair' on Black Holes

https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-find-no-hair-on-black-holes-20250827/
4•rolph•27m ago•0 comments

Giving our team liquidity through Linear's first tender offer

https://linear.app/now/giving-our-team-liquidity-through-linear-s-first-tender-offer
3•Timothee•28m ago•1 comments

Launching DataLoom – A RevOps layer for early stage startups

1•mechXsteam•28m ago•0 comments

The $140B Failure We Don't Talk About

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/opinion/new-orleans-katrina-funds.html
3•mitchbob•30m ago•1 comments

Show HN: NekoOS, hobby OS with VGA and keyboard, PIT timer advice?

https://github.com/anishNagula/nekoOS
1•anishNagula•30m ago•1 comments

Can AI be trusted in a medical emergency? Analyzing Healthbench

https://www.counselhealth.com/media/how-counsel-leveraged-healthbench-to-assess-emergency-escalation
1•justinyu1618•32m ago•0 comments

Intel Xe-HPG Architecture (2022)

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/introduction-to-the-xe-hpg-a...
1•tosh•33m ago•0 comments