Lately I've been thinking about the mix CDs I used to burn for friends. Building the perfect mix for someone took a lot of time and intention, but it was a great way to expose friends to the rare musical gems I'd discovered, and sometimes, they even returned the favor.

In the transition from physical mixtapes to cloud-hosted playlists, we stopped giving each other digital things. These days, we mostly point to things that we don't control.

But our custom of gift-giving can be restored, if we restore the structures that enabled it.

Vibe Capsule is my answer to this problem. Drop some .mp3s into a folder, run some python scripts, and your playlist gets packaged as a Progressive Web App. Upload the resultant "mixapp" to any HTTPS-enabled host, and your friends can install it to their home screens with just a few taps.

After the initial download and cache, mixapps work completely offline on any device (iOS, Android, desktop). No subscriptions, platform dependencies, or "this song is no longer available in your region." The files are in the computer!

It's a return to the practice of giving digital gifts, rather than pointers to corporate infrastructure.

Source code: https://github.com/hunterirving/vibe_capsule

Live demo: https://hunterirving.com/vibe_capsule