Loam

An Android app in which you create small apps by saying what you want. An agent makes each one on a server and sends it to your phone, where it runs inside Loam.

Android only, for now. Loam needs Android 10 or later. On iPhone it will come as a web app; leave your address below and you will hear when it does.

How it works

  1. Say what you want. “A list of the plants on the balcony and when I last watered each.” A sentence is enough; the agent asks if it needs to know more.
  2. Watch it take shape. You see what the agent is doing while it works. The app opens on your phone when it is ready, usually within a few minutes.
  3. Change it by saying so. “Bigger numbers.” “Add a chart of the last month.” Each change arrives the same way.
  4. Undo anything. Every version is kept, and going back to one is a tap.

There is no code to see, no build and no store. The apps live in Loam, apart from each other and from the rest of the phone.

What an app may do, and you are asked

An app made in Loam can do only what it lists: the camera, your location, the internet at the addresses it names, a reminder at a set time. Before an app gets any of these, Loam shows you the list in plain words and asks. When a change wants something new, you are asked again.

The waitlist

Loam is not on Google Play yet. Until it is, it is installed from a file, and invite codes go to friends first, sent by hand a few at a time. Leave your address and you will get a code when there is one for you.

Only the address, that line and the time are kept, for at most a year. What is stored, and for how long.