Tick
Habits and journal, for iPhoneA daily loop anchored to who you want to be in ten years: a few habits, a short journal entry, and analysis that runs on your phone. Ten languages, no account.
Independent software label
Small apps that help, then get out of the way.
Dualshade builds a few tools and keeps them honest. They work on your device first, ask before anything leaves it, and let you put the screen down. Next up: a journal that talks back.
About
One person, and that is the whole business plan.
Dualshade is a software label run by one person. There is no team page to pad out and no funding round to announce — just a small number of apps, made slowly, in the open about what they do and what they cost.
-
Local by default,
cloud only if you ask -
Export in every app,
at every price -
Your writing,
never in our database
The name
Two shades. Nothing more.
Two shades is all a screen needs to tell you something true. Everything past that is decoration — and decoration in an app is rarely free. It is usually there to keep you looking.
What we make
Three apps. All three you can install today.
Tick Pro
Coming this winterA journal that talks back, private by default. A two-minute evening check-in by voice or text, one or two follow-up questions, and patterns you can check — which habits actually move your mood, and what keeps coming up.
Levy
Subscription tracker, for iPhoneSee what leaves your account every month, decide what to keep, and close the app. Everything is entered and stored by you, on your device — no bank login, no mail scraping, nothing to sign into.
Burn
AI spend, for MacWhat Claude Code, Codex and the APIs you connect actually cost, in the menu bar: today, this month, by provider. Seats and billed money stay separate totals. Sold direct, signed and notarised by Apple; free covers Claude Code and the last seven days.
A filled dot means you can install it now; an outline means not yet — the same rule the apps use for a habit you have not done. Tick Pro is an outline until it ships.
Mailing list
Hear when Tick Pro opens.
One mail when the soft launch opens and one when Tick Pro is out. Written by me, rare, and one click to leave.
How we work
Four rules, all of them expensive.
01
Local by default
Everything works on your device first. Where a feature needs a server — a cloud model, sync — it stays off until you turn it on, says where it runs, and your writing never lands in a Dualshade database. A privacy claim only counts if it is true in the code.
02
Pay for what runs
The parts that run on your phone cost nothing to keep running, so they are not rented back to you. A subscription pays for something that runs every month, there is always a one-time price beside it, and export stays free in every state.
03
Honest numbers
Streaks, totals and patterns built from what you actually did — with the sample size shown, and silence when there is nothing to report. No engagement metric dressed up as wellness, and no celebration you did not earn.
04
Success is you leaving
Time in the app is not the goal. Every screen is built to answer its question and end the session — which is a strange thing to optimise for, and the reason these apps stay small.
Contact
Write to a person.
Support, bugs, press, or a question about how any of this works. It reaches one mailbox and one person answers it.
support@dualshade.xyz