Focus Space: My Space-Themed Spin on the Focus App
Where the idea for Focus Space came from
I've had this idea in my head for about eight years. There's a whole category of apps that help you concentrate in a simple way: you start a session, pick a duration, and for that stretch of time you can't use other apps on your phone, because if you do, the session breaks. The best known one is Forest, where you plant a little tree for every focus session. There's a similar app with a bean that knits scarves as long as you stay focused.
These are good apps, they answer a real need, because the phone is always with us and always tempting us to get distracted. The problem is that their aesthetic (plants, a cartoon bean) never won me over. I'm a science fiction fan, so I came up with a space-themed version: a journey through hyperspace, the way it works in Star Wars or Star Trek, where the ship jumps into hyperspace, loses contact with the world, and the stars on screen turn into blurred streaks.
In my app you're in a spaceship cockpit. You set your goal and your focus duration, pull the lever and make the jump. That's the whole philosophy of the project.
You can try the app here: Focus Space v1
Who it's for, and who it isn't for
Focus Space is, at bottom, another take on the same idea as Forest: a Pomodoro-style timer. There are plenty of generic apps like that. What I wanted was to add something interesting, mainly for fans of science fiction, films and books, and for nerds in general. Just as a cartoon bean isn't appealing to everyone, my aesthetic won't be for everyone either, but I believe it will land with the people that the other style doesn't convince.
How I built it
The whole thing was made with Claude Code (the code) and Claude Design (the interface). This is the first version, a very simple MVP, really a proof of concept. The app runs as a PWA, meaning it's web-based but can be installed like a regular app, with an icon, on both iOS and Android. To eventually get it into the App Store, it would basically have to be built from scratch.
For now it shows a countdown timer with a science fiction feel, so a simple Pomodoro with a story around it. The mission start button is on the left. Switching to another app mid-session ends with a message: mission over, cockpit shattered, flight aborted.
The app has no accounts and no database, everything lives in local storage. There are only a handful of settings: the default focus length and the break length between sessions. It's deliberately a very stripped-down version, so I could learn the basics without unnecessary complication.
The wider context
This is the first app I've made as part of a new challenge: learning to build apps with the help of artificial intelligence. Deliberately simple, so that it would teach me specific things without the risk of drowning in complexity.
What I learned
Even a simple thing isn't easy. My biggest struggle was the interface design. I had a very specific, slightly unconventional vision, and Claude Design didn't handle it straight away. It took several iterations, and while the result is OK, I'm not a hundred percent happy with it.
Translating the idea of the lever into a flat interface was particularly hard. Visually it doesn't look like a difficult task, and yet it is. With a plain, standard interface of the kind most focus timers have, it would have gone much more smoothly, but I wanted something different and very specific. It would probably have been easier with a designer, but all in all it turned into a nice little starter project.