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NS©2026

iOS2025

Tidepool

A meditation app whose interface breathes with you.

Tidepool — cover
Tidepool breathing session with fluid Metal shader surface
Session history with tide-line data visualization
Onboarding flow with progressive depth transitions

Challenge

Most meditation apps are static timers with stock gradients. The founders wanted an interface calm enough to meditate with — motion as the product, not decoration on top of it.

Approach

I wrote a Metal fluid simulation that syncs to the breathing cadence and to device motion, so the water on screen genuinely responds to how you hold the phone. Every screen obeys one shared motion curve for coherence.

Result

Featured by the App Store in Health & Fitness in its launch month, holding a 4.8 rating. Day-30 retention landed at twice the category benchmark, driven by the breathing session experience.

Next project

EmberA private journal that treats every entry like a letterpress print.