KeepFlame is the second iOS app I have shipped under kuroneko‑cmd.dev.
The first app, Simple Warm Reminder, is intentionally tiny: a calm reminder panel for my father, with big buttons and no data collection. KeepFlame sits in a different space. It is a habit tracker with a calendar, stats, themes, and Live Activities — still quiet, still privacy‑first, but definitely more complex.
I wanted to see whether I could build something one step heavier than a “tiny tool” without losing the calmness and trust that Simple Warm Reminder is built on. Along the way, I also ended up learning enough UI design to come back and improve Simple Warm Reminder itself.
Why build a second app at all?
Once Simple Warm Reminder was live, it would have been easy to just keep polishing it forever. Instead, I kept coming back to a different itch: habits.
A lot of habit apps today are deeply connected. They send data to servers, analyse your behaviour, and try to motivate you with leaderboards, weekly summaries, and social pressure. For some people this is great; for others, it feels noisy or invasive.
I kept thinking about people who:
- Want a record of their habits, but do not want another account.
- Care about privacy more than global rankings.
- Feel tired by dashboards, but still want some sense of progress.
KeepFlame is my answer to that: a habit tracker that stays offline, keeps your data on‑device, and uses animated themes instead of streak graphs to keep you going.
Habits without leaderboards
At its core, KeepFlame is simple:
- You add habits with “Add Task”.
- You move between months with the date chevron and tap days on the week bar.
- You check off what you did, and see a timeline of your past days.
There is no global leaderboard, no “friends” feed, and no external server deciding what to show you. Your progress is between you and the app on your iPhone.
Instead of streak badges, KeepFlame leans on animated themes. When you keep up with your habits, you see new frames and scenes from collections like:
- seasonal landscapes,
- medieval towns,
- pixel‑art Japan,
- sci‑fi cities and orbital stations,
- and futuristic cities.
It is a small psychological shift: rather than feeling judged by a graph, you get tiny visual rewards that say, “you kept the flame going today.”
Designing a more complex UI (and surviving it)
Compared to Simple Warm Reminder, KeepFlame is a much busier app: there is a calendar, stats, settings, themes, and Live Activities. Building it forced me to think more deliberately about layout, hierarchy, and motion, but the full story is probably a separate post.
Bringing the lessons back to Simple Warm Reminder
The most visible side effect of KeepFlame is that it pushed me to revisit Simple Warm Reminder’s UI.
I refreshed the app with a glass‑style button look.
Privacy and scope
Just like Simple Warm Reminder, KeepFlame is built with a strict privacy stance:
- no personal data collection,
- no analytics or ads SDKs,
- habits and settings stay on your device.
That constraint forces a certain kind of design. Without servers, you cannot rely on global rankings or online profiles to motivate people. You have to think carefully about what the app shows on its own, and how to make that feel rewarding enough.
For me, that is a good trade. It keeps the scope honest and the architecture easier to reason about as a solo indie.
Where to find KeepFlame
If you are curious, you can explore KeepFlame here:
- Product page: https://www.kuroneko-cmd.dev/products/keepflame/
- App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/keepflame/id6754666534
- Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/keepflame-offline-habit-tracker
And if you are more interested in the “tiny app made for my father,” you can also read about Simple Warm Reminder here: