Why Tendril Works exists

Tendril Works is a home for software that ought to exist. The first project is Tether, an Android reading app.

another app wants you back the article is still here the controls get out of the way

Tendril Works is a home for small, independent software projects. Not a consultancy, and not a plan to turn every idea into a platform. Just products with a job that can be explained in a sentence.

Not every product needs a feed, a streak, a recommendation engine, or a reason to send a notification. Those things can be useful. They can also become the product when all someone wanted was the tool.

notifications streaks recommendations the article

The approach is straightforward: give the main action enough room, make the important settings easy to find, and don't ask for an account if the product works without one. That's a preference, not a grand theory of software.

Tether is the first project. It began with a familiar problem: opening a long article, reading the first few paragraphs, and losing the place. Its RSVP mode holds the current word in one spot. The full-page mode is always one swipe away when a paragraph needs another look.

Future Tendril Works projects may have nothing to do with reading. The common thread will be narrower than that: a real problem, existing software that does not solve it well, and a specific attempt to do better.

The boring details matter: whether a setting is named clearly, whether the app remembers where someone stopped, and whether it still works without a network connection. That's most of the work anyway.

That's the whole pitch for now.