Day 2 of building my photo-cleaning app with AI
0/ Before I start — If you want to join the first 100 beta testers, drop a comment! (We’re at 11/100 👀)
1/ Today is Day 2 of my AI-powered app-building journey. Yesterday I spent the entire day wrestling with the developer doc, and finally got it done. Huge relief.
Now… I can finally start writing actual code — aka letting Codex take the wheel.
2/ As someone who’s NOT a developer, using AI to write code feels like opening a mystery box every time. You type a command → It might: 💥 throw a cryptic error ✨ magically build something great 😵💫 or break everything you just fixed
Every prompt is an emotional rollercoaster.
3/ Today's progress felt solid though. I focused on two things: ✔️ Finishing the README (super important!) ✔️ Starting the UI layout
(I’m still using Codex inside Cursor’s chat mode — CLI people I respect you but I can’t 😂 Chat box gang rise up.)
4/ Before coding, I asked Codex to generate a full README. This document becomes the “memory” for the whole project — AI constantly checks it when building features. A clean README = fewer random errors.
Then I told Codex:
“Okay, follow Phase 1 in the doc. Let’s start.”
5/ I also sketched a very cursed wireframe on my iPad (don’t laugh) just so Codex has something to reference. No ideas? Let AI improvise, or browse Figma templates. I’m personally mimicking Tinder’s swipe UI because it just makes sense for photo cleanup.
6/ The first UI Codex generated looked… questionable. But that’s fine. You literally screenshot the issue → throw it back to AI → “Fix this.”
A few iterations later, the basic UI swipe logic were up and running.
Pretty fast actually.
7/ Then came the annoying part: Horizontal photos broke the layout. So I showed AI a Tinder screenshot and said: “Think. Why does theirs work? Fix mine.”
It worked 😂
After more back-and-forth, I finally got a clean UI:
– Left & right swipe
– Proper layout
– Decent polish
BUT…the loading photos was painfully slow.
8/ I switched to chat mode again and kept questioning Codex: “Why slow?” “What’s causing the delay?” “What should I optimize?”
Ask until you understand →
THEN switch back to agent mode →
“Okay, implement the fix.”
This loop is magical.
9/ Today’s summary: I basically finished the core functionality initial UI of the photo-cleaning app. The skeleton is ready — Now it’s time to slowly fill in all the meat.
Tomorrow will be fun.
If you're enjoying this dev diary, let me know — I’ll keep posting daily updates.
#iosappdev #iosappdevelopment #vibecoding #AI #technology