I was living in Japan in 2008, when the iPhone was just arriving there. One app I remember from those early days was 美人時計 (Bijin Tokei), which launched in 2009. The idea was incredibly simple: attractive women holding small boards with the time handwritten on them, with a different photo every minute. That was the whole app. I remember it being really popular among university students in Japan. It randomly came back to me recently, so I looked it up. The official site now just has a notice saying the service ended in September 2022. It felt strange seeing something I remembered so clearly reduced to a goodbye page. So I tried building my own take on that minute-by-minute photo clock, using AI image tools to create the people and scenes. An image for every minute of the day. The video shows how it turned out. Making it got me thinking about the apps from around 2008–2012. There were so many odd, playful ideas back then, when we were still figuring out what a smartphone could be. Some were useful. Some did one tiny thing and made you smile. I'm now digging through that era for ideas worth revisiting. Today's tools make some things much easier to build, especially for a solo developer. Of course, that doesn't mean copying someone else's app, artwork, or branding. I'd rather understand what made an idea appealing and build something of my own from there. If you'd like to try my little experiment: https://urban-minutes.com What app from those early smartphone days do you still remember?   submitted by   /u/snuffdog_reddit [link]   [comments]