Jarrel Pothoff · native Apple apps

Jarrel Pothoff — I design, build and ship native Apple apps

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I'm Jarrel Pothoff, a Dutch developer. I design and build native apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and I ship them myself, from the first sketch to the App Store. I work from Delft, in the Netherlands.

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Two of them are mine end to end: Transcribier, a dictation app for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and Best-I, a Dutch-language energy and journaling app for iPhone. Neither has been released yet, which I will keep saying on this page until it stops being true. Alongside my own apps I take on freelance work.

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The short version

Facts first, no CV framing.

  • Name: Jarrel Pothoff. Dutch.
  • What I make: native apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
  • My own apps: Transcribier for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and Best-I for iPhone.
  • My role in them: I do the design, the code and the release. There is nobody else on either project.
  • Apple tools I work in: Swift, SwiftUI, SwiftData, CloudKit, StoreKit, WidgetKit and Live Activities, watchOS and macOS.
  • What sits behind the apps: .NET, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions, plus Vite, three.js and Astro on the web.
  • Also doing: freelance work.

This is not a CV site. It is a record of what I build and how far along it is.

Who made Transcribier?

I did. I designed it, wrote it, and I am the one who presses publish.

Transcribier is dictation for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Its tagline is your fastest keyboard doesn't have keys. You talk, it types, in any app with a text field. On the Mac it lives behind a global shortcut. On iPhone and iPad it is a system keyboard, so it turns up wherever a keyboard turns up. Transcription runs on ElevenLabs Scribe and covers 16 languages, live while you speak or after the recording has finished.

Dictation is free and unlimited, with no account and no credit card. Pro is EUR 4.99 per month or EUR 39.99 per year, and adds file transcription, PDF read-aloud and voice isolation. There are 15 voice commands in Dutch and English, a personal dictionary, text snippets, and optional rewriting or summarising with Claude using your own key.

It is not in the App Store yet. There is a waitlist at transcribier.com.

What is Best-I?

Best-I is my other app and a completely different animal. It is a Dutch-language iPhone app about energy — where yours goes, and what is quietly draining it. The tagline is weet waar je energie blijft.

It tracks four batteries: physical foundation, emotional connection, mental direction and meaning. Each week it points you at whichever one is running lowest and gives you something concrete to do about it, rather than a score to feel bad about. Underneath sits an encrypted journal that takes text, photos, video, voice memos, drawings and PDFs. You can read your history back as a timeline, a calendar, a map or a photo grid. It pulls context from photos, calendar, sleep, movement, location and weather, exports a life phase or your entire history as a PDF, and lets you share collections with family through encryption keys.

Best-I is coming to the App Store. It is not there yet.

Why I write native code instead of wrapping a web app

I want apps that feel like they belong on the platform: fast, quiet, and built with the system rather than against it. No Electron, no compromise. That reads like a slogan until you look at what these two apps actually need from the machine.

A dictation tool has to show up inside other people's apps. On iPhone that means a real system keyboard extension. On the Mac it means a global shortcut that fires before you have finished the thought. Storing an API key properly means the Apple Keychain, not a file in Application Support. Putting a Face ID or Touch ID lock in front of an app, the way Transcribier does on iPhone, means the platform's own biometrics. Syncing without me hosting anything means CloudKit, so your data lands in your own iCloud and never passes through a server of mine. Widgets, Live Activities and watchOS are doors that only open from the inside.

A wrapper can reach some of that, badly, and charges you for a browser engine in memory and launch time every time you hit the shortcut. I would rather write the platform code.

What "I ship it myself" actually means

Design and code happen in the same head, so there is no handoff and no document explaining the intent to somebody else. That is the good part. The rest of it also lands on me: the purchase flow in StoreKit, the pricing, the privacy text, the website, the waitlist, and the machines behind all of it. That side runs on .NET and PostgreSQL, in Docker on Kubernetes, with GitHub Actions deploying on a push to main.

The honest part is that working alone is slow. Transcribier and Best-I are both built, and neither has been released. I would rather write that down here than let a landing page imply otherwise. They will go out when they are ready, not because a launch date needed feeding.

Why both apps hand you the keys

The two apps have almost nothing in common except this.

Transcribier runs on your own ElevenLabs key. Your audio goes from your machine straight to your own account and never through anything I operate. There is no telemetry, no analytics and no crash reporting. Keys sit in the Apple Keychain. On iPhone you can put a Face ID or Touch ID lock in front of the app, and privacy mode deletes recordings once they have been transcribed.

Best-I encrypts what you write with AES-256-GCM. The keys are generated on your device and stay in its keychain. Search runs entirely on the phone. Sync goes through your iCloud account rather than mine, and the app contains no third-party analytics, advertising or crash SDKs.

One caveat I would rather state than bury: in iCloud, metadata such as note counts, timestamps and scan dates is visible without encryption. The contents are not.

This website is one of the exhibits

The site you are reading is one I wrote by hand. The home page is a WebGL experience built with three.js and bundled with Vite — a real-time 3D scene, not a template with the hero image swapped out.

I built it that way for the same reason I write Swift instead of shipping a browser: I want to know exactly what the thing is doing on the machine it runs on. It is also the most honest portfolio piece I have, because you are standing inside it while you read this.

Where to find me

Freelance work runs alongside my own apps. If you need someone who can take an idea all the way to a shipped product, get in touch. The freelance pages here are written in Dutch — start at freelance iOS developer.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Jarrel Pothoff?

Jarrel Pothoff is a Dutch developer who designs and builds native apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. He works alone: design, code and release are all his. His own apps are Transcribier, a dictation app for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and Best-I, a Dutch-language energy and journaling app for iPhone. He also takes on freelance work.

Who made Transcribier?

Jarrel Pothoff made Transcribier. He designed it, wrote the code and handles the release himself. It is dictation for Mac, iPhone and iPad, built on ElevenLabs Scribe, with 16 languages and a free tier that does not require an account. It has not been released in the App Store yet.

Is Transcribier in the App Store?

Not yet. Transcribier is built but has not been released. There is a waitlist at transcribier.com. Best-I has not been released either; it is announced as coming soon to the App Store.

What does Jarrel Pothoff use to build his apps?

On Apple platforms: Swift, SwiftUI, SwiftData, CloudKit, StoreKit, WidgetKit and Live Activities, plus watchOS and macOS. Behind the apps: .NET, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions for deployment. On the web: Vite, three.js and Astro. No Electron, and no cross-platform wrapper on the desktop.

Is Jarrel Pothoff available for freelance work?

Yes. He takes on freelance work alongside his own apps, mainly where someone needs an idea carried all the way to a shipped product rather than a prototype. The freelance pages on this site are written in Dutch. Email is the fastest route: jarrel.pothoff@gmail.com.

Is Best-I in English or Dutch?

Best-I is a Dutch-language product. The app measures your energy across four areas and keeps an encrypted journal, and everything in it is written in Dutch. Transcribier, by contrast, transcribes 16 languages and has voice commands in both Dutch and English.

Where is Jarrel Pothoff based?

Delft, in the province of Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. Most of the work happens remotely.

Got something that needs building?

I take on freelance work alongside my own apps. If you need someone who can take an idea all the way to a shipped product — design, code, release and the servers behind it — email me at jarrel.pothoff@gmail.com. If you would rather read first, the freelance pages on this site go into detail, in Dutch.

Get in touch