iPromise - AI focus buddy for deep work.

Hi I’m Todd, some of you might know me or my team from Cubox, our tool for managing digital knowledge and reading. Over the years of building efficiency tools, I ran into a deeply personal problem that no reading or note-taking app could fix: The ultimate freedom of working on a Mac was secretly destroying my focus. Without a boss or an office setting, the temptation to "just check one notification" was constant. Willpower alone was a losing battle. I noticed that I always focused best in bustling coffee shops or libraries, anywhere with a "presence." That led me to dive into the psychological concept of Body Doubling — the proven idea that having a "witness" to your work drastically reduces procrastination. I built iPromise to digitize that exact energy and bring it straight to your Mac screen. Why iPromise is different: The "Witness" Protocol: You commit to one single, hard task. Your AI Focus Buddy, living elegantly in your Mac notch, becomes your companion and keeps you accountable. Context-Aware, Not an Intrusive Monitor: It doesn't just run a timer. It understands the context of your active window and knows if you're actually building or getting lost in a thread. Privacy-First: Like with Cubox, I care deeply about data privacy. Your screen data never sends to us. iPromise is currently completely free. I haven't even figured out a pricing model yet because my main goal right now is to perfect the core experience and build it alongside this community. I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any feature requests. What’s the biggest distraction you fight on your Mac every day? Let's stop working alone, and start making promises. Stay focused!

<p>The trust killer for this kind of tool is the first false positive I guess? Buddy nudges me while I'm actually deep on something that just looks like drift (HN thread that's real research, Twitter that's competitor recon). How does the current heuristic handle 'looks like distraction, is the work'? By all means, good launch great work!</p>

<p>Great idea! as someone with ADHD I've been trying to build myself an interstitial journal, the body doubling via the notch is a great idea. Downloaded and excited to try this :)</p>

<p>Congrats on launching! As someone who's sat in virtual study rooms this is intriguing, also an awesome name :) I guess one thing I got from people-populated study rooms was the feeling of reciprocity (the other people there also doing their own work) rather than surveillance. Curious what it will feel like to not have that, will take this for a spin.</p>