A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch. Uses Vision framework for real-time posture detection. - tldev/posturr
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You can measure my productivity by how slouched I am.
Sitting up straight at my desk, chair locked, perfect posture? I’m doing nothing, maybe looking through System Preferences to change the system highlight color.
Sliding down in my chair like jelly, with my shoulders where my butt should be and my head resting on the lumbar support? I’m building the next iPhone and it’ll be done by 2 AM.
Funny, I’m the same. I also like taking walks to think but I’ve found that I must have my head pointing almost directly down (I.e. looking at my feet). It’s also how I stand thinking in the shower, with the warm water hitting my angled neck. Maybe something beneficial about that position of the neck, or maybe just habit!
I will also have conversations in my head during my walk, I’ve done this my whole life and I’m not sure to this day whether my lips move during these or not. In any case, I must get some funny looks with head bolted to the ground mumbling to myself…
Sing it!
As for the software. I would not want a camera on 24/7 (on any device, a compromise being my doorbell, which isn't cloud connected). It'd defeat the small LED which informs you it is on (since it is always-on), and if the machine is compromised this is a method to receive personal data.
Actually, I'd prefer a hardware killswitch on things like camera and microphone.
By butvacuum 2026-01-263:43 Post-It makes an excelent kill switch for the camera. not effective for audio though
By average_r_user 2026-01-269:252 reply Alas, I'm not alone in meditating and thinking while taking a shower. It's one of the moments of my day when I recollect what happened, what I need to do, and what not to do.
The problem is that I can get quite lost during this phase, and hot water isn't cheap, so my SO is always threatening to put a big timer in the bathroom.
By strogonoff 2026-01-2612:371 reply My pet hypothesis about why shower is often praised to be such a mindful place is that it has not so much to do with water and more to do with the fact that for many people life alternates between 1) constant social interaction and interruptions from other people and 2) bathroom time.
How many people these days have a dedicated home office, off limits to anyone else? How many partners sleep in different rooms?
Sure, perhaps the sensory experience plays some role, but if your bathroom is reliably the most interruption-free place for you, naturally you’d form a habit of catching up on all the “slow thinking”, most negatively impacted by interruptions, during shower.
I’ve seen people with interruption-free solo hobbies (be that hiking in the woods, motorcycling, rock climbing, etc.) describing similarly mindful experiences, but unlike those shower is the lowest common denominator and perhaps one that happens most routinely.
By average_r_user 2026-01-2716:27 True, I hadn't framed it that way either, but it makes sense. Sometimes just stepping away from the usual rhythm creates its own kind of reset
By neal_jones 2026-01-2612:47 I’ve gone home from work before to take a shower. At least one time I took multiple showers in a work day to think.
I now live somewhere that hot water is expensive and I didn’t realize how good things were before.
In my case, though walks help declutter my mind somewhat, for deeper thoughts, I have to write it down sitting or laying in the bed in the worst of positions. Thinking too deeply while walking only leaves me anxious in the end as I tend to get sidetracked a lot in conversation and always have to restart the conversation over and over again.
I used paper a lot to jot my ideas and all sorts of diagrams but lately I just pull Claude and chat it out, it works like a thinking environment.
By wowzaa 2026-01-2713:24 I tried doing the same. Sometimes it made my understanding of things much clearer. However most fimes, I found it worked best when I had a clear idea on paper, either to validate the idea or when I needed to an opinion. Otherwise, ChatGPT in my case, built upon my idea that I hadn't thought through well and confuse the shit out of me.
By drittich 2026-01-2620:26 Yes, shower thinking with warm water on my neck is absolute peak. In those conditions I'm unafraid of tackling the most challenging of thinking.
By soulofmischief 2026-01-2520:291 reply I've fully embraced looking insane in public. Try it some time; you won't go back.
By j45 2026-01-2522:30 haha, sounds good.
By lgeorget 2026-01-2616:03 I have my best ideas and illuminations for the day when I brush my teeth in the morning. Somehow, that's when I can think best.
By parentheses 2026-01-2523:33 I suppose in that position your head has lower elevation, allowing for better circulation.
By pc86 2026-01-2615:32 Talking to myself is the only way to crystallize certain thoughts.
By whompyjaw 2026-01-261:41 Uhhh… are you me? No other comment has hit more home. Nice. Mayne there’s something about these physical practices helping mental abilities.
By collingreen 2026-01-2517:08 This is how things get built for me as well. I have a standing desk and like using it occasionally but if you see me standing at it you can bet I'm doing something typical like emails or chat and not thinking deeply.
My productivity is generally measured in how much time I sit on the porcelain thinking throne first.
By jacobkranz 2026-01-2517:442 reply Truer words have never been spoken. That and planning out your day & thinking through problems in the shower.
If you delete social media, and leave your phone away from your person all day with notifications turned off, you can have these moments all the time it turns out.
Considering how much more productive these moments are for me than the bullshit I used to do on my phone and social media, it was an easy decision to make.
Oh, lol, now I get your question. Yea, it turns out the silence and lack of distractions are what produce "shower thoughts", more so than the act of showering itself.
Doing any relatively rote act like washing dishes, walking places, etc can also give rise to them. Not having a device in your hand to constantly steal your attention really helps though.
By pfannkuchen 2026-01-2519:272 reply Showers are generally considered to be relaxing separately from the “shower thoughts” phenomenon.
Couldn’t the relaxation be a factor in generating shower thoughts?
I suspect that essentially none of our non-ancestors were predated in a hot spring, unlike walking etc, so there may be an environmental cue driven induced relaxation that doesn’t exist for many other activities.
By codyb 2026-01-2519:35 Yea, you relax, and then your brain produces random thoughts about things.
I suspect it's just about getting the space to relax, which is why I frequently have thoughts when staring at the wall, or taking a walk, or washing dishes, or doing any other myriad activities which are relatively easy on brain processing.
By j45 2026-01-2520:30 Solitude is extremely powerful.
By lanstin 2026-01-2518:37 I find pacing to be helpful. As long as there’s not a lot of poles to walk into accidentally. So while outside walks can be more focused you do get the odd head bang.
By codyb 2026-01-2517:57 With a faucet my good friend!
By j45 2026-01-2520:30 Play it on a speaker.
By jjp 2026-01-2518:34 Walking the dog is my go to for thinking through problems. The dog really loves the hard problems as they get a longer walk.
I never understood this. Is this why the cubicles are always full in the office? WTF I go in there take a dump and leave while the people on each side are just silent the whole time. I can think of much better places to think.
By sieabahlpark 2026-01-2520:28 [dead]
By coldtrait 2026-01-3015:26 These days I'm just doomscrolling while doing that
By simsla 2026-01-2521:31 This was me, and now I have horrific back pain almost every week. Fix what's broken before it breaks you.
By chongli 2026-01-2517:37 My neck is screaming in empathetic pain for your future neck!
This is interesting, because in many ways I’m almost the exact opposite.
If I’m slouched in my chair, then I’m either completely disengaged or doing something mundane like dealing with email. If I’m upright or sat forward then I’m engaged and executing, but maybe not thinking deeply - I’m doing something I’ve already thought about and decided on. And if I’m on my feet and moving around, often doing some mundane chore like emptying the dishwasher, then I’m likely thinking.
It’s actually a really good illustration of why one size fits all solutions when it comes to work environment and conditions are often so unsatisfactory.
By dandellion 2026-01-2611:36 I'm like you at 9 a.m. and like grand parent by 9 p.m.
By paulmooreparks 2026-01-260:20 Exactly what I came here to say. I've been programming for 40 years, 35 professionally, and I didn't find my ergonomic, no-pain, no-RSI happy place until I stopped following advice to sit up straight. I set my chair with just enough resistance, set the head rest where it puts my eyeline directly on my monitors, which are set considerably higher than average and about a metre from my head. I can work for hours like this now, with no pain.
I could never use an app like this. Maybe I should write one that blurs the screen when I don't slouch.
By bahmboo 2026-01-2522:22 That’s funny, but this is about physical health not productivity. I’m guessing you are relatively young. Desk jobs are tough on the body!
It would be much more interesting that the system blur when it finds we drift from being "in the zone".
"I'm going to quickly shift from my terminal to this chrome tab to check this documentation but while it loads I'll get a dopamine hit from X."
Blur the screen and help me get back on track...
By quinnjh 2026-01-2522:26 it will be interesting to see as these tools emerge to what extent the undercontrolled behavior is a piece of a larger cycle of attention and context mgmt, or if all of that time can be nudged back into the zone
By sublinear 2026-01-2520:16 Let's not forget the people who work from bed with AR glasses and a projector pointed at the ceiling.
By keyle 2026-01-267:52 This is both funny and so true. I'm most productive when I'm about to fall out of the chair and I don't even care that my elbow is hanging off.
By brikym 2026-01-2523:49 I've found something similar. I can measure my stress by how many coffee mugs are on my desk.
By simjnd 2026-01-2614:06 It's not about productivity, it's about good posture
By TheRealPomax 2026-01-2517:431 reply Sounds like you're literally the target audience for this app.
By amelius 2026-01-2518:10 Not if there is a hard positive correlation between productivity and slouching, like they say.
By eichin 2026-01-2616:32 In a previous tech bubble I figured out that the Aeron chairs were great - if you were using good posture. Slouch at all and they'd hurt you. The humanscale chair was the one that was actually good for feet-on-desk, keyboard-in-lap, staring out the window while rotating data structures in my head...
By marginalia_nu 2026-01-2518:24 Gamer lean is when it gets really serious.
By crazysim 2026-01-268:09 It is OSS, I guess you could invert it.
By CTDOCodebases 2026-01-267:39 Get a lazy boy, fit a split keyboard to each arm and develop AGI then. I’m sick of these RAM prices.
By digitaltinfoil 2026-01-2517:01 this is the way
Congrats on the app.
I'm seeing that "great-ai-unlock" is happening. I see in last month a lot of new software being codeveloped with claude/codex/gemini/you-name it.
Before, it was too costly to do sth like the Posture app: here, you would have to know Swift and apple apis to write such tool. Would you be C# (very good) programmer with free weekend, and an idea: no cookie for ya.
These days, due to "great-ai-unlock" your skills can be easily transferred and used to cross platforms boundary and code such useful app in a weekend or so.
Jevons paradox is indeed working (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
Maybe this is a naive take, but I don't really think LLMs have done that much to change the actual situation around ability/outcomes. If you are actually a very good C# programmer, knowing Swift and searching some Apple documentation seems very reasonable.
It might help "unstick" you if you aren't super confident, but it doesn't seem to me like it's actually leveling up mediocre programmers to "very good" ones, in familiar or unfamiliar domains.
By shlant 2026-01-264:20 > I don't really think LLMs have done that much to change the actual situation around ability/outcomes
from my own experiences and many others I have seen on this site and elsewhere, I'm not sure how anyone could conclude this.
> it doesn't seem to me like it's actually leveling up mediocre programmers to "very good" ones
Oh well then if this is your metric then maybe your take is correct, but not relevant? From the top level comment I thought we were talking about the bar being lowered for building something thanks to AI and you don't need to become any better at being a programmer to do so.
By bobbylarrybobby 2026-01-265:00 I don't care how good of a programmer you are, if you don't know Apple stuff (Swift, Xcode, all the random iOS/Mac app BS) you aren't making an Apple app in a weekend. Learning things is easy but still takes time, and proficiency is only earned by trying and failing a number of times — unless you're an LLM, in which case you're already proficient in everything.
By suprfnk 2026-01-2612:03 No I can confirm this. I am at least an average C# dev, with 16 years of experience.
I have built a very nicely responsive real-time syncing iOS app in what amounts to a weekend of time. (I only have an hour here and there, young kids) I had zero iOS/Swift development experience prior to it.
I can also confirm that this wouldn't have been built if it weren't for Claude Code. It's "just" an improved groceries app, that works especially well for my wife and me.
Without LLM's, and with just an hour here and there, I wouldn't have done the work to learn the intricacies of iOS and Swift dev, set up the app, and actually tweak and polish it so it works well -- just to scratch the itch of a bit better groceries handling.
Thanks rdslw. I mentioned something similar on my blog post about this app here: https://tomjohnell.com/posturr-a-macos-app-that-blurs-your-s...
I love coming up with fun ideas and only having to worry about the fun part - not the toil. I would never have made this app without llm support.
My first prompt was:
"Help me develop a MacOS app that blurs my screen the closer my mouse is to the top of the monitor"
That was my PoC to see if there's APIs Claude could find that would make this easy to do. Once I proved that worked, I asked it to instead help me devise a way to adjust that blur based on my posture. It suggested the vision framework and measuring head height.
Just kept iterating, one step at a time. Any toil I experienced, I asked it to remove or automate.
This is going to sound very basic, but did you do it in a blank repo or did you use the cloned integration in Xcode, or a third thing I'm not thinking of?
By kall 2026-01-2614:52 I have had good success with using xcodegen and only a project.yml checked in. Claude can get tripped up on managing the xcode project xml.
However, before that, i set up a blank project in xcode, used the xcode github integration to create a new repo on github, set up one xcode cloud workflow and use it to push one build to testflight. That way, you get all the automatic config of app ids, profiles etc, and xcode cloud can not be enabled other way. Then tell claude to migrate to xcodegen and to run it in CI automatically.
I've started to develop iOS apps from scratch using only claude code web (no mac), by setting up a "Branch Build" workflow in xcode cloud, and a skill that teaches claude how to check builds and fetch logs.
Along with a workflow that pushes any merge on main to internal TestFlight, the dream of developing iPhone apps on the iPhone finally lives. I've tried most options for this over the years and they never stuck.
These are simple apps that build in 1-5 min on xcode cloud. For larger builds it probably won't work so well.
By mft_ 2026-01-2613:15 Not the OP, but I’ve had success starting with a blank app created by Xcode with the appropriate language/frameworks (ie something that will already run but does nothing). You then ask Claude to start from that point.
The only issue I’ve had is sometimes Xcode not ‘seeing’ new files that Claude has created along the way, and needing to add these manually into the Xcode project. (A Google around suggests this shouldn’t happen if you create the project in the right way, and yet it still sometimes does.)
By fleebee 2026-01-261:12 I don't see how the Jevons paradox would apply here. Code being cheaper and faster to produce obviously causes the demand for apps such as this one to grow. That's just supply and demand.
An example of where I think the paradox would apply might be one where LLMs made software engineers more efficient yet the demand for SWEs would grow.
By codersfocus 2026-01-260:571 reply What a stupid thing to call a paradox. When infrastructure is better, you'd expect it to be used more.
By avarun 2026-01-262:49 It's because they're misusing the term. Jevons' paradox doesn't apply to the simple idea that "cheaper code leads to more demand for code", that's just the concept of price curves.
Instead, Jevons' paradox refers to a counterintuitive rebound effect: AI tools make engineers more productive, which you'd expect to reduce the marginal demand for additional engineers (since the same output requires fewer people). In reality, this efficiency lowers the effective cost of software development, sparking even greater overall demand for new features and projects, which ultimately increases total spending on engineering talent.
By gowld 2026-01-2616:17 Jevons paradox is a failure mode, not something that "works".
By jasonjmcghee 2026-01-2516:375 reply I'm not sure how you can use a laptop with good posture. An external monitor at the right height seems like a necessity.
I'm also optimistic about monitors in the form of glasses- even less effort needed to set yourself up for perfect posture. But the sweet spot problem is still very much a thing from what I've seen- can't wait until it's normal for them to have eye tracking, foveated rendering and streaming, and be wireless.
By cosmic_cheese 2026-01-2517:371 reply Yeah, most of my computer use is with a properly adjusted desk setup with external monitors and while it doesn’t bother me to use a laptop to jot down some notes or for a short study session, if I try to do “real” work at all I quickly become uncomfortable. A cheap folding laptop stand (which elevates the laptop enough that the middle of its screen is eye level) and wireless KB+mouse dramatically improves comfort (and productivity) but the tradeoff is that you need a table or other sizable, stable flat surface.
The exception is if there happens to be a reclined-position chair (IKEA POÄNG or similar) around; this gives back support and reduces neck craning enough to make longer sessions more viable, but it’s far from a given that this kind of seating will be available.
By lanstin 2026-01-2518:38 If you have interesting enough work, nothing else matters. I have written big complex systems while car pooling on a laptop in the passenger seat.
The reason for this app is not productivity but for posture.
By MengerSponge 2026-01-2516:562 reply My dog could, but a person with adult proportions probably can't. For long-term use, a stand+KB is the only solution I know of
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/86285180/the-roost-savi...
It's too bad that nobody on the Surface team has managed to crack this! I'd be much more interested in one if they had.
By physicles 2026-01-2518:07 I use the Nexstand K2 (well, the Chinese knockoff I got for $5), and I bent some coat hangers to attach to the top of the stand and tilt the laptop forward. I’m a tall guy, and the top of the screen is even with my eyes. Bonus is that with an X1 Carbon, the Lenovo M14 or M14d fits perfectly over the top of the keyboard.
The whole setup fits into a drawstring gym bag.
Laptop work is clearly not OSHA-compliant. I’m in France so it’s probably regulated a little bit more, but having a screen at eye height and a keyboard slightly under elbow height is the first line on the security analysis document (le DUERP), at least for tertiary workers. And far above “Floor must be non-slippery” and “The right to disconnect after 6pm”.
By MengerSponge 2026-01-2522:34 Your last sentence is something in quotes that just shows up as "The right to ***** *** **". Doesn't look like anything to me.
When working at a desk I put my 16-inch MacBook Pro on a stand and use an external keyboard and trackpad.
I don't like adapting my monitor layout when moving between working environments.
Instead of an extra monitor, I have an iPad Pro on a stand.
By cyh555 2026-01-264:14 Usb type c port can be flickering sometimes when the macbook/laptop is elevated.
My Apple Vision Pro has all that, and it’s perfect for posture when using a MacBook.
By jasonjmcghee 2026-01-2516:581 reply Yeah- this and the upcoming steam frame seem like the best options today.
There's something very attractive for me personally about the sunglasses form factor.
Safer in public, draws less attention, more portable, less headset fatigue, etc.
But obviously trading quality and features.
Also AVP is like $3k, steam frame will probably be $800+, xreal are like half that
> But obviously trading quality and features.
For me it’s like settling for a CRT after trying a 4k TV in terms of visuals, but with the form factors reversed.
By jasonjmcghee 2026-01-2521:58 Except the form factors are swapped, but yes.
Isn’t the Vision Pro rather front loaded in terms of its weight distribution? Seems like you might just be trading one ergonomic problem for another.
By duckruu 2026-01-2517:59 It’s not really, with the new dual band which changes the weight distribution. If you lean back a lot it’s obviously going to rest on your face then, but that’s a good way to avoid bad posture too.
Still, it’s not for everyone. I use it with my AirPods Max comfortably, I have a sturdy neck. I don’t think my wife could pull it off.
By mannanj 2026-01-260:08 Do you wonder about the wifi impact so close to your head?
