a clicker.

a clicker. is a hand-sized tally counter made as a real object: a slab of white plastic, a nine-digit seven-segment display and one big key. Each click adds one. That is the whole app. THE KEY The key travels into the body and leans toward your finger. It clicks on the way down, at the actuation point, and re-arms only once it has come back past the reset point, the way a mechanical keyboard switch does. The haptic is one short, sharp tap. A quick tap still counts. A second finger on a held key does nothing. THE OBJECT Everything on the screen is geometry, lit every frame: one key light from the top left, a soft ambient, a shadow thrown on the wall behind. A finger on the body rolls it like a trackball; flick it and it flips, and it always comes to rest on a face, front or back, upright or upside down. Press on the body and it gives, and floats back on a spring when you let go. Move the phone and it lags behind, then catches up, like something with weight. THE BACK Set into the back is a brushed-aluminium disk on an axle, weighted with a crescent of dark steel. It hangs level however the object or the phone is turned, so its engraving always reads upright, and because it is heavy it swings past and rings for a moment before it settles. THE DISPLAY An old-calculator LCD behind a sheet of glass, with the faint ghosts of the unlit segments and the digits' own shadow on the reflector. It counts to 999 999 999, then carries over like a mechanical counter and starts again. NOTHING ELSE No reset. No menus. No settings. No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no ads, and no server. The count is kept on your phone and in your own iCloud, so it follows your Apple ID: delete the app and put it back, or move to a new iPhone, and it is where you left it. Two iPhones on the same Apple ID show one count, and both add to it. Count people at the door, laps, reps, rows of knitting, birds, days, or nothing in particular. Or just click it. iPhone only, portrait, iOS 17 or later.