It was a football night. My friends were into it. I was not.
I appreciate a game once in a while — the atmosphere, a funny night out. But that particular evening I was at a pub, a match on every screen, and I found myself drifting. There was a girl sitting alone at the bar. She had the same look I probably had: went out with friends, ended up at the wrong event. I walked over, asked if she was looking for company since I wasn’t watching the game either. She seemed genuinely relieved. She invited me to sit, asked what I was drinking, and we started talking. It felt natural.
I’d just come back from a trip and she asked about it. I pulled out my phone to show her some pictures.
That’s when a Bumble notification appeared. Full banner, the app icon, the whole thing. Visible to both of us. I dismissed it without saying anything and kept swiping through the photos.
Nothing catastrophic happened. But it was avoidable. The kind of small friction that shouldn’t exist.
On my way home I started overthinking it, the way you do when you know a problem is solvable.
I wasn’t looking for DND — that silences everything and creates a different problem. I didn’t want to revoke Bumble’s notification permission permanently; I just didn’t want to be interrupted by it right now, in this context. I wanted something in between: let me decide which apps can reach me, depending on where I am and what I’m doing.
I went looking for what already existed. Everything I found had at least one fatal flaw — ads, privacy concerns, more permissions than the task required, or a UI complicated enough to defeat the purpose. The whole point is that you shouldn’t have to think about it.
In the next few days I started sketching the idea. A rough design. How profiles could work. What the minimal version looks like.
Before I commit to building this as a product rather than just a tool for myself, I want to validate the idea properly. My plan is to describe it to a few coworkers and see how they react — something like: “what if there was an app that could silence your work apps so when you leave at six you stop getting notifications?” If the response is flat, maybe it’s just a problem I have. If it lands, there’s something here.
Either way, I’d probably use it myself. That’s already a reason to build it.
I’m not sure yet where this goes. Maybe nowhere. Maybe that’s fine.
If you’ve ever had the same thought — that notification control should be simpler and more contextual — Permly is on the Play Store. Or if you want to talk about building something, get in touch.