Native apps
We write Swift and SwiftUI against Apple’s own frameworks. No web view dressed up as an app. Things launch fast, respect your system settings and behave the way the rest of the device does.
We build apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Formwork Studios is a small independent studio in Idaho. We work on a couple of things at a time and try to finish them properly.
How we work
Very little data
We collect about as little as a feature can get away with. No analytics SDKs, no advertising identifiers, nothing sold to anybody. If something can stay on your device, we leave it there.
Long-term support
Apple ships a new OS every autumn and unmaintained apps quietly stop working. We keep what we build small enough that we can carry on supporting it for years.
The name
Where “formwork” comes from.
Formwork is the temporary mould that wet concrete gets poured into. It’s stripped off and thrown away once the concrete sets, so you never see it in the finished building. Every edge and curve of that building was decided by it anyway.
Software works much the same way. The architecture, the data model, the calls you make in the first week. Nobody using the app ever sees those, and they’re what makes it pleasant or miserable to use.
In development
Our first app is Grout.
A touch-first music tracker for iPad. Phrases, chains and songs, played by synths, a sampler and drums in one instrument. It runs on its own or as an AUv3 instrument inside your host. It hasn’t shipped yet, and grout.fm is where it lives.