What we don’t do

Naming what isn’t there is part of saying what is.

Most app pages list features. This page lists the opposite — the moves Lanai doesn’t make, with a short reason each. Nothing on this list is a complaint about how anyone else builds their app. It’s just our share of the work.

  1. Streaks.

    Reading isn’t the kind of thing that gets better when you’re afraid of breaking a chain. The whole pitch is that you can take a week off and the app will be in the same mood when you get back.

  2. A “For You” feed.

    If you want algorithmic curation, the official Bluesky client offers one and it works well — that’s a feature, not a flaw of theirs. Lanai is the other choice: the one that shows you only what you chose to follow, in the order it happened.

  3. Notifications that nudge.

    No “you haven’t posted in 5 days.” No “your friends are talking.” No daily summary trying to bring you back. The only notifications you’ll get are about replies you actually got and mentions of you by name — and those are off by default until you turn them on.

  4. Engagement metrics, even ours.

    We don’t measure how long you spent in Reading Mode. We don’t count your app opens. We don’t know which posts you scrolled past. We didn’t do this so we could write a great line on a marketing site; we did it because we genuinely don’t want to be the kind of software that knows.

  5. “Best time to post” suggestions.

    Lanai isn’t trying to help you optimise reach. If you ever feel that pull, please go to the client that does it well. We’d rather you write the post when you have it.

  6. A celebration screen for milestones.

    No confetti when you hit a follower count. No “Look what you did!” modal at your hundredth post. The reward for using Lanai is reading well — not being told that you used Lanai.

  7. Onboarding carousels.

    After login you get a small welcome screen with Windy on it, and then the app. No five-screen feature tour, no slideshow about what we believe. The porch introduces itself by being the porch.

  8. Cloud AI on your content.

    Apple’s on-device APIs only. Not Private Cloud Compute. Not third-party. We made this an architectural rule — the on-device frameworks live in one package, and other parts of the app can’t even import them. If a feature can only run in the cloud, it doesn’t ship.

  9. Algorithmic moderation.

    Quiet content overlays (when they ship) add a tap-to-view friction for distressing imagery. They never silently filter. You stay the moderator of last resort.

  10. Watermarks on your image exports.

    When you share a post as a picture, the picture is just the picture. No “Posted via Lanai” at the bottom unless you turn that on yourself.

  11. A subscription to keep using software you already paid for.

    Lanai is a one-time purchase, when there’s anything to purchase. If a feature ever needs an ongoing server cost, it’ll be a separate opt-in — the core app stays one-time forever.

  12. “Skeets,” “toots,” and other client-coined nouns.

    We call them posts. We call mute “quiet,” because mute is harsh and quiet is what we do on a porch when someone’s resting. Aside from that, we mostly try not to invent words for things that already had perfectly good ones.