Independent build · macOS

AI Wallet, a native notch app for the Mac

The MacBook notch turned into a live surface for music, activities and AI usage, built in Swift and used every day.

Role: Design and build (with coding agents)
When: 2026
Status: My daily driver

Engraved collage: a small wallet with receipts and coins rising out of a laptop's camera notch, beside a bar chart.

The problem

The notch is dead space at the top of every new MacBook. I wanted one place for what is happening right now, without another menu-bar icon.

Version one was a wallet for AI usage, with rings for each assistant's quota. That is where the name comes from, and it grew into a full notch shell.

What I built

A native SwiftUI and AppKit app with Dynamic-Island-style motion: an oversized window plus a spring-animated shape, so the notch can grow and settle like it is part of the hardware.

Pages for Now Playing, activities and the clipboard. An optional volume and brightness display replaces the system one, and iPhone Live Activities appear through the accessibility layer. Builds are signed with a stable identity so macOS privacy permissions survive every update.

Where it stands

It replaced the app I used to run in my notch, and has been my daily driver since August 2026. I plan to release it publicly, so fixes target classes of device rather than my own setup.

Swift 6
SwiftUI
AppKit
XcodeGen
XCUITest