DEV Community

Cover image for We Solved Most Mac Problems in 4 Months - Here’s How
Serhiy
Serhiy

Posted on

We Solved Most Mac Problems in 4 Months - Here’s How

We Built an All-in-One Mac Tool in 3 Months (Because We Were Sick of Overpriced Apps)

We tried not to use AI to write this post - because the ideas are ours
(Okay, maybe some phrasing help 😋)

We built Brow in ~3 months

Two senior devs
No big team
Just Claude Max running at 100% almost 24/7 and a lot of trying something → seeing if it works → fixing it if it doesn’t → repeating


Why we built it

It started with a simple question:

What do we actually use on our Macs?

We looked at tools like Raycast (we’ve used it for years).

Great product - but in reality?

We were using maybe 5 - 10 plugins max

You install a lot of them…

But most of the time, you don’t even remember they exist

The other 99%?
Just noise


The problem

Mac apps that really solve the problems are expensive

And worse, they’re fragmented

Want to:

  • limit battery charging?
  • control fans?
  • clean storage?
  • fix your menu bar?
  • connect Android phone?
  • adjust display settings?
  • and many more...

Cool

Now download 10–20 different apps

…and pay for each of them separately

Yeah, no thanks


What we did instead

We built the tool we wanted to use

Something that is:

  • simple
  • fast
  • actually useful
  • with a minimalistic design

One app that solves most real Mac problems

Not everything
Just the stuff people actually use


Built with Claude (and what actually worked)

We used Claude heavily, basically non-stop

But here’s the part most people get wrong:

1. Don’t start the feature implementation from scratch

If something already exists - ask claude to deeply research that topic first

Plan → then build.

This saves insane amounts of time and tokens

2. The beginning matters more than you think

Architecture is everything

Even with AI

We rewrote the core 3 times to get it right and push performance to the limit

Painful, but worth it

Now adding features is:

  • faster
  • cleaner
  • way less buggy

3. Most “AI dev hype” is noise

Agents, MCPs, complex setups…

Honestly?

Didn’t matter much.

What worked:

  • good prompts
  • clear structure
  • tight feedback loops (give Claude the ability to check what he did)

Build → check → fix → repeat

That loop wins


Pricing (and why)

We made almost everything free

Only AI features are paid - because they cost money for us.

No tricks


Distribution

No ads
No big launch

Just:

  • SEO
  • people finding it
  • people using it

And we’re good with that


Why we’re sharing this

We’re building this for ourselves

And for people who are tired of:

  • overpriced Mac apps
  • bloated tools
  • solving one problem per app

If that’s you - try it

Break it
Tell us what sucks

We’ll fix it


Goal

One app that fixes most of the stuff Apple didn’t

See ya
And Brow it 😄

Top comments (0)