My wife and I have been using a shopping list app I built for ourselves for a few years now.
Not because I'm a genius product designer. Not because I had some grand vision. Honestly — because every other app we tried did too much, and we just wanted a list.
The actual problem
You know the scenario. One of you is leaving work, the other is at home. Someone needs to stop by the store. The old workflow: a phone call, or a WhatsApp message, or a photo of a handwritten note on the fridge. Half the time you'd forget something anyway.
We tried a bunch of apps. They all had categories, tags, due dates, weekly reviews, collaboration features, premium tiers, onboarding flows. We didn't want any of that. We wanted to open the app, see the list, buy the thing, swipe it away. That's it.
So I built exactly that. No categories. No folders. No "are you sure you want to delete this?" Just a list.
What Tollere does
One screen. Your items. Swipe left to mark something done or ping your partner that something's urgent. A home screen widget so you can see the list without even opening the app.
That's genuinely the whole thing.
I know there are apps that do far more — complex grocery managers with aisle sorting, recipe imports, barcode scanning. Maybe those are better for some people. For us they were just noise. Tollere does one thing on purpose, and it will never do anything else. No due dates, no tags, no weekly review. Ever.
Why it took years to ship
My wife has been telling me to put this on the App Store for a while. I kept saying no.
Part of it was honest doubt — who needs another list app? The market is full of them. Why would anyone pick this over Reminders, or AnyList, or a dozen other options?
Part of it was just inertia. It worked for us, and that felt like enough.
Eventually she wore me down. And once I started thinking about it seriously, I realized the doubt was actually the point. Because it does less, it might be exactly right for people who, like us, just want the thing to get out of the way.
So I properly rebuilt it for the App Store — cleaned up the UI, added a home screen widget, added a Pro tier for shared lists and push notifications (the "hey, we're out of milk, can you grab some?" feature). And now it's in TestFlight.
It's in beta — try it if you want
The app is live on TestFlight right now. If you want to give it a go and tell me what you think, I'd genuinely appreciate it.
If you do install it, here's what's worth testing:
Install
- Get TestFlight from the App Store (if you don't have it)
- Open: https://testflight.apple.com/join/pnCbFmnc
- Tap "Start Testing" → Install
Test the Pro purchase
- Open Tollere → add a few items
- Tap the gear icon (top right) → Settings
- Tap the "Tollere Pro" card and complete the purchase — you won't be charged, TestFlight uses a sandbox environment
Test list sharing
- In Settings → "Share list" → "Generate link"
- Send the link to someone else with an iPhone
- They install via the same TestFlight link above and open your link
- You should be in sync — whatever one of you adds, the other sees
Test notifications
- Swipe left on any item → tap "Notify"
- Anyone sharing your list should get a push notification instantly
Any feedback — bugs, anything that feels off, anything that's confusing — drop it in the comments or reach out directly. That's exactly what this stage is for.
TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/pnCbFmnc
Landing page: https://tollere.app
I'm not looking for validation — if it's not for you, that's fine. But if the "one thing, no clutter" pitch resonates with how you actually shop, give it a try and let me know how it holds up in real use.
Built with Swift/SwiftUI. Landing page is Svelte + Vite. The app is free, with a one-time €6.99 Pro upgrade for shared lists and notifications.
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