AP3

Connor Lee / Personal operating system

Learning
OS

A living roadmap for becoming one of the best AI-native design engineers in consumer software.

A notebook is allowed to stay unfinished.

Current focus

July → October 2026
01Swift + SwiftUILearn the native grammar well enough to make the device feel like part of the idea.02AI-native interactionDesign for systems that can listen, reason, make, and change without turning the product into a chat box.03MotionStudy timing, interruption, and the small gestures that give a product a sense of continuity.04Product tasteGet sharper at choosing what deserves to exist, what to leave out, and why a product earns return.05Backend fundamentalsFollow the promise all the way through the system so design and implementation can stay in one conversation.

Roadmap

A longer
line of sight.

Three horizons, one practice. The work is deliberately ordered: foundation, synthesis, ownership.

Topics

The shelf.

Open all topics
01Product statesTypeScript FundamentalsModel the product clearly enough that invalid states become difficult to express.02RuntimeReact FundamentalsUnderstand rendering, ownership, subscriptions, and lifecycle deeply enough to design the runtime—not just the component.03EvidenceProduct Data & AnalyticsDesign events and measures that make product behavior visible without turning people into a dashboard.04DependabilityBackend FundamentalsFollow the product promise through APIs, persistence, access, failure, and recovery.05ProductionProduct OperationsTreat rollout, observability, support, and repair as part of the designed experience.06Native languageSwift FundamentalsExtend a strong web and systems foundation into the language of Apple platforms.07Native interfaceSwiftUICompose native state, navigation, motion, accessibility, and device behavior as one product system.08DeviceNative Audio & Device CapabilitiesUse sound, haptics, sensors, and system surfaces as product materials—not feature checkboxes.09New behaviorAI-Native InteractionDesign systems that can stream, use tools, recover, and express uncertainty without collapsing into a chat box.10TimeMotion & Interaction CraftStudy timing, gesture, haptics, audio feedback, and interruption as the felt quality of a product.11JudgmentProduct ThinkingChoose the right problem, the right bet, and the right amount of product.12StructureSystems DesignDesign the agreements that let a product stay coherent as it grows.13ContextConsumer SoftwareStudy why some products become a meaningful part of a person's day.14PresenceVoice InterfacesDesign software that speaks, listens, interrupts, and shares the room.15Physical contextHardwareUnderstand how sensors, constraints, and physical form change the product idea.16SynthesisDesign EngineeringCarry the idea through interaction, implementation, data, release, and repair.17ReflectionWritingUse language to sharpen decisions, preserve evidence, and let the work teach its future self.

Weekly log

What changed this week?

A reverse chronological record of questions, mistakes, and things worth keeping.

Reading list

Books with the spines open.

A small bookshelf for the ideas changing the way I make things.

Principles

The permanent page.

A set of working beliefs that should be tested by the work.

This is not a course, a content calendar, or a promise to optimize every hour. It is a place to keep the thread.