/AI21h ago

Builder Uses Voice AI To Rapidly Iterate iPhone Apps

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#1871Nick Dobos
Thomas Ricouard
Original post
Nick Dobos@NickADobos#1871inAI

Current dev loop: Talk to phone -> app appears

1. Connect codex to Mac and iPhone 2. Make an iPhone app and deploy it to my phone 3. Open codex on phone, open voice mode and ramble for 10 minutes while using my app.

Pro tip voice mode stays on even if the codex ios app is in the background

4. Once you are ready, end with: “make a prioritized list of updates and then do them, then rebuild to my phone”

So all I do is test and ramble about what’s wrong and needs fixing. I basically just dictate for 10 mins while using my app and then spend 1 minute in codex sending stuff and reading. Then flip back and continue playing with my app

Repeat

——

For non-team projects I never read code anymore. Only prompts and chat are worth reading. Everything else is simply using the software, fully experiencing it and feeling it, and shaping the ideal into pixels and data.

My ideas manifested in machines within seconds

Lightning in a rock in your pocket.

Pure magic

9:19 PM · Jun 5, 2026 · 13.9K Views
Sentiment

Users praise voice dictation with Codex for quickly building iPhone apps since the background loop acts like a cheat code that keeps ideas flowing, though others see it as undisciplined or prefer alternatives.

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37.5%
12 comments with sentiment.
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Nick Dobos@NickADobos

Codex on iOS pro tip:

Dictation mode stays on and continues recording if you background the codex iOS app

1. Open codex app 2. Start dictation 3. Change to my iOS app that I am working on, and play around it for 10 minutes while talking 4. Flip back to codex and send the message

My “IDE” doesn’t exist 99% of the time anymore

I just play around with my app, and talk,

codex listens in the background, i only open codex for 5 seconds to press the send button every few minutes

Then I start a new dictation and switch back to my app again

And codex makes updates and pushes new builds to my phone as I go, there’s about a 1 second gap as the app closes and reloads each time.

So the dev process is 99% me using my app, manifesting ideas, testing how they feel, and watching it change right in front of me. 1% is spent in the IDE.

I don’t look at codex, the LLm output or the code. I’m simply experiencing the app and shoving my thoughts and feelings into the machine over and over again

Nick Dobos@NickADobos

Current dev loop: Talk to phone -> app appears

1. Connect codex to Mac and iPhone 2. Make an iPhone app and deploy it to my phone 3. Open codex on phone, open voice mode and ramble for 10 minutes while using my app.

Pro tip voice mode stays on even if the codex ios app is in the background

4. Once you are ready, end with: “make a prioritized list of updates and then do them, then rebuild to my phone”

So all I do is test and ramble about what’s wrong and needs fixing. I basically just dictate for 10 mins while using my app and then spend 1 minute in codex sending stuff and reading. Then flip back and continue playing with my app

Repeat

——

For non-team projects I never read code anymore. Only prompts and chat are worth reading. Everything else is simply using the software, fully experiencing it and feeling it, and shaping the ideal into pixels and data.

My ideas manifested in machines within seconds

Lightning in a rock in your pocket.

Pure magic

7hViews 22KLikes 121Bookmarks 118
REPLIES8
Thomas Ricouard@Dimillian

Wow this is a good one. Keep recording and talking to Codex while the app is in background and you're using your own app!

Nick Dobos@NickADobos

Codex on iOS pro tip:

Dictation mode stays on and continues recording if you background the codex iOS app

1. Open codex app 2. Start dictation 3. Change to my iOS app that I am working on, and play around it for 10 minutes while talking 4. Flip back to codex and send the message

My “IDE” doesn’t exist 99% of the time anymore

I just play around with my app, and talk,

codex listens in the background, i only open codex for 5 seconds to press the send button every few minutes

Then I start a new dictation and switch back to my app again

And codex makes updates and pushes new builds to my phone as I go, there’s about a 1 second gap as the app closes and reloads each time.

So the dev process is 99% me using my app, manifesting ideas, testing how they feel, and watching it change right in front of me. 1% is spent in the IDE.

I don’t look at codex, the LLm output or the code. I’m simply experiencing the app and shoving my thoughts and feelings into the machine over and over again

6hViews 12.7KLikes 106Bookmarks 38
Nick Dobos@NickADobos

@MaxZiebell This is on my home network, so just straight from a paired Mac

unfortunately if on the go I would need to use TestFlight (which is much slower) or maybe a staging deploy if doing a website or something

20hViews 167Likes 2Bookmarks 2
Nick Dobos@NickADobos

@heyyyjoo a notes app

kinda like apple notes + obsidian + cursor

10hViews 49Likes 2Bookmarks 1
TK 🛡️@tkanthh

@NickADobos @heyyyjoo This looks very interesting. Is it available on test flight?

10hViews 18Likes 1Bookmarks 1
Bikz@bikbrar

@NickADobos +It’s so quick dropping screenshots in too

17hViews 88Likes 1
Max Ziebell@MaxZiebell

@NickADobos How do you deploy from your computer to your phone while on the go? Do you need to be on the same network, or is it a stationary setup with local tethering for new deployments?

21hViews 220
Đoc@ponzibaron

@NickADobos Can we call this goblin mode? Seems fitting.

6hViews 60Likes 1
Ryan Wigley@rywigs

@NickADobos Are you using the app to build here, or is the app what you’re actually building?

I’m intrigued in hacky mobile setups of the future

19hViews 134
Nick Dobos@NickADobos

@bikbrar Exactly. It’s all voice and screenshots

10hViews 37Likes 1
Joo Tat@heyyyjoo

@NickADobos What are you building?

19hViews 85
JStar@_Sagiquarius_

Wait. You’re using the actual codex function in the ChatGPT app, right? Not an app you made yourself? It almost sounds like you’re rambling while using your app and giving codex feedback about the with voice as you’re using it.

I didn’t know ChatGPT app held open voice dictation while using other apps. I assumed it would suck because of iOS horse shit.

10hViews 61
Nick Dobos@NickADobos

@tkanthh @heyyyjoo Soon! Stay tuned.

9hViews 15Likes 1
Tak 🦞@cherry_mx_reds

@NickADobos I didn’t think to do this with voice mode

20hViews 265Likes 2
Joe Devon@joedevon

Idea for you. Add another feature to make the screenshot faster on iPhone.

I learned this trick at a #GAAD event. Set up the assistive touch button so that you double click it and get a screenshot.

Here's a YT video about the feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eczd9iUrlZw

I did customize double tap. This comes in SOO handy.

8hViews 13
0xPuff@0xPuff

"my toy app ran" is light years away from "the system is correct"...you can shape look and feel with voice, but 0% chance there's any real discipline.

if this angers you, share a transcript where you ramble for 10 minutes about seams, types, state machines, migrations, tests, public APIs, lifecycle boundaries, and invariant ownership

18hViews 104Likes 1
Alpár Kertész@Criticality47

@NickADobos Send button is the tiny IDE now. Background dictation lets the real loop happen in the app while you use it, mumble notes, and flip back for five seconds.

6hViews 73Likes 1
Đoc@ponzibaron

@Dimillian I think it’s called going Goblin Mode idk though you’d have to ask Nick

6hViews 22Likes 2
Nick Dobos@NickADobos

@_Sagiquarius_ Yes, using codex/chatgpt’s voice mode + using my app, while talking

Codex voice mode works in the background, so you can leave it on while changing to your app.

9hViews 49Likes 1
Rohan@proxy_vector

@NickADobos Voice is underrated for product iteration because it keeps the idea flow ahead of your inner editor. The interesting shift is that the bottleneck stops being typing speed and becomes whether your app loop is instrumented enough to keep up.

20hViews 48Likes 1
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