FloatPen

The Story

FloatPen started as an experiment in 2009, learning about the new motion-sensor APIs at Apple’s World-Wide-Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.

Don’t asky why, but I was inspired by those novelty pens where the ‘attire’ comes off when you flip the pen upside down. What better way to react to the phone getting flipped upside down?

At the next developer social gathering, I shared an early version of the app with fellow developers over late-night drinks. The feedback was very encouraging (even though I should’ve known better than to trust a bunch of drunk geeks).

I went ahead and submitted a basic version to Apple’s AppStore.

It was quickly rejected. And I mean, quickly.

The original images were based on late-19th Century Daguerrotype photographs. These were quite tame (think PG-rated by modern standards). Nevertheless, I wasn’t too surprised by the AppStore rejection.

So I tweaked some of the images (mainly adding modesty stickers).

Rejected Again!

Oh, behave!

Inspired by Monty Python and the opening credits of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, I decided to try again, adding objects that conveniently… appeared and disappeared.

This time, to my amazement, it was APPROVED!

Back then, apps were mainly discovered through word of mouth. After a few weeks, Apple’s Developer analytics showed it being in the Top-10 iPhone installs in Laos and Vietnam (ຂອບໃຈ and Cảm ơn)!

The next year, Apple changed the UI rules, which required most apps to be redesigned. At that point, I was working on other projects, so I just pulled the app. The code was archived on my personal laptop and I moved on.

Time passed, laptops were replaced, and the code was lost and forgotten.

Fast Forward to 2026

Going through a filing cabinet, I rediscovered my nearly 20-year-old Macbook Pro 17”. It was dubbed the ‘aircraft carrier’ for its size and weight.

Naturally, it wouldn’t even boot. But after extracting the internal SATA drive and mounting it as a USB drive, I rediscovered the long-lost Objective-C code for the original FloatPen app. Not that it mattered. There was zero chance it would run. The latest XCode couldn’t even open the project files.

That’s when I decided it would be fun to reinvent it, by porting the idea to modern technologies. This time, adding a game, a way to customize and use your own images, a spinning wheel bar-game, and ways to share it with friends and family. All based on the original idea of using motion sensors.

While there, I made it cross-platform to run on both iOS and Android, available in 30 languages.

So here we are. Hope you enjoy this bit of forbidden, fun fruit, and share it far and wide!