Rebrand stories, shipping notes, and essays about building privacy-first Apple apps as a one-person studio. 2026-04-18T19:24:57+00:00 https://lagerland-apps.github.io/ Lagerland Apps lagerland.apps@proton.me https://lagerland-apps.github.io/lagerland-apps/ © 2026 Lagerland Apps https://lagerland-apps.github.io/assets/icons/lagerland-mark.png https://lagerland-apps.github.io/assets/icons/lagerland-mark.png https://lagerland-apps.github.io/journal/soon-rebrand/ 2026-04-13T00:00:00+00:00 2026-04-13T00:00:00+00:00 Lagerland Apps https://lagerland-apps.github.io/lagerland-apps/

After a year of quietly growing, TheWait has been fully rebuilt and relaunched as Soon. Here's why the old name had to go, what changed under the hood, and what stays the same for existing users.

<p>TheWait started as a simple countdown app. You pinned an event, you watched the days tick down, and that was the whole deal. Over a year, it grew: widgets, themes, calendar sync, photo backgrounds. But the name — <em>TheWait</em> — kept holding it back.</p> <p>In April 2026, I fully rebuilt and rebranded the app as <strong><a href="/apps/soon/">Soon.</a></strong>. New name, new icon, new home. Here’s why.</p> <h2 id="the-name-problem">The name problem</h2> <p><em>TheWait</em> tells you what the app is about in a literal sense. You’re waiting. The app counts down.</p> <p>But that framing gets the emotional point exactly wrong.</p> <p>Countdown apps aren’t really about waiting. They’re about <strong>anticipating</strong>. There’s a difference. Waiting is passive — it’s a word associated with delay, patience, endurance. Anticipating is active — it’s a feeling you cultivate, a joy you borrow from the future. When you’re counting down to a trip, a wedding, a birth, or a milestone, you’re not stuck in the wait. You’re already partly there.</p> <p><em>Soon.</em> captures that better. The period at the end is deliberate — it’s a full sentence, a quiet statement. The thing you’re looking forward to isn’t far. It’s Soon.</p> <h2 id="what-changed-under-the-hood">What changed under the hood</h2> <p>This wasn’t a simple name swap. The entire app was rebuilt from scratch. New additions include:</p> <ul> <li> <p><strong>Plan Mode.</strong> Every countdown now ships with a smart timeline and checklist tailored to the event type. Trips get packing lists and transport reminders. Weddings get their own rhythm. You don’t have to build your own checklist — the app knows what a birthday, wedding, or graduation typically needs, and it assembles the prep automatically.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>StandBy widgets.</strong> Every iOS widget size and style — Home Screen, Lock Screen, StandBy, ring, minimal, timeline. Your most anticipated moment can now be visible on every screen you already use.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Natural language search.</strong> Type <em>“trips in July”</em>, <em>“birthdays this month”</em>, or <em>“anniversaries in 2027”</em> and Soon. understands what you mean.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Memories that return.</strong> When a countdown ends, it doesn’t disappear. It becomes a memory, and Soon. quietly brings it back on every anniversary. The moment never fades — it just cycles.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>iOS Calendar sync.</strong> Any iOS Calendar event can become a countdown with a single tap. The dates you already track become the moments you can feel.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>39 languages.</strong> Full localization including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, and every major European language.</p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="what-stayed-the-same">What stayed the same</h2> <p>The philosophy didn’t change. Soon. is still:</p> <ul> <li> <p><strong>Private by default.</strong> No ads, no tracking, no account. Your events stay on your device. Weather requests use approximate location or a place name only — never precise location.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>A one-time purchase option.</strong> Premium is €39.99 lifetime (or €2.99/month, or €19.99/year if you prefer) with a 7-day free trial. No auto-charging without consent.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Built by one person.</strong> Same developer, same catalogue, same principles. Soon. is part of the broader <a href="/lagerland-apps/">Lagerland Apps</a> family of privacy-first tools.</p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="what-existing-thewait-users-need-to-know">What existing TheWait users need to know</h2> <p>If you used TheWait, <strong>everything carries over.</strong> Your events, your themes, your data — it all migrates automatically. You’ll see the new name, the new icon, the new Plan Mode, and you’ll have access to every new feature without paying for a second app. The upgrade is free.</p> <h2 id="why-indie-studios-should-rename-when-it-matters">Why indie studios should rename when it matters</h2> <p>I’ll be honest: renaming an app is terrifying. App Store rankings reset. Existing users get confused. Some coverage dies on the old name. For a year I resisted doing it.</p> <p>But a wrong name is a daily tax. Every person who sees your app sees the wrong framing. Every conversation starts with explaining. Every review mentions the oddness. Eventually, you realise the cost of keeping it outweighs the cost of changing it — and the cost of changing it is mostly just courage.</p> <p>For apps in this category — countdown, anticipation, moments worth waiting for — <em>Soon.</em> is a better name than <em>TheWait</em>. It was worth the pain.</p> <p>If you’re building something and the name is quietly wrong, this is permission to change it.</p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/id6757280643">Soon. is available on the App Store.</a> Free with 5 events forever, or Premium for unlimited events, weather intelligence, daily notes, recurring events, and event notifications.</p> https://lagerland-apps.github.io/journal/welcome/ 2026-04-10T00:00:00+00:00 2026-04-10T00:00:00+00:00 Lagerland Apps https://lagerland-apps.github.io/lagerland-apps/

A short note about why Lagerland Apps now has a journal — and what you can expect to find here.

<p>Lagerland Apps is a one-person studio shipping 14 iOS and macOS apps. Until now, the website has been app-page-first — you land on an app, you learn about it, you install it. That’s still the goal. But some stories are too broad for a single app page.</p> <p>This journal is for those stories.</p> <h2 id="what-it-is">What it is</h2> <ul> <li> <p><strong>Rebrand stories.</strong> When an app gets a new identity, a new direction, or a new home, the details matter. Soon. was formerly TheWait. AppMeta started as a side-tool and became a full-time project. I’d like to document these transitions for the people who use the apps and the people who are curious about how indie iOS studios actually work.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Shipping notes.</strong> Short changelog entries that are more than a App Store “What’s New” line. Design decisions, why a feature exists, why another one was cut. Not marketing — the actual reasoning.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Principles.</strong> Occasional essays on privacy-first design, honest monetization, and what it looks like to build apps without advertising incentives. When I have something worth saying rather than a point to prove.</p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="what-it-isnt">What it isn’t</h2> <ul> <li> <p><strong>A marketing blog.</strong> I’m not chasing SEO keywords or publishing on a schedule for algorithmic reasons. Posts arrive when there’s something real to document.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>A dev blog full of Swift tips.</strong> The apps are built with SwiftUI, HealthKit, StoreKit, and Apple’s frameworks, but if you want Swift tutorials, there are better sources.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>An AI-generated content farm.</strong> Every post here is written by <a href="/lagerland-apps/">one independent developer</a> — because the whole point of this studio is that one person makes all the decisions.</p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="how-to-read-along">How to read along</h2> <p>The <a href="/journal/">journal index</a> lists every post in reverse chronological order. Nothing social, no comments, no newsletter sign-up wall. If you want to get in touch, <a href="mailto:lagerland.apps@proton.me">email me</a>. If you want to support the work, <a href="/apps/">download an app you’d actually use</a>.</p> <p>That’s the whole thing. Welcome.</p>