Pocket Kiln — software studio
Apps that keep to themselves.
We make small, finished software for phones. No accounts, no servers, no telemetry — not as a policy we could quietly change, but as a property of the build. What you put in stays on your device.
The house rule
Both apps hold things you would rather keep to yourself: your finances in one, a long-running save in the other. Neither app can send anything anywhere, and the rest of this section is what that actually means.
No networking
The release manifest strips the Android INTERNET permission
with tools:node="remove", so the merger deletes it even if a
dependency tries to add it back. The resulting app is one the operating
system will not permit to open a socket.
No account
Nothing to sign up for, nothing to sign in to, no password to lose. There is no server on our side for an account to live on.
No telemetry
No analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, and no crash reporter that sends anything automatically. If something goes wrong, we only find out when someone tells us.
No cloud backup
Cloud backup and device transfer are switched off at the manifest, so your data is not copied into a Google account in the background. Saves stay on the device that made them.
No subscriptions
No adverts, no energy timers, no waiting, no consumable currency. Where an app charges, it charges once.
North Star
Private money planning. Your figures never leave your phone.
In developmentMost finance apps begin by asking for your bank login. North Star does not, because it cannot. It is a planner you fill in yourself: transactions, budgets, savings goals, debts, pensions and investments, all in one place, with a single calendar of what is coming up and a net worth line built only from entries you actually made. The trade-off is that you enter it all yourself, which is more work than linking a bank account.
What it does
- SpendingTransactions, categories, recurring payments and subscriptions
- PlansBudgets, savings goals, debts, savings accounts, pensions and investments
- CalendarOne view of every payment and date ahead
- Net worthCharted over time, from real entries only
- ModellingUK tax estimates, CETV and pension figures, debt payoff scenarios and long-term projections
How it protects you
- EncryptionThe plan is held with AES-256 encryption at rest
- App lockAn optional PIN with a salted hash, plus the platform biometric prompt
- App switcherYour figures are hidden from the switcher preview, so your balance is not on screen when you change apps
- Silent remindersReal system notifications that carry a count, never an amount or a merchant name, because lock screens are public
- Backups and exportEncrypted backups you hold, and a one-press export or delete of everything
North Star does not give financial advice. Every projection, tax figure and forecast is an illustration built from what you entered, not a recommendation, and the app says so wherever the figures appear. It does not connect to your bank and it carries no live market prices. For decisions about pensions, investments, debt or tax, speak to a qualified professional. Pocket Kiln Limited is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Sky Tycoon
An airline, one month at a time, from 1955 to 2040.
In developmentA turn-based airline management simulation over real world geography and a fictional aircraft catalogue. You buy the airframes, draw the network, set the fares and the schedules, and then find out what the world thinks of your choices. The economy will punish you for misreading it.
One turn is one month
- Fuel, interest rates and the used-aircraft index move
- World events fire, aircraft are delivered, and airframes age, break and go into check
- Staff morale and skill resolve, and research advances
- Every market in the world is contested
- Costs are struck against the traffic actually carried, and the books close
- Rivals act, and your objectives are checked
The model underneath
- Gravity demandBuilt over real airport coordinates: market size, wealth, distance, era, season and the business cycle
- A moving short-haul thresholdThe competition for a 350 km journey was an overnight train in 1955 and a motorway by 2000
- Four cabinsEach with its own elasticity. No premium economy before 1992, and a first class that shrinks across the decades
- Frequency beats fareDoubling frequency wins more than halving the price, which makes gauge against frequency the sharpest decision in the game
- Constant dollarsA 1958 fare and a 2020 fare compare directly, with no inflation model in between
The fleet
Each aircraft is built twice. A measured master is the yardstick and never ships; what ships is a deviated version carrying its maker’s own family resemblance, which is why every manufacturer in the game is invented. These four are finished and in the shipping folder — panel lines, modelled doors and windows, cockpit glazing, gear with bogies and struts, and nacelles with real fan and exhaust detail. The rest of the catalogue is being built the same way.
Sky Tycoon will be free to play up to a point, with a limited set of routes and aircraft. Past that the game stops progressing and one purchase unlocks the rest of it — one unlock, not a subscription, with no adverts and no in-game currency. Aircraft dimensions are physical fact and are used as such; the manufacturers and designations are invented.
The studio
Pocket Kiln is a small independent software studio in the United Kingdom, currently working on two apps.
Building offline-first suits how we want to work. There is no infrastructure to run, no outages to handle, and no store of customer data to protect. The cost is that anything needing a server is off the table — bank connections, cloud sync, online play — and we have accepted that rather than worked around it.
Neither app is finished. We are not giving a release date yet, because we do not have one we would trust.
Talk to us
Bug reports, questions, feature requests and complaints all arrive in the same inbox. If something in one of our apps is wrong, telling us is the only way we will find out, because the apps do not report anything automatically.