Vibe coding as a productivity strategy: build what apps won’t
There’s a specific kind of frustration that comes from using an app that’s almost right. The note-taking app that handles handwriting beautifully but falls apart on PDF annotation. The photo editor with every tool you don’t need and none of the ones you do. You’ve felt it. Most operators have just accepted it as the cost of using software built for everyone.
One writer at XDA found a third option: build the missing piece yourself, using AI coding agents to do the heavy lifting.
The Core Problem With App Hunting
The research loop for finding a new app is familiar. You search, scroll Reddit, watch reviews, and narrow down options. The problem isn’t the process. It’s the ceiling. No app ticks every box because no app was built specifically for you.
The writer describes a note-taking dilemma that most knowledge workers will recognize: she uses both handwriting (via Apple Pencil) and typed notes, jumping between the two depending on the task. She hasn’t found a single app that handles both seamlessly without making compromises elsewhere.
The classic response is to either accept the compromise or juggle multiple apps. Neither is satisfying when you’ve spent months building a workflow around specific tools.
️ The Old Solution That AI Just Made Accessible
Here’s the honest framing: the solution has always been the same. If you want software that fits your exact preferences, build it. That answer just wasn’t usable for most people. Learning to code, shipping something functional, and then maintaining it afterward was a commitment far larger than tolerating a few missing features.
What AI coding agents change is the barrier to entry. You describe what you want, iterate on the output, and shape something functional without writing every line yourself. The ingredients are an AI coding agent, a clear description of what you need, and willingness to troubleshoot.
The approach has a name now: vibe coding. The idea is that you’re not engineering a system top to bottom. You’re directing one.
Three Real Projects, Each Built Instead of Searched For
The writer isn’t describing a concept. She’s actively building. Three projects illustrate how this plays out in practice:
- A Photoshop alternative. Photoshop does far more than she needs. So she started building a personal editing app that includes only the features she actually uses, with no cluttered menus and no tools she’ll never touch.
- A study app. She combined elements she valued from Notion, NotebookLM, and Quizlet. The important detail: she didn’t just try to merge three apps. She asked AI tools to analyze her actual study habits, identify what was working, and surface where her approach fell short. The app she’s building reflects those findings rather than someone else’s design assumptions.
- A note-taking app. She tested Claude Code, Codex, and Google Antigravity head to head, giving all three the same feature list and letting them build. Codex produced an app that came closest to her ideal. She’s been using it daily since.
When This Works
This approach works best when you have a narrow, well-defined gap. You love 80% of an existing app and you know exactly what the other 20% should be. That specificity is what gives an AI coding agent enough to work with.
It also works for personal tools where maintenance stakes are low. A study app that only you use doesn’t need enterprise error handling. If it breaks, you fix it. That tolerance for rough edges is what makes self-built tools viable for solo operators when they wouldn’t be viable for a product team shipping to thousands of users.
When It Doesn’t
The writer is clear-eyed about the limits. Building something that works is one problem. Keeping it working over time is another. Vibe coded tools require ongoing maintenance, and that cost is easy to underestimate when you’re excited about the initial build.
She hasn’t abandoned traditional apps. For use cases where polished, maintained software exists and fits well enough, she still uses it. The vibe coding approach is an additional option, not a wholesale replacement for the existing ecosystem.
The Transferable Pattern
The practical shift here is a change in default behavior. Instead of opening a browser to search for an app when you hit a frustrating gap, you ask whether you can close the gap yourself with an AI coding agent. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the tool you need already exists. But the option is real now in a way it wasn’t a few years ago, and that changes the calculus for anyone willing to experiment.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice.
And more than all else, I’m a father to a (always) little girl and a husband.
Contact me at [email protected] for assistance.
