The idea for this app came after my wife and I took our four kids on a Saturday to get their passports. It was an adventure. And despite the obvious bad parts, long lines, whining, etc. there were some great moments too. For example, me and two of the younger kids (age 5 and 8) waited in the waiting area and played twenty questions for an hour. Total strangers that happened to be there joined in the game with us.

When it was all over and we were back home in front of our screens I realized it had been a LONG time since we all did something as a family like that. And I got to thinking: how often should we do an event like that? I settled on once a month or 12x a year. The app is called 12x. Video demo here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1gVzxt3D0Y

Open source here:

https://github.com/andrewarrow/12x

Still waiting for iOS App Store approval.

The idea of 12x is you and your family all edit a calendar with just 12 events possible, one for each month. But there is no backend to this app. No central server to avoid data privacy issues and cost. Instead it uses bluetooth to sync changes anyone makes to the calendar.

It keeps a history so if family member A keeps writing over family member B's ideas, at least you never lose data. It's all still there somewhere as you struggle as a family to agree on what is the next event. But just sitting home on screens again this month should not be an option.

There's also some fun to being able to make changes and then "force" them upon someone near you. App works for a group of close friends vs family too.

The 5 year old loves clicking that "Send to Phone" button on his iPad and seeing the progress bar go. 12x - get out there just 12 times a year.