Notes from the bench
What shipped, what broke, and why I made the calls I made. Written by me, Paul — the one person who builds all of this.
I don't have a phone. That's why I'm building this one.
People ask what phone the PresenceOS guy carries. The honest answer is none — my main SIM lives in a test unit on the workbench. Here's why that's not an accident, and what the real finish line for this project looks like.
Privacy on purpose: what New Zealanders keep telling the tech industry
The Privacy Commissioner's surveys from 2024 to 2026 show privacy is now a mainstream concern, not a niche one — 82% want the right to have their data deleted, 71% worry about children's privacy, and only 18% trust the law to protect them. Here's what those numbers say, and how PresenceOS answers each of them.
Lab notes, July 2026: one-button pairing, honest backups, and life after Google's push servers
What actually shipped in the last few weeks — NFC pairing that needs one button press, a backup protocol that can no longer lie about success, push notifications with zero Google — and where the iOS Companion genuinely stands.
Why PresenceOS left GitHub
GitHub got breached through a poisoned VS Code extension. Today I finished moving every line of PresenceOS source onto my own hardware — here's the reasoning, and the uncomfortable admission that comes with it.