huphup
a cheering app for runners and their friends
the problem
running can be lonely, especially on long training runs or even a race. huphup lets friends record voice cheers that play live while you're running, so you get a personal cheer squad anytime, anywhere
my role
designed and built the ios app in swift/swiftui, the friend web app in vanilla html/js on cloudflare pages, and the api backend in bun with postgres.
key decisions
voice-first, not text
a voice message from a friend hits different than a push notification. the core bet is that audio cheers feel personal enough to actually motivate.
friend webapp with no account required
friends shouldn't need to download an app just to record a 10-second cheer. a simple web page with a share link keeps the barrier as low as possible.
live cheers
using polling, the cheers are immediately played after recording.
tech stack
what i learned
audio handling on ios is trickier than expected — background playback, interruption handling, and audio session categories all need careful setup. i also learned that the social loop (runner shares link → friend records cheer → runner hears it) needs to be frictionless or people drop off at every step.