Known

The need

Known began with a need of my own. I have diabetes, so every day I have to count the carbs in what I eat, and I need the precise number, not a guess. Rough numbers and cluttered apps are not enough for that.

The idea

Most packaged food already has that number printed on it. The brand declares it on the pack. So the idea was simple: a diary that starts from the label, estimates only when no declared value exists, and always tells you which is which.

It began with carbs, but people count different things: protein at the gym, calories on a diet. So the app counts everything, and you choose what leads.

The diary

The main screen is one page for the day. At the top, the number against your goal and the 3 macros. Below, the meals in the order you ate them, each food with its mark beside it. At the bottom, a line that is always ready for the next food.

I kept out what does not help you log the next meal. There is no account, because the diary syncs through iCloud. There are no counters or leaderboards, and the voice stays calm: short sentences, facts, no exclamation marks, no guilt.

You open it many times a day, so on my iPhone it opens in under half a second.

3 marks

A number on a screen always looks certain, even when it is a guess. I wanted the diary to say where each value comes from, so that you always know what you are looking at.

A full blue dot means the values come from the label. A half dot means they still have to be matched with the pack. An empty ring means no declared value exists, so the most advanced AI models estimate it. An estimate is still a strong number. The ring says how it was made, and nothing more.

Verified together

The critical point of food apps is often the catalog they rely on. An app can only be as exact as the data behind it, and product nutrition data is a private market, hard to reach and often out of date. A polished diary on a wrong number is still a wrong number.

That is why I built Known around one mission: verified together. Instead of trusting a database, Known asks people to check each food against the real pack, one by one, until every food is verified.

I started the catalog myself. I read the values from the producers’ own sites whenever possible, and I went to supermarkets to check the real values on the packs by hand. When you scan a barcode, Known looks there first.

Even a verified product can be wrong. The real pack is the only truth, so values and portions stay correctable on every product.

A half dot is a food still waiting for someone to check it. When you check it against its pack, it turns blue on your phone right away. The correction is reviewed, then added for everyone.

Many ways in

A diary only works if you keep writing in it, and a meal rarely happens at a desk. So the same meal can be typed in a line, said aloud, scanned from a barcode or a label, or photographed on the plate. Whichever way it comes in, it ends in the same quiet list.

Where it stands

Known started with one number I needed to get right. It became a diary that says where every number comes from, and a catalog that people check together.

It is in its last steps before the App Store, and the launch is only the start of the mission: every food someone checks against its pack makes the next person’s number more exact.