Fact File Redux – Archeology, DMCA Badges, and Rebirth

Before "privacy-first" was a buzzword, it was just the way we built things.

Back in the "Wild West" days of the early App Store (circa 2010), I released a tiny app called Fact File. The concept was focused and distraction-free: one interesting, high-quality fact per day. Learn it. File it. No data mining, no tracking, just curiosity.

Looking back at the UI now, the hand-drawn vectors have aged surprisingly well for an app born in the iOS 4 era!

// Original vector art drawn in Illustrator CS5

$ INITIALIZING_MEMORIES...
Hardware: iPhone 4 (Retina era)
Stack: Objective-C, .m/.h headers, Manual Reference Counting (pre-ARC).
Status: 100% Offline. Zero telemetry.

I recently unearthed an old "Archive" folder on a dusty backup drive. Beyond the FactFile_Final_REAL_FINAL.xcodeproj, I found traces of the broader Dro1d Labs origin story: a series of viral soundboards (Ted Williams, Jedward) and the infamous Tiger Woods Soundboard—which I still consider a badge of honor because it was popular enough to catch a DMCA takedown.

Digging through this code is like digital archeology. I’m finding MainWindow.xib files and ancient .pch headers. It reminds me of the era when Interface Builder was a standalone app and "auto-layout" was a distant dream.

The Android Detour: XPrivacy & Root

Shortly after the first Fact File era, I took a deep dive into the Android ecosystem—not for the apps, but for the control. I spent years meddling with custom ROMs and root-level toolkits like XPrivacy and AdFree (the legendary XDA hosts-file blocker).

Feeding fake data to invasive SDKs and blocking trackers at the system level was my masterclass in privacy. It taught me that if you don't build privacy into the DNA of the app, the app is the enemy.

Fact File Redux: Rebuilding for 2024

BUILD_TARGET: iOS 18 / macOS Sonoma
# SWIFTUI REWRITE IN PROGRESS
# + Modern Widgets & Dynamic Island support
# + iCloud Sync (Zero-Knowledge)
# + Still 100% Tracker-Free

Rebuilding Fact File today in SwiftUI feels like coming home. The mission remains identical: curiosity without the cost of privacy. This time, we're adding modern flourishes—haptic feedback, widgets, and cross-device support—but keeping the "File It" soul that started it all in 2010.

// The 2010 gloss... it was a different time.

It’s a full circle. From Objective-C to root-level Android privacy, back to the Apple ecosystem. Same values, better tools.

Filed away under: nostalgia, legacy code, and the long game.

Published July, 2024 by JF Monahan // Dro1d Labs