Project: LETR Feed

A mobile app that combats information overload by delivering AI-powered news summaries and a dedicated newsletter inbox.

LETR Feed App

Part 1: The Problem

The average news consumer struggles with information overload. Their daily challenge is twofold: a cluttered email inbox filled with newsletters and a limited amount of time to read long-form articles. This results in users feeling overwhelmed, uninformed, and inefficient.

Part 2: My Role & Process

My Role

As the sole developer, I was responsible for the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept and architecture to full-stack development. I designed the systems and leveraged AI tools to accelerate the planning and development process, allowing me to move from idea to execution efficiently.

My Process & Architecture

  1. Front-End: I chose Flutter and Dart to build a high-performance, natively compiled application for both iOS and Android from a single codebase.
  2. Back-End & Database: The entire backend runs on Firebase. I used Firestore as the NoSQL database to store user data and the processed news summaries.
  3. Automated News Ingestion: A Firebase Function (written in JavaScript) automatically triggers to fetch new articles from the News API.
  4. AI Summarization: Once a new article is fetched, it's sent to the Gemini API to generate a concise summary.

Part 3: The Solution

The result is LETR Feed, a mobile application designed for focus. The app's philosophy is captured in its tagline: "Your News, Distilled."

Personalized Onboarding

The user's journey begins by selecting their specific interests. This isn't just broad topics, but granular sub-interests. This step is crucial as it creates the foundation for a feed that is 100% relevant to the user.

Onboarding Screen

The Distilled Feed

The main screen is a clean, card-based feed of AI-generated summaries. This respects the user's time. If a user wants to dive deeper, a source link is provided to read the full, original article.

App Feed Screen

Part 4: Outcome & Lessons Learned

Status

LETR Feed is a live personal project, available on the Google Play Store and currently shared with friends for feedback. I am preparing to release it on the Apple App Store.

Key Learnings

This project was a deep dive into building a secure, scalable, and modern application. The biggest challenge was architecting the Firebase security rules to protect user data. I also learned to leverage a serverless backend (Firebase Functions and Firestore) to maintain a smooth, real-time user experience and gained familiarity with email infrastructure via SendGrid.

Next Steps

The next major feature in development is the completion of the newsletter inbox. This will allow the Gemini API to summarize emails sent to the user's private, unique app address, fully realizing the vision of a single, focused inbox for all of a user's content.