During my night shift at LHCb control room two days ago, It was busy somehow and having to deal with a lot on your hand is not easy. This was the day of MacOS 26 release (Also iOS 26) and I got update notification on my Mac. I did click on update and approved it by mistake and it started downloading the update. I even did not notice what I actually did until it started the update itself. It usually give you 59 seconds to cancel the update but this time it did not. I was not able to cancel it and I had to wait for the update to finish.

But the problem was that the new release is not nice, I hate the new liquid glass design But the worst part is that Apple removed the launchpad app. I organize my installed apps in folders and is actually part of my workflow. Their new apps app design is different and although I can live with Raycast as a launcher (cmd+space) but I still need a launcher app to organize my apps in folders. I did not like the new apps app design and I wanted to have my launchpad back. I searched online and found that someone suggested that there is a trick to restore it but down the beta versions, Apple actually removed the launchpad app from the system. I was not able to restore it and I had to find a solution.

So Yesterday I got to the point that we should look for alternatives. I searched online and found that there is no good alternative to launchpad. At least not in the simplicity and one good job that is did well. I found an app called Launchnow but it looked buggy but I found it is closer to what I want. So I decided to explore what would it take to create this app myself. I never created a MacOS app before (Although I have Apple developer account for other purposes) and I hated the few times I tried to deal with anything in xcode. But I decided to give it a try and see how hard it is to create a simple app that can launch apps and organize them in folders.

I started with simple template in xcode and I was able to create a simple app that can list the installed apps in the system. I used SwiftUI for the UI and it was actually not that hard. I was able to create a simple grid view that shows the apps and allows you to click on them to launch them. I also added a simple folder system that allows you to organize the apps in folders. It was actually fun to create this app and I was able to do it in a few hours. I named it Quark Launcher because before that I was reading a paper about quarks and I thought it is a nice name for a launcher app. I also added a simple settings page that allows you to change the folder names and add new folders.

I published it internally via testflight and I am using it myself. I don't have any plans to publish it to the app store or even make it available publicly. I don't have time to maintain it beyond my personal use and I don't want to deal with the hassle of publishing it. I also don't want to create screenshots or write documentation for it. It does what I need and it is simple enough for my personal use. I am happy with the result and I am glad that I was able to create my first MacOS app. It was a fun experience and I learned a lot about SwiftUI and MacOS app development.