whittle: AI To-Do List & Notes

ARK SERVICE

In-app purchases

About this app

whittle is a calm, minimalist notes and to-do list app, with AI that quietly sorts your day so you don't have to. The list never grows forever.

WHY EMBER EXISTS

Most productivity apps make you feel busier than you actually are. Forty tasks. Eighty. Two hundred. Red overdue badges from three months ago. Folders you forgot you created. You spend more time managing the system than doing the work.

whittle does the opposite of every other productivity app. Instead of capturing more, it quietly helps you forget what doesn't matter, so you can act on what does.

HOW IT WORKS

One field, no setup. Capture anything — a task, a thought, a reference, a half-formed idea — by typing or voice. No tags, no folders, no priority pickers. Just write.

AI sorts it for you. Your capture is classified as a task, a note, or a reference, and any date is parsed out. You never file a single thing.

The daily view is hard-capped at five items. Five. Chosen from your stream based on what's due, what you've touched recently, and what still feels alive. Everything else waits, out of sight, without guilt.

THE WEEKLY REVIEW

Once a week, whittle asks one quiet question about items you wrote but never returned to: "Is this still alive?" Tap Keep, Snooze, or Release. Two minutes, and the parts of your list that have quietly died fall away. Most tasks don't need to be done. Most notes don't need to be kept. Ember is the first productivity app to admit this.

WHAT'S INSIDE

— A unified notes and to-do list. Tasks, notes, references, and reminders in one calm stream. No more switching between Apple Notes for thoughts and Todoist for tasks.
— Voice capture. Tap the mic, dictate. Transcription happens on your device.
— A bounded daily view. Five items, no more. The single most calming feature in any task manager or daily planner.
— A weekly pruning ritual. Decide what's still alive. Release the rest.
— Local-first storage. Your notes and tasks live on your device. We do not have a copy.
— Markdown export. One tap to get everything as a Markdown ZIP. Always free.
— A minimalist, distraction-free interface. Warm typography, generous whitespace, no red badges, no streaks, no productivity scores.
— Three AI voices. Gentle, Balanced, or Direct.
— Private by design. Zero analytics, zero advertising SDKs, zero behavioral tracking.

WHO WHITTLE IS FOR

— People who keep starting and quitting Notion, Obsidian, Todoist, TickTick, Evernote, or Google Keep because the maintenance got bigger than the value.
— ADHD-friendly minds who need a short, bounded list rather than one that grows forever.
— Bullet journal enthusiasts looking for something simpler than another app to configure.
— Writers, designers, therapists, students — anyone who thinks better when the screen is calmer.
— Anyone who feels worse after opening their task manager than before.

WHO WHITTLE IS NOT FOR

— Teams who want shared boards, @mentions, real-time collaboration.
— Power users who want hundreds of plugins, graph views, custom themes.
— People who love streaks, badges, and productivity scores. Ember does not have these and never will.

OUR FIVE PROMISES

1. We will never sell your data.
2. We will never show you ads.
3. Your notes and tasks stay on your device by default.
4. We use AI to organize what you wrote, never to study you.
5. You can export everything in one tap, free, forever.

PRICING

Ember is free. An optional Plus tier will unlock unlimited stream size and cross-device sync when those launch. The free tier is generous and will always work without an account.

If you closed a productivity app today because looking at it made you feel worse, try Ember. A calm notes and to-do list app, a minimalist task manager, a daily planner, a private second brain — for people tired of being managed by their software.

The list never grows forever. That's the whole point.