Blog · Dev update 01
irl dev update 01: what’s live, how it works, what’s next
The first in a series of build notes from irl.ing. Everything below is in the app today, unless it’s under “What we’re building next.”
The idea
irl.ing is a social video app for real life. Loops last up to 11.11 seconds. There are no beauty filters, there’s no ranking algorithm, and the feed ends.
Most feeds are built to keep you scrolling. irl.ing is built so you can stop. You catch a moment, your friends see it, and when you’ve seen everything new the app tells you so: You’re caught up. Then you put the phone down and go irl’ing.
Less scrolling. More irl’ing.
Making a loop
- Hold-to-Loop. Hold to record, let go to pause, hold again. Each hold is a take, and the takes join without a seam.
- 11.11 seconds, at most. Square (1:1) or Full (9:16, a whole phone screen).
- Made in the irl.ing camera. There’s no button for uploading a video from your camera roll.
- Start over or Retake any time before you share.
- No face-tuning, no beauty filters. There are playful effects (the first set is Filter Pack 1), and each one is labelled on the loop and sealed with it. Take the effect off and you get the original back, byte for byte.
Who sees it
- Friends first. Every loop is just for friends unless you make it public, and you can switch either way at any time.
- Friends are mutual. You add someone with an invite link or their exact @name. Nobody follows a person, and a person’s profile is only for their friends.
- Strangers only watch. Anyone can watch a public loop. Feelings, comments and reposts stay between friends.
- A feed that ends. Newest first, the last 30 days, and then it stops. No ranking algorithm decides what you see.
- Feelings are wordless. Six directional icons instead of a like button. The community gets to name them.
- Also live: video messages to friends, comments, reposts, categories, and public business pages for adults.
The tech, in plain names
We gave each piece of the tech one name and one line. Here they are, with the specs.
- Featherweight. A whole loop in about 100 KB. Loops are encoded on your phone with AV1 (VP9 or H.264 where AV1 isn’t available) at 30 frames a second. Square is 360×360 and Full is 288×512, a little smaller on low-memory phones. Sound is Opus at 24 kbit/s.
- Lifeboats. Every loop is cut into two-second, checksummed pieces. Lose one and the rest still play.
- Lighten Up. A busy connection drops frames, not seconds.
- Real Seal. Every piece is signed on your phone with an Ed25519 key that never leaves the device. Before a loop is stored, the server checks that the seal covers every piece, with nothing added. Edit a sealed loop and it shows. A loop’s ID is its seal.
- Glow-Up. Tiny files, upscaled sharp as they play (FSR 1 upscaling and sharpening).
- Honest Zoom. After upscaling, an integer lock makes every 2×2 block average exactly to the pixel that was sent. Added detail can never contradict what was sent. Frames are checked on playback and again before export.
- True Grain. Your camera’s grain, measured and put back after compression.
- Smart Pixels. Pixels that fly home as a loop arrives.
- Cosmic Courtesy. Important parts first, damage kept small.
Loops also leave irl.ing cleanly. Save video makes a normal MP4 (H.264, 720×720 or 720×1280) with a small irl.ing mark, so people know where it came from. Public loops get their own page with a proper link preview.
irl.ing runs in the browser on any phone or computer, and installs to your home screen. The public pages are in seven languages: English, 简体中文, 日本語, Español, العربية, Français and Lingála.
Real people, no passwords, no ID scans
In 2023, a social app called IRL shut down after its own board found that 95% of its reported 20 million users were bots. irl.ing is built so a network like that can’t fake its way up.
- No passwords. Accounts use passkeys, and making one requires your phone’s fingerprint, face or screen lock.
- Age, without keeping your birthday. You give a month and year to join. Under 13 can’t join. We keep only the month someone turns 18.
- Teens are protected by default. They start friends-only, can’t be found by strangers, and can’t post publicly or run a business page.
- Reach can’t be farmed. Friends are mutual, so a bot can’t build an audience by following people.
- Reports count people. It takes three different people to hide a loop, never three reports from one account. A child-safety report hides it at once.
- A safety check before anything is stored. Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, checks three still frames against our community rules. Reports go to a human review queue.
- Private by design. Loops are stored privately, and playback uses links that expire within minutes.
This week we also ran a full security pass. Live now: a strict content security policy and security headers on every page, stricter checks on every uploaded loop, daily caps on reports and comments, and protected @names for the review team.
$IRLING
$IRLING is irl.ing’s community token on Base, created with @bankrbot. In the app it does two things:
- Tips. Tip a creator in $IRLING or USDC on Base. Tips are between adult friends, or from anyone to a business.
- Burn to unlock. Burning $IRLING unlocks Filter Pack 1 on your account. Watching is never gated: everyone can watch a loop made with any effect.
$IRLING isn’t an investment, and irl.ing makes no promises about its price or value. Nothing here is financial advice. Using irl.ing never requires owning it. Tipping is optional and adults only, and so are burns, which can’t be undone.
What we’re building next
- A stronger Real Seal. The server will take its own frames from the video for the safety check, instead of trusting the stills a phone sends. Each seal will also carry a fresh code from the server, so a loop shows it was sealed after that moment, on a phone signed in to that account.
- Lifeboats for sending. If your connection drops while a loop is sending, it waits safely on your phone and sends itself when you’re back online.
- Fewer numbers. Play counts and follower counts visible only to their owner.
- More anti-bot, still no ID. Tighter limits for brand-new accounts, and friend requests that bots can’t spam.
- irl.ing beyond irl.ing. A Farcaster mini app, and public loops that play inside casts and on any site that supports embeds.
Coming up in this series
- 02: Real Seal, or how a loop shows it hasn’t been edited
- 03: Featherweight, 11.11 seconds in about 100 KB
- 04: Honest Zoom, sharper without making things up
- 05: Real people without ID checks
Try it at irl.ing. Hold the red dot.