Why Clickk is like this

What was broken

Laptop keyboards give you nothing back. Short travel, a dull tap, and eight hours of typing that feels like pressing a table. The obvious fix, carrying a mechanical keyboard everywhere, is not available on a train, a sofa or somebody else's desk.

The software fix is old and mostly bad. Synthesised clicks that sound like a cartoon typewriter, or apps that ask permission to watch every key you press and then say nothing credible about what they do with it. That is the real barrier: not the sound, the trust.

There is also a small audience nobody serves properly. People recording screencasts, who need viewers to see which keys were pressed. And people who want to practise typing on real prose instead of a list of random words.

Who it’s for

• People who type for a living on a laptop and miss the feedback of a real board
• Keyboard enthusiasts who cannot carry the collection with them
• Anyone recording demos where a shortcut needs to be visible, not guessed at

Who it isn’t for

• Anyone unwilling to grant Accessibility permission. The sound is impossible without it
• Open-plan offices. The honest answer there is headphones, or nothing
• Windows and Linux

Rules we don’t break

Decided once, so they never have to be argued about again.

• Never read the characters. Clickk sees that a physical key moved. Not the letter, not the app you are in. No buffer, no log, no upload, so there is nothing to leak and nothing to subpoena.
• Real recordings first. Kits are sampled from actual switches. Synthesised ones exist and are labelled as synthesised rather than passed off.
• Fast enough to feel physical. Under 5 ms. A late click is worse than silence, because the ear notices the lag before the brain notices the sound.
• Loud where you want it, silent where you don't. Per-app volume, because the same person wants a heavy switch in the editor and nothing at all on a call.
• Only ship what we are allowed to ship. The export tool refuses any kit whose licence is not MIT. A product built on other people's recordings has to be careful with them.

What it actually does

• Seventeen kits. Presses and releases balanced, silence trimmed from the front of every strike.
• System-wide sound. Every app, native audio, low latency.
• Per-app volume. One setting per application, so the sound follows the room.
• The key overlay. Keys drawn on screen as they are pressed. For demos, teaching and screencasts.
• Typing tests. Built in, on real prose, so practice resembles the work.

What it refuses to do

The most useful part of any note like this. Every line has a reason attached.

• Recording what you type. Not as a feature, not locally, not opt-in. It is the single thing that would make this app untrustworthy, and no feature is worth it.
• Cloud anything. No account, no sync, no kit marketplace. The kits ship inside the app.
• Being a remapper. Karabiner exists and is excellent. Clickk only listens.

How we’ll know it worked

• People leave it on. A novelty gets switched off inside a week; something useful survives a month of real work.
• Per-app volume gets configured, which is the sign it has become part of someone's setup rather than a toy.
• Nobody has to ask what it does with their keystrokes, because the answer is in front of them before they grant the permission.
• Zero latency complaints. One is a bug report, not feedback.

Where it could go wrong

• The permission is the entire funnel. Accessibility access is a hard ask for exactly the right reasons, and it is where most installs will be lost. The only honest answer is being extremely clear about what gets read.
• macOS binds the grant to the path. Approve it from anywhere other than /Applications and the grant goes stale later. The symptom is silence, which looks like a broken app rather than a permissions problem. It is documented, and it still catches people.
• Soundpack licensing. Switch recordings come with terms attached. MIT-only keeps us safe and caps the catalogue.
• No price yet. A paid app in beta with no number on it. That gap is ours, and it is the next thing to close.

What’s next

• Announce the price, and decide with it whether there is a free tier and what lives in it.
• Grow the kit catalogue inside the MIT-only rule.
• No dates until the price is settled.