Make an app
Make a meal planner and recipe app for iPhone
A meal planner connects three lists: the recipes you cook, the week ahead, and what to buy. Describe how you plan and Borel builds a native iPhone app that keeps your recipes, drops them onto a weekly grid and turns the week into one shopping list, grouped by aisle. It can even read a cookbook page with the camera.
Updated
“A meal planner: I keep recipes with a photo, servings, ingredients and steps. A week view lets me put a recipe on each dinner. A 'Make list' button combines the week's ingredients into a shopping list grouped by aisle, which I tick off in the shop. Let me scan a recipe from a cookbook with the camera.”
Screens
What a meal planner app needs
The screens Borel builds from the prompt above. Ask for more, fewer or different ones.
Recipes
Your recipes as photo cards, searchable, with favourites on top.
Recipe
Ingredients scaled to the servings you pick, then numbered steps.
This week
Seven days with a slot for dinner, or lunch too, filled by picking a recipe.
Shopping list
The week's ingredients merged and grouped by aisle, ticked off as you shop.
Data
What it keeps
Borel writes these as Swift models. On the phone they work with no connection; in Borel's cloud they follow a signed-in person.
| What | Holds | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Recipe | Title, photo, servings, steps, tags | On the phone, with SwiftData |
| Ingredient | Name, amount, unit, aisle | On the phone, with the recipe |
| Plan slot | Day, meal, recipe | On the phone, with SwiftData |
| List item | Name, amount, aisle, ticked | On the phone, with SwiftData |
Native iPhone features
What it can use on your iPhone
Written in Swift with Apple's own frameworks, so they work the way iPhone owners expect.
Make it yours
What to ask for next
Once the first version runs, ask for changes in the chat, in words like these.
- “Don't add pantry staples like salt and oil to the shopping list.”
- “Suggest a week of dinners from my favourites, with no recipe twice.”
- “Show a cooking mode with big text that keeps the screen on.”
- “Let my partner see and tick the same shopping list.”
How to make it
From a prompt to your iPhone and the App Store
- 1
Describe it
Paste the prompt on this page into Borel, or write your own in plain words. Borel plans the screens with you before it builds.
- 2
Try it in your browser
Borel writes the app in Swift and SwiftUI, builds it with Xcode on its own Mac and opens it in a live iPhone simulator in your browser, free.
- 3
Put it on your iPhone
With Pro, Borel Companion for Windows or Mac installs it on your own iPhone with your Apple ID: a cable the first time, then Wi-Fi.
- 4
Publish it when it's ready
Pro publishes to the App Store from the same project. Apple's Developer Program, $99 a year, is the one thing you pay Apple.
Scanning only works with a real camera, so try it on your iPhone with a cookbook. Then cook one recipe from the app: is the text big enough on the counter, does the screen stay on, can you tick ingredients with a floury finger? Ask for whatever got in the way.
A recipe app built around one cook's dishes can also be a small product: a food blogger's own app on the App Store, with recipes in Borel's cloud so they can add new ones without a new version.
Building starts free, with 5 free credits a day, up to 30 a month, and the simulator in your browser costs nothing. Pro, from $20 a month, adds installs on your own iPhone through Borel Companion and publishing to the App Store.
Before you start
Good to know
- Nutrition facts aren't looked up for you; the app shows what you or the recipe enter.
- It doesn't order groceries from a shop.
- A shared shopping list needs accounts in Borel's cloud, and your partner's phone gets the app from the App Store, not from Companion.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Add them by hand, from a photo, or by scanning a cookbook page with the camera, and they're saved on your iPhone.
Yes. Ask for it in the prompt, and Borel merges the week's ingredients, adds up repeats and groups them by aisle.
Yes. The real builds page shows a recipe book with favourites and a shopping list, made from one sentence, with its prompt and screens.
Yes. Borel can add a helper on Borel's AI that suggests meals from your recipes or your fridge. There are no API keys to set up.
Make your meal planner app
Start from the prompt on this page, change it to fit your idea, and Borel builds it while you watch.