Welcome to bananarky.com the home of Hype Banana

Stop renting your own stuff. Own it.

We think outside the crate. Split paradigms. Peel back the layers of corporate mush. We make sweet apps for people who'd rather own the fruits of their labor instead of leasing it back from those apes in Big Tech.

See what we're building

You might be strolling through the forest of this tech jungle and boom: you just slipped on a bolt of lightning. That is Hype Banana.

Hype Banana makes small, opinionated apps that let you own and curate your own stuff, from your music and art to your memories and habits, instead of renting your digital life back from someone else.

Most of what you "have" these days is a subscription with your name on it. We think that's a racket. Every app we make answers the question: "what if this were yours again?"

Four ways to take it back

Each app picks one thing Big Tech turned into a meter and hands it back to you then you pay for it once.

MusicIn the works

Music you ownA player for the music you bought.

Your files on your shelves, weird mixes included. A library that doesn't pull songs out from under you when a license deal expires.

Take back your record collection from the streaming meter.

HabitsNext up

Get-better productivityHabits and goals without the guilt-trip.

Track the stuff you're trying to do more of, on your own terms. No streak-shaming, and no selling your mornings to advertisers.

Take back your habits from the engagement machine.

CultureNext up

Great-art trackerLog the books, films, shows and paintings that got you.

Private by default, so you can be honest about what you loved and what you didn't. Over a few years it turns into a record of your taste that nobody else could have written.

Take back your taste from public-by-default feeds.

MemoriesSketching

AI camera catalogYour photos, sorted by a machine that works for you.

On-device smarts that tag and shelve your pictures without sending them to a server first. It does the sorting and keeps its mouth shut.

Take back your memories from the cloud you're renting.

The owner's manual

We like reading owners manuals and voiding warranties. Here is ours.

You buy it, you keep it.

Pay once. Use it forever. Your data lives on your device, in formats you can open with something else. If we vanish tomorrow, your stuff stays put.

No subscriptions. No lock-in.

You pick what goes where.

There's no feed and no advertisers pretending to be a "for you" tab. You put things on the shelf and decide where they go. The app helps you find them again, and that's the whole job.

No algorithm. No autoplay.

We monkey around.

We don't take life too seriously. The alternative is one more shiny company calling your data a "journey". We aren't joking about our apps though. The are still awesome. Seriously.

No corporate voice. No shareholders to be beholden to.

The rented life

Monthly fee to keep what you already paid for
Your content changes when a license deal does
An algorithm deciding what you like
Your files on someone else's server
Cancel, and it all disappears
Your data is sold to the highest bidder

The Hype Banana way

Pay once, keep forever
Nothing gets pulled out from under you
You curate, the app helps
Your files on your device, in open formats
Delete the app, keep the stuff
Your data is yours

Who's behind this

We remember burning mixes and organizing our own shelves. We'd like that feeling back.

Hype Banana is a small studio for people who like technology fine but object to being farmed by it. We make a handful of small, bitchin apps that treat you like you own the thing you paid for, and we have no plans to disrupt anything.

Who we are

A few trained monkeys making stuff we want to use and may be useful for other people. We don't know, we aren't you.

What we make

Bad ass apps for the stuff you already have. Remember when mp3s were cool. They still are and that's why we are making a music player.

How we work

You can download anything and keep it forever. It will work for a couple days then you have to enter a license key and work forever.

What we don't do

Corporate m.s.* We'd rather stay small and be useful than go public and have shareholders demanding infinite growth.

*monkey $#!&

Get the first app before anyone else

One email when the music player ships. No newsletter and nothing weekly.

We won't sell/share your email because spam sucks.