[01]The problem
A Mac ships with a black cut-out at the top of the screen and a dozen small apps fighting for the menu bar beside it.
The notch is dead space: a few hundred pixels at the centre of your eyeline that hold a camera and nothing else. Around it, the utilities people actually live in are scattered. One app for the clipboard, another for window snapping, another for the timer, another for the weather, a menu-bar icon for each, and none of them designed to sit together. Add an AI agent that stops to ask permission every few minutes, and the most useful thing on the screen is a terminal window you have to keep finding.
[02]The idea
One matte home for everything. Widgets you choose, nothing you don’t.
Matte extends the notch into a bar that is the same black as the hardware, so it reads as part of the Mac rather than another window. Everyone starts with the Home. From there you add widgets from a library, drag them into the order you want and remove the ones you stop using. The bar widens to fit, with no limit, and scrolls when you shrink it. Nothing is preinstalled that you didn’t ask for.
[03]Design principles
Four rules every widget has to pass before it ships.
- Matte
- Black or white, never glossy. No gradients, no colour fighting your work. The bar matches the bezel, and the white theme matches a light desktop.
- Quiet
- Each widget shows one thing well. Motion is reserved for state that changes: a song playing, a timer running, Claude waiting on you.
- Out of the way
- The bar lives where nothing else can. It opens when you reach for it and tucks back into the notch when you don’t.
- Claude-native
- Designed for people who work alongside AI agents. Claude Code is a first-class widget, not an afterthought.
[04]The components
A foundation, a library and a mascot. Six pieces make up the product.
01 · Foundation
The Home
What everyone downloads. The bar itself, with a top row for Settings, Launchpad, volume, brightness and theme. Drag to reorder, drag out to remove.
02 · Library
Widgets, in six categories
Claude & AI, Productivity, Files, System, Media and Everyday. Download a widget and it slots straight into the bar.
03 · Character
Mappy
A small dark blob with two white eyes who lives in the notch. He blinks, he watches, and he gives the product a face without ever getting in the way.
04 · Claude & AI
Claude Code approvals
When Claude Code needs permission, the request drops out of the notch. Allow or deny without leaving what you’re doing, and watch running sessions at a glance.
05 · Files
Mappy Drop
Drop a file on Mappy and he eats it, then converts it, shrinks it or sends it on. The most-used chore on a Mac, turned into one gesture.
06 · System · Beta
Rowline
Every open window, side by side in one sliding row. Swipe along it to find the one you want instead of digging through a stack.
[05]How it’s built
Native, on-device and private by design.
- Native Swift and SwiftUI
- No web view in a frame. Matte is written for macOS, so it draws at the speed of the system and sits in the notch the way Apple’s own UI does.
- On-device
- Every launch widget is compiled into the app and works offline. The library only tells the app what’s new.
- Private by design
- Only usage counts leave the Mac: a widget was opened, added, used. Never content, file names, window titles or messages.
- Made by the studio
- Designed, built and maintained by Studio Nine, and released through The Lab, our home for the things we make.
[06]Outcome & roadmap
Matte launches with nineteen widgets and a library built to keep growing.
Next in the library: AI widgets that put Claude to work in the notch, more ways to handle files, and the small everyday utilities people ask for most.
- Focus session
- Quick note
- Next call
- Daily brief by Claude
- Translate
- Summarise clipboard
- Screenshot shelf
- Colour picker
- Battery & AirPods
- Network speed
- World clocks
- Camera mirror
- Podcasts