2010—2011
Beginnings. Being in the right places at the right times, capitalizing on opportunities, and lots of hard work made Karbon profitable even in our first year. We were lucky to come recommended by industry colleagues and friends, and we rapidly advanced our skillset and offerings.
Gourmet Live
We helped Condé Nast revitalize their beloved retired magazine Gourmet Live in the form of an immersive iPad app, released just after iPad hit stores for the first time. Gourmet Live featured fullscreen photography and articles, an enormous back catalogue of content rewarded through activity achievements or purchasable through IAP. In December 2010, Apple featured Gourmet Live in Apple Stores nationwide, on giant iPad displays for the holiday shopping season. In November of the following year, Gourmet Live won the Advertising Age Media Vanguard Award for Best Digital Brand Revival.
Harrison / Star — A system for generating one-off native apps for medical conferences
Outright — An intuitive accounting app for businesses to track customers, accounts and expenses
Yelp for iPad
After the enormous success of Gourmet Live, Yelp tapped Karbon to design a new version specifially for the larger iPad screen. We worked closely with their in-house design team to bring the familiar Yelp design language to iPad and created a foundation for future design iteration on the platform.
Fast Society 2 — Rapid collaboration for small teams
Uncrate & Devour
Uncrate brought in Karbon to design and develop native iOS apps for their two immensely popular websites, with additional features like search and stashing products and videos for later. In 2014, Tom Hanks called Uncrate one of two apps on iOS he “couldn't live without”.
Crime Mapping — Mapping crime events for California Police Departments
Field Interviews — A digital way for police to record witness statements and field reports
Near Me — Crime statistics and information for your local area
ING Direct
The ground-breaking internet-only bank ING Direct hired Karbon to design a skeuomorphic iPad app to empower customers to balance their accounts and pay bills electronically, including scheduling bill payments and a fun check-writing interface that included signing with your finger. While Karbon completed design work, ING Direct was acquired by Capital One before this project could be developed.
Karoo
Care.com brought Karbon in to design and develop an app for their enormously popular platform. Focused on sharing photos, videos, locations and milestones, Karoo was one of the first apps in the App Store that created a private space to share meaningful moments between families and caregivers. In 2013, Karoo was a Webby Award honoree.
Duet — Plan dates and share moments with close friends and partners
WeatherMob — A crowd-sourced hyper-local weather reporting app
2012—2013
Breakout. As the App Store grew, so did demand. Our successes with Gourmet Live and Yelp put us on the radar of who would quickly become our biggest and longest partner: Google.
Google Drive
Karbon designed and co-developed Google Drive for iOS and iPadOS. One of the most popular and widely-used Google apps today, Karbon was solely responsible for the initial user interface design of the product on Apple platforms. We then worked alongside the growing Google team for an additional two years adding major features, including real-time editing, collaboration and printing, and in-app purchase for larger storage plans, all while refining the interface design aligned with multiple Google-wide initiatives.
Awl Music — A custom iPad music app for The Awl with curated playlists
Purcell Murray Co — An internal real-time inventory management app for PMC and their vendors
Google Docs, Google Sheets & Google Slides
Before the conclusion of our multi-year partnership with the amazing Google Drive team, we helped transition the app interface to Material Design and then split off focused apps for the three main features of Google's online collaboration suite.
Scratch
As iOS matured, we felt a strong need for a quick-input notepad to jot down our daily ideas, so we released our first Karbon-branded app, Scratch. With Dropbox sync, share integration to many third-party apps, a customizable Markdown toolbar and a delightfully simple and fast user interface, Scratch was a beloved utility for many users until we retired the product in late 2015.
Insight Notes — Secure clinical charting for medical professionals
Ethical Decisions — Markkula Center for Applied Ethics' tool for ethical analysis
2014—2018
Overdrive. The floodgates opened and we took on more and more work. We helped big companies design, prototype, develop and release several successful products in only a few years. But it became clear we needed to grow our staff to better handle demand...
iLike powered by Myspace
A revitalized Myspace hired Karbon to design a brand-new music app for their service iLike. Karbon created a cross-platform user interface for iOS and Android, including playlist management, music exploration, and the fullscreen and mini player experience. We then worked with Myspace to oversee development of the initial cross-platform MVP. Unfortunately, this project never saw wide release.
American Express: Platinum Connect
We worked with American Express to design and prototype a concierge app for their Platinum customers. In addition to reservations, lounge maps and other amenity features, Platinum Connect offered an exclusive live chat for cardmembers. These concepts were later landed into various areas of the official American Express app.
Auditional — A simple way to manage casting for both sides of the clapboard
Flummox & Friends — A custom iPad video player for an autism-focused video series
Google One Today
Karbon had the privilege of working with Google.org to overhaul and improve One Today for iOS, a product that brought together people and nonprofits with the goal of donating $1 a day. One Today also allowed users to create donation matching for their friends, increasing their impact. Karbon rewrote the app from the ground up, then helped transition its interface to Material Design, while improving the donation flow to greatly increase the number of daily donations.
GrowthKit for Google Apps
A group of internal teams at Google hired Karbon to architect, design and develop a framework called GrowthKit to help users of Google's iOS products set logical default app handlers for common actions (such as opening links, sending email, and mapping an address). GrowthKit also helped Google promote relevant related products to existing users. Karbon spent a year creating the framework, then the subsequent year integrating it into all major Google iOS products, landing code in Gmail, Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Calendar and more.
Twitter Q&A
After running several large-scale q&a sessions manually with celebrities, Twitter realized they needed a purpose-made custom iOS app to improve the experience for their VITs (Very Important Tweeters), so they tasked Karbon with designing and developing Twitter Q&A. Utilizing the Twitter API, as well as custom video processing and overlays, TQA made it easy for anyone to run a live session with their fans to answer questions via text or video. At the end of the event, the app would also tally statistics automatically (including questions received, new followers, and answers favorited). Over the course of several years, Twitter Q&A was used by many celebrities and politicians, including One Direction, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and others.
Science Journal
One of our most rewarding projects, Google Making & Science brought Karbon in to create an iOS version of their Android app, Science Journal, which allowed anyone to gather data about the world around them by harnessing the sensors in their device and connected Bluetooth hardware like Arduino. The app featured live charting, recording and playback of data from sensors like the accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer and more, as well as a suite of notetaking features including attaching photos and videos. Projects could also be shared with other users, and synced to Google Drive. Science Journal was made open source in 2019, and sold to Arduino in 2020.
2019—2021
Expansion. For the first time since the early days, we decided to expand the team to better serve our dedicated clients. Karbon grew from three people to an amazing group of 10 over the course of two years. Karbon now has engineers living in Oregon, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Arkansas. We expanded our benefits and began a profit-sharing program.
Google Meet
As part of a major overhaul of Gmail, Google Chat and video conferencing features, Google hired Karbon to help rebuild Google Meet from the ground up for use in Google Workspace, their then-new initiative to bring communication and productivity apps under a single banner. Karbon helped rewrite Google Meet, then spent a year adding new features and integrating it into Gmail for iOS. Karbon was responsible for the in-call experience and related features, including live chat, the video interface engine and various in-call participant layouts.
Our work on this product proved especially important during the global Covid-19 pandemic when usage of Google Meet was at an all-time high as work and school went fully remote worldwide. Google Meet is available on the App Store and included in Gmail.
Present Day
Karbon currently focuses on three large-scale product partnerships, all entering their sixth year. We're lucky to be given the trust and ownership to help deliver on a long-term vision for these clients.
Breathable
As global warming intensifies and wildfires ravage the west coast of the US, having accurate and real-time air quality information is becoming more important than ever. Karbon built our own simple AQI widget app for iOS, iPad, Apple Watch and macOS:
Air quality has become an increasing concern for many people around the globe. While stressing about it constantly isn't necessarily helpful, the goal of the Breathable widget is to provide a quick, glanceable answer to a new daily question: Is it safe to go outside?
Breathable merges AQI information from multiple sources in a single, friendly widget. Additional features like Emoji Scale allow for a high level of customization. Breathable is available on the App Store. All proceeds from sales of the app are donated to climate change foundations.
GFiber
Karbon is working with Google Fiber to manage and develop their iOS app, which helps users easily manage their account and internet service:
Run speed tests, edit simple and advanced network settings, restart your router, and share your Wi-Fi networks and passwords with family and friends. At-a-glance network information, alerts and support make this app a critical companion for the lightning-fast Google Fiber service.
During our multi-year partnership, Karbon has rewritten GFiber from the ground up, built features like plan change and self-install guidance, as well as helped transition the user interface through several brand redesigns. GFiber is available on the App Store.
OpenSky
Karbon is helping Wing design and develop OpenSky, the app for drone flyers, for both iOS and Android:
OpenSky is the simplest and fastest way to view drone rules and regulations, so you can take flight with confidence. Whether you’re a hobbyist who loves to fly, or a business using unmanned aircraft for mapping or photography, OpenSky makes it easy to find out where it’s safe to fly.
In addition to building the iOS version in 2019, Karbon continues to manage the product on both platforms, plan and execute a roadmap of new features, and iterate on the user interface. We help manage regulatory approvals, work with the backend teams to maintain the API and core services, and ship the product to users monthly. OpenSky is available on both the App Store and Google Play.
Wing Delivery
Alongside Wing's OpenSky product, our team is helping Wing modernize and grow their flagship Delivery app, for both iOS and Android:
Whether it's a well-deserved coffee on a busy day or popcorn for movie night, Wing delivers groceries, food, and more in as little as 15 minutes. Wing's drone delivery service is safe, fast, and environmentally friendly.
In addition to building the iOS version in 2019, Karbon continues to manage the product on both platforms, plan and execute a roadmap of new features, and iterate on the user interface. We help manage regulatory approvals, work with the backend teams to maintain the API and core services, and ship the product to users monthly. OpenSky is available on both the App Store and Google Play.
We don't know what the future holds, but we do know we will head proudly into it with the same focus and energy which has carried us this far. We're extremely privileged to work in this industry with these clients, and with each other. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
Established 2010. Headquartered in lovely Portland, Oregon. Fully remote since day one.
All trademarks are property of their respective owners.