Bell Bearing
A compass that always points at the nearest Taco Bell, dressed up as a sci-fi motion tracker. Its return blip pings higher the closer you get.
Target acquired 
Three phosphors to pick from 
The maker's title card
Somewhere out there, a Crunchwrap.
Bell Bearing does one job. Open it, and an arrow points at the nearest Taco Bell, with the range ticking down as you walk. No map, no list, no reviews: just a bearing and a distance, the way a motion tracker would give them to you.
- Tap the blip to lock onto that location instead of the nearest one, and tap again to let go.
- NAV hands off to Apple Maps for directions. SCAN forces a fresh search.
- PHOS cycles the phosphor: P1 green, P3 amber, P56 red.
- Tap the range to switch between metric and imperial.
Under the hood
- App
- SwiftUI, iOS 17+
- Tube
- Metal shader
- Places
- MapKit local search
- Sound
- Synthesized audio + haptics
- Backend
- None at all
Built like a prop
Half app, half movie prop. Every part of the tube is drawn live.
A real-ish CRT
A Metal shader bends the picture across a curved tube, with scanlines, color fringing, grain, flicker, the occasional glitch, and a power-on warm-up.
Every sound synthesized
The pulse and the return ping are generated on the fly, with haptics to match. There isn't a single sound file in the app.
Search in rings
Places come from Apple's MapKit search, in widening rings until something turns up. No API keys and no server of its own.
Wear and tear
The keys sit on a physical chin with indicator LEDs, scuffed by procedurally generated grime and scratches. A self test runs at boot.
Bell Bearing is a fan project. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Taco Bell. It just really likes them.
