A magic-trick utility for iPhone. Hands-free force-card reveals via Siri — perfectly timed, perfectly invisible.
iPhone (iOS 17+)
SwiftUI + AppIntents
No accounts, no tracking
The One-Liner
Drop this into a video description or a press email.
Pick a Card! lets magicians force a card with their voice. Set the card you want, and Siri does the rest — random calls before and after make every reveal look like fair luck.
What It Does
record_voice_over
Stateful Siri intent
"Hey Siri, pick a card" returns a different result every call: random first, your force second, random again. The audience hears chance; you know the script.
front_hand
Hands-free reveals
No taps, no glances. Trigger the trick from across the room while your hands stay on the deck.
vibration
Tactile confirmation
Subtle haptics confirm your force is saved, so you can set the trick without breaking eye contact.
visibility
Live next-call indicator
An in-app pill shows whether the next Siri call will be your force or a random card. Stay in control between effects.
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Privacy by default
Force cards live in app-group storage on your iPhone. No accounts, no servers, no analytics.
Who It's For
theater_comedyStage performances
table_restaurantClose-up table sets
directions_walkWalk-around magic
schoolTeaching environments
Content Angles
The first stateful Siri intent built for performers
Most Siri shortcuts are stateless lookups. Pick a Card! uses a stateful AppIntent so the second call is always the force — turning a one-shot voice command into a multi-beat trick.
How AppIntents replaced a static utility with a trick engine
By scripting Siri behavior across calls, the developer turned a basic random-card responder into a performance tool indistinguishable from chance.
SwiftUI + AppIntents as a lightweight stack for performance-critical apps
No third-party dependencies, no analytics, no accounts. A 1.0 you can audit in an afternoon.
Privacy-first design in a category dominated by data-hungry apps
Force cards persist in an app-group UserDefaults suite, never leave the device, and never enter any analytics pipeline.
The Developer
Pick a Card! started as a single Siri shortcut: ask the phone to name a card. The trick was in the cycling — the second call had to be the force, and Siri had to forget on cue. Building that statefully across the AppIntents boundary was the whole challenge.
Once it worked, the rest was getting out of the way. The interface is dark by default, the haptics are quiet, the buttons say what they do. There are no accounts and nothing leaves the phone. The app is for the performer, not the platform.
