Forms that answer back

A farmer writes this week's vegetable list on her phone, sends it to twenty customers, and their orders land back in her app. Nobody signs up for anything; she runs no website. Here is the whole path — what she taps, what they see, where the orders arrive, and why only she can read them.

It is the same path for a sign-up sheet, a poll, an RSVP, a homework hand-in: one app, shared; many replies, back to one phone.

The path

Her phoneOrder Form — her items, her pricesInbox — the orders, as they come
the app, encrypted →
WeChat · WhatsApp · mail
← the order, sealed to her
through the blind relay
Their phonethe same form, her pricesquantities, a name, Send order

The relay in the middle is the only server involved, and it is blind: the order is encrypted on the customer's phone with a key only the farmer's phone can undo. No account, no login, on either side.

1 · Her side — the list goes out

  1. Get the form. Apps→Gallery→Order Form→Install. It needs no AI. (Or build one: “an order form for this week's vegetables”.)
  2. Put this week's list in. Open it, tap ⚙ Edit, and write one item per line — Tomatoes (kg), 4.50 — with the title on the first line. Save items.
  3. Send it. Long-press the app's tile → Share → Share link. Leave “Include its data” ticked — that tick is what carries her list and prices; without it her customers get the demo vegetables the template ships with. Then send the link through anything: WeChat, WhatsApp, iMessage, mail.
  4. Or send it to a group once. Circles→New circle→Invite, then post the app with ＋. Everyone in the circle gets it, and next week's list is one post rather than twenty messages.

The moment she shares it, Palmtop gives the app an inbox. The public half of it travels inside every copy and can only post; the private half never leaves her phone. She does not set anything up, and there is nothing to configure.

2 · Their side — the order comes back

  1. The customer taps the link. It opens Palmtop in their browser — any phone, no install, no account. (If they add Palmtop to their Home Screen, the app stays there for next week.)
  2. A card says what they are about to get — the name, what it does, and that it comes with data. They confirm Install.
  3. The form opens with her items and her prices. They enter quantities, their name, any note, and tap Send order.
  4. They see “Sent … 2 × Tomatoes, 1 × Eggs — 15.00”. That is their receipt; their copy keeps it.

Their copy has no Orders received panel — that part of the form only appears on the phone that created it. A customer sees their own order and nothing about anyone else's.

3 · Where the orders arrive

Two places, the same orders:

Inside the app

She opens her own copy of the Order Form and Orders received is there: a row per order, and a to pack line that adds the quantities up across every customer. It fetches whatever is new each time she opens it.

In the Inbox

Long-press the tile → Inbox: every reply to that app, newest last, with Refresh, Export CSV, Save into the app, Clear and Turn replies off. This one works for any app that takes replies, including one the AI wrote her.

With an AI set up, the Order Form also has ✨ Packing list and ✨ Customer notes, and a Bookkeeping button that needs no AI at all — it writes every order once into data/ledger.csv.

Why only she can read them

Every copy of the app carries a write token and her public key. A reply is sealed on the customer's phone to that public key and posted to the relay. Her phone alone holds the read token and the private key.

Five things that surprise people

Into a spreadsheet

Limits

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