whoisbadai 🪢

This is first app in the world that uses an Airpod as a handheld IMU controller

Turn your left AirPod into a digital whip. Hold it in your hand, crack it like a whip, and an animated whip lashes across your screen with a sound — then fades out when you stop.

Inspired by OpenWhip, but driven by the motion sensor inside an AirPod instead of a mouse.

Built with Swift, SwiftUI, and Core Motion. The whip is drawn procedurally — no images, no third-party dependencies.

macOS 14+ and AirPods with motion support (AirPods Pro, AirPods 3rd gen, AirPods Max, or Beats Fit Pro).

An AirPod only reports motion while it's "active," so a one-time tweak keeps the left one streaming while it's in your hand:

1. System Settings → Bluetooth → ⓘ next to your AirPods → AirPods Settings
2. Turn off Automatic Ear Detection
3. Set Microphone to Always Left AirPod
4. Hold the left AirPod in your hand — that's your whip
5. Launch the app, tick Enable, and whip

Download whoisbadai.zip from Releases, unzip, and drag whoisbadai.app to /Applications. On first launch, approve Motion & Fitness.

The build is unsigned, so macOS may claim it's "damaged." Clear the quarantine flag once (right-click → Open won't work for this):

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/whoisbadai.app

open whoisbadai.xcodeproj   # then ⌘R

Core Motion streams the AirPod's accelerometer and gyro. A small detector fires a "whip" on a sharp flick, and a procedural rope-physics whip (ported from OpenWhip) cracks across a transparent, click-through overlay on top of everything. Closing the window keeps it running in the menu bar.

MIT © 2026 Pavlo Sharhan