This AI Builds Full Apps… Should You Use It?

A developer shares their experience using Orchids, an AI app builder, to rapidly prototype mobile apps. Key differentiators highlighted include a native desktop app, bring-your-own-API-key support, built-in VS Code editor, GitHub integration, and one-click Vercel deployment. The author built a recipe journal app for their wife and a daily productivity tracker, both using Expo for mobile with a Hono backend and Supabase. The post argues that AI builders like Orchids are now genuinely useful for experienced developers, not just no-code beginners, offering roughly 10x prototyping speed for side projects. The author acknowledges this is a sponsored video.