deadletter is a hidden layer on top of the city. Messages pinned to exact places — we call them drops.
A map will tell you a drop exists. Go to it to read the message. Communicate with a friend, stranger, or group. An underground postal service.
Named for the dead letter office, and for W.A.S.T.E., the secret postal system in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.
Write a message. Pick a paper stock and a stamp — or leave it to luck and every drop wears a different one. Hold your phone up and tap a real surface — a bench, a counter, a stairwell — and the drop is anchored to that exact point.
Drops can last a day, a week, or forever. Left alone, a drop stays. Permanence is a choice.
To read a drop you have to be within 15 meters of it, open the scanner, and find it waiting on the surface in front of you.
Leave and collect messages in person. The city is whispering.
Tap a drop to collect it. Everything you find stays in your collection — re-read it next week, or in a year, from anywhere.
Circles are private groups. You invite people with a code, and only members can find the drops you leave for that circle.
Direct drops are addressed to one username. The recipient still has to go and get it.
Direct drops are end-to-end encrypted — scrambled on your phone before they are ever uploaded, with keys that never leave the phones involved. Sealed letters. Not even we can open them. Circle drops are locked to the group.
Open drops are public by design and are not encrypted. Anyone standing close enough can read one. Leave accordingly.
No feed. No algorithm deciding what surfaces. No likes, no streaks, no infinite scroll, no ads. Nothing is ranked, because nothing is broadcast.
A small team who wanted to cure loneliness and likes reading.
deadletter is in a private TestFlight beta. iOS only. It is not on the App Store, and it cannot be downloaded publicly yet.
For an invite, or anything else, write to contact@dead-letter.com.
Minimum age 13