‘Cook in The Matrix’ – Crouton creator Devin Davies becomes the first Kiwi to win an Apple Design Award

Christchurch software engineer Devin Davies was the first Kiwi to be nominated for an Apple Design Award and overnight became the first winner.

“Jab a tube in my spine and toss me in a goo pot. I want to cook in The Matrix,” The Late Show host Stephen Colbert enthused earlier this year as he played a clip of Wall Street Journal reviewer Joanna Stern cooking while wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset – as the Crouton app, developed by New Zealander Devin Davies, displayed a recipe in her augmented reality vision and allowed her to plonk virtual timers that hovered virtually over two real-life pots (the clip below starts with the culinary escapade).

It turns out Colbert and Stern aren’t the only fans of his work.

Overnight, Davies became the first New Zealander to win an Apple Design Award.

The software engineer, who works for Christchurch-based Smudge, was recognised for his work on Crouton at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2024.

Davies (left) and Smudge managing director Reuben Bijl travelled to Apple's campus in Cupertino, California for the WWDC awards ceremony.

There were 14 winners overall; Davies was one of two in the Innovation category.

Originally created in 2019 in Devin’s spare time, Crouton is a meal planner app that allows users to scan, save and store recipes. The free app has had more than 160,000 downloads.

“I started Crouton for myself and my family”, Davies said.

“Crouton is a safe place for your recipes from wherever you find them, websites, cookbooks, your grandma’s scribbled note. It makes it super easy to meal plan, so your shopping and cooking are made simple.”

Recipes can be dragged and dropped on to a calendar to create a meal planner for the week.

Vision Pro overlays a Crouton recipe - and uses the headset's spacial computing technology to display a size guide (the green virtual square) of a required pan. Image / Devin Davies

The app was created for iPhone and iPad before support for Apple’s Vision Pro was added with its most recent version – with the augmented reality headset overlaying recipe prompts, measurements and timers over your real-life view of your kitchen.

With the Vision Pro version of Crouton, you can plonk virtual timers over pots, which stay fixed in place as you move the headset.

Crouton is one of the first cooking apps on Apple’s Vision Pro and has been described as “a new way to cook” (even if most Kiwis will have to wait a while longer to try it; the first phases of an international rollout are expected next month). The app is rated 4.8 stars out of 5, from 602 user ratings.

Davies at Smudge's Christchurch office.

Davies, who graduated from Canterbury with a computer science degree in 2017, has been with Smudge since 2018.

heaviest Crouton ever. pic.twitter.com/MXTIeY4Gap

— Devin (@JustMeDevin) June 10, 2024

The Christchurch app shop’s recent projects include the Digital Notebook for the police (a longtime client) and partnering with a Christchurch Hospital-based team on a medical simulator.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.