In an era where startup hustle culture has returned, and “locked in” tech entrepreneurs have even adopted the “996” work schedule — 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week — the idea of utilizing an AI app to create fabricated vacation images of oneself feels somewhat dystopian.
And yet, this is where we find ourselves.
Laurent Del Rey, a product designer who recently became a member of Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, has launched a side project called Endless Summer. This iPhone photobooth app generates AI-created vacation photos featuring you in various locations around the globe. Here you are, discovering a coastal town or enjoying a view of a European city from your terrace. There you are, shopping, dining with friends, or attending a social event.
None of the individuals in these photos appear to be discussing AI, entrepreneurship, or sleep deprivation.
As Del Rey mentioned when announcing the launch on X, the purpose of the new app is for moments “when burnout hits and you need to manifest the soft life u deserve.”
(If you’re unable to experience life, you might as well fake it, correct?)
The product designer informed TechCrunch that his inspiration for creating the app came from his love for summer and the feeling it evokes.
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“As the season concludes, I aimed to create something that captured that feeling. The product experience was reverse-engineered from that sentiment,” he explains. “I initiated an Xcode project and began iterating directly, shaping the code experience, so to speak.”
He settled on a straightforward user interface with a small camera preview button at the bottom. Tapping this button generates an AI “summer” photo. With each click, the photos appear on your screen in a camera roll-like format. Each photo showcases you, or rather an AI representation of you, exploring the world and appearing reasonably content.
Underneath it all, Gemini’s Nano-Banana image-model is doing most of the work, as the app prompts the model for various versions of the summer photo output.
Del Rey states that the app doesn’t save your selfies, unless you’ve enabled the optional auto-generation mode. Additionally, users have the ability to delete their account at any moment with just two taps, which deletes everything.
Although Nano-Banana is relatively inexpensive, it still has associated costs. Consequently, Endless Summer doesn’t allow you to generate unlimited photos for free. Instead, you’ll encounter a paywall after the first six images, with payment options suggested even before that.
The pricing isn’t too steep if you’re interested in casually exploring personalized AI imagery out of curiosity — or due to regretting the absence of a summer vacation this year.
It costs $3.99 for 30 images, $17.99 for 150, and $34.99 for 300. You have the choice to enable or disable a “Room Service” mode that automatically sends you two photos each morning, depicting your latest summer adventures and travels around the world. You can also specify your gender in the app or allow it to guess (“Auto” mode), and you can toggle an option to automatically save the AI images to your iPhone’s Camera Roll.
A recent addition to the app is the option to generate Halloween photos rather than summer ones, showcasing you in diverse costumes.
The photos possess a vintage film aesthetic, making them resemble the casual lifestyle pictures they’re meant to be. This adds a sense of nostalgia to the app, reminiscent of the mid-2000s.
This is in line with contemporary trends in online photo sharing. Whether it involves embracing outdated technology, such as zoomers using disposable cameras, or posting blurry photo dumps on Instagram, there’s a desire for a less refined, less “technically perfect” portrayal of life among some individuals.
Isn’t it peculiar that AI is now providing that?
