[HN Gopher] I made a mobile app for my significant other and she... ___________________________________________________________________ I made a mobile app for my significant other and she won't use it Author : vuciv1 Score : 63 points Date : 2021-04-10 21:09 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (jerseyfonseca.com) (TXT) w3m dump (jerseyfonseca.com) | tanbog2 wrote: | Did you ever stop to consider that maybe you were "solving" | something that wasn't a problem. | | Maybe the process of talking about what you are going to watch | together is a valuable and fun part of your relationship in of | itself. | Lightbody wrote: | Just some friendly feedback that your comment would be a lot | more effective if you struck "did you ever stop to consider | that". That opening remark comes off unnecessarily aggressive / | accusatory and detracts from an otherwise interesting | perspective. | elanning wrote: | That was a fun read. Especially the funny bit at the end. Did you | consider making this a progressive web app? | vuciv1 wrote: | Thanks, I appreciate it :) | | I am definitely planning on making it a web app as well. I'm | also trying to make it such that no sign-ups are required. | | It shouldn't be too bad since I already have all the | functionality written, it will just take a bit of tjme | tobr wrote: | Why does an app like this need to have a sign-up process with | email, username and password? It's enough for me to not try the | app because of the mental overhead and risks involved, but it | also seems like a bunch of additional development for no (or | maybe negative) benefit. | vuciv1 wrote: | Totally understandable. The sign up process is just to store | your likes so that you don't need to swipe again on the same | movies. | | Its also so that you can lookup and add your friends. | | I understand the frustration, though. I'm working on a version | with webhooks where you can just join a lobby and start | swiping. | tobr wrote: | > The sign up process is just to store your likes so that you | don't need to swipe again on the same movies. | | > Its also so that you can lookup and add your friends. | | Right, but what about that requires me to type in three magic | strings into three (wait, actually probably six?) input | fields? Just associate the data on the server with some UUID | that you store on my device. Inviting others could work by | just sharing a link. | vuciv1 wrote: | I have a bit more to learn :) | jeffgreco wrote: | FWIW tools like Firebase Auth make the development piece fairly | negligible (and also have the concept of anonymous users). | vuciv1 wrote: | I haven't used firebase at all. I'll definitely look into it | aspaviento wrote: | The matching could be faster if you list the movies in the same | order (maybe change the order every X minutes) | wccrawford wrote: | The complaints about having to have enough screenshots and | information seems really ... dumb? The website has a bunch of | screenshots and info, and users will not download the app without | it. Google and Apple are doing you a favor by requiring that you | provide enough information. | | I think Apple's $100/yr is crazy, but I don't think Google's $25 | is bad. If you plan to make any money at all on it, that's | nothing. | | Scrolling through the site, it feels like the site is constantly | hiding information from me, and then spoon-feeding me bits that I | don't care about. The text doesn't even show up until it's | halfway up my screen, and then it's just a scroll or 2 from | disappearing. Scroll too fast and it's really hard to read. Maybe | you should animate the information leaving, instead of appearing. | You definitely should provide more information in a readable | form. | askafriend wrote: | $100 a year is nothing for a developer toolkit. In fact, it's a | great deal if you really think about all the infrastructure | that you get for free. | | Let's take a look at what MSDN costs for a pro-level | subscription (not even enterprise): "At the Professional | subscription level, you pay a not-insignificant sum: $539 per | year for an annual cloud subscription or $1,199 for the first | year of a perpetual license subscription, with renewals costing | $799 per year." | golf1052 wrote: | You're comparing two different things, the Apple and Android | fees are to get access to publish apps to the store. | | The developer toolkit which is used to build and test the | apps (Android Studio or XCode) are free. The Microsoft | comparison would be the $20 to publish in the Microsoft Store | and Visual Studio Community which is free to build and test | apps. | | "MSDN" is a bundle of additional developer tools that you | would use for a business (licensed Visual Studio, Azure | DevOps, training, and support). | jeroenhd wrote: | Depends on what you want to develop; if you need the Windows | driver kit then yes, those subscriptions are expensive (but | likely worth it). | | If you want the equivalent of app development on Windows | (meaning little to no access to kernel sources and such, just | a native UI), you can use the free version of Visual Studio | without the MSDN license [1]. The license allows commercial | development even with the free community version. | | You still need to pay +/- $20 to MS to publish apps to the MS | Store, but because Windows isn't a walled garden and barely | any Windows users are using the store anyway, you probably | don't need to bother. If you do pay, it's not a subscription | either; the costs are only made during registration. Just | like with Google, this keeps down (but does not prevent) the | creation of spam accounts. | | For most app developers, the infrastructure you get in return | isn't worth the $100 / year, because most apps don't get that | many downloads at all. Hosting APK or IPA files can be done | for one or two dollars per month for the first few hundred or | even thousand users, and by extending the store ecosystem, | you're also adding value to the platform itself. | | For iOS you can argue that the manual testing of the | application needs to be paid somehow, but the manual testing | Apple performs don't benefit you as a developer in any way; | they serve benefit the end user that downloads your apps, so | those costs should be recouped from the user (as part of the | iPhone sales price and the mandatory 15-30% cut Apple and | Google will take). | | If there was a way to build and publish applications without | the subscriptions, the fee might be reasonable if Apple can | defend the $99 / year. With the walled garden they've set up, | there's no competitors, and therefore there will never be an | alternative developer toolkit like those you can see for the | Android ecosystem. | | [1]: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/ | harikb wrote: | It would be comparable only if Microsoft said that an MSDN | Pro-level subscription is required to release apps for | Windows. Last time I used MSDN, we used to get free access to | tons of Microsoft Apps, that are otherwise paid. | abotsis wrote: | We used a similar app for baby names- it's a great idea for all | sorts of consensus. I actually think there's a large opportunity | to apply this in all sorts of ways: baby names and movies are | both great ideas, but anytime multiple people want to create | intersecting sets. Another one we thought of was pictures: 5 | people take 2-3 pictures of the same group photo, you have 10-15 | pictures that Becky wants to post, with everyone wanting to pick | the one where they "look best", how do you decide which one to | use? | CharlesW wrote: | > _Eat my butt, Apple. Eat my butt, Google. Just let me publish | my frickin app, you already emptied my pockets._ | | Said the guy whole stole the data that he couldn't have made the | app without. | read_if_gay_ wrote: | He wrote a web scraper. It's publicly available data. | mavhc wrote: | https://www.imdb.com/interfaces/ | | https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/getting-started/daily- | fi... | | No need to web scrape | CharlesW wrote: | That's not how it works. | | https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general- | information/can-i... | | > _Limited_ non-commercial use _of IMDb data is allowed..._ | | > _The data must be taken_ only from the datasets made | available _(see IMDb Contributor Datasets. You may not use | data mining, robots,_ screen scraping _, or similar online | data gathering and extraction tools on our website._ | | > _The data can only be used for personal and non-commercial | use and_ must not be altered /republished/resold/repurposed | to create any kind of online/offline database of movie | information _(except for individual personal use)._ | | > _You must_ acknowledge the source _of the data..._ | vuciv1 wrote: | I scraped it from a source that allows scraping :) | ajfjrbfbf wrote: | Next step is making it open source. | vuciv1 wrote: | Not quite yet. I am still trying to make my first dollar on the | internet | codecutter wrote: | Why settle for a dollar? If you are willing to make the | source code FLOSS, I will donate $10 to you. :) | 29083011397778 wrote: | Which would be hilarious, because the phrase | | > "I've never made any money from commercial applications | I've written. Made some cash off FLOSS though :)" | | is way cooler than making a couple bucks off the app store | and later open-sourcing it, IMO. | newbie578 wrote: | Seems like a fun app, simple and useful. | vuciv1 wrote: | Thank you, I appreciate it! | cbozeman wrote: | > Last weekend, my partner had her friends stay with us over the | weekend. We needed to find a movie to watch. This was my chance! | I was so excited! | | > "Let's use WeWatch!" | | > "No, it would take too long. Let's just watch Space Jam." | | The guy did a not-insignificant amount of work on an app and | his... "partner"... didn't even entertain the idea of using it; | if not for mere exposure to their friends, at least for an actual | "good" suggestion. | | Guy, you might wanna re-evaluate your "partnership". | | But hey, at least now I'm inspired to download it and try it out. | gambiting wrote: | I definitely read that last bit as tongue in cheek. Also | doesn't "No, it would take too long" imply that their partner | has used it in the past? Maybe the process really does take too | long, because you have to scroll through a 100 movies before | you find one you both like. And in that case it sounds like the | partner was decided what they wanted to watch - Space Jam. In | that case I'd just go "ok, sure, if you really want to watch | movie X then let's watch it". Obviously we're just sitting here | digesting someone's life on the internet. It's stupid anyway. | vuciv1 wrote: | Yeah, they would have had to download it, sign up, and add | us. | | She already knew what she wanted to watch, and we were all up | for it, so it was just a scenario where it genuinely wasn't | useful. | | Definitely tongue in cheek! | vuciv1 wrote: | I appreciate your concern. | | I used her as a punchline because I thought the title and story | was funny. | | She consistently helped me with testing, gave me feedback, and | let me talk her ear off about it for over a month. | | She's wonderful, don't worry :) | LikeAnElephant wrote: | I'm constantly badgering my non-technical partner to try random | tech shit & apps that she doesn't want and didn't ask for. She | tells me no sometimes, and usually for good reason. | | Please tell me internet person with zero insight into my | personal life: should I end my longterm relationship just like | you're advising the author to? | rzzzt wrote: | Would it take too long or not? I feel that is the deciding | factor. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | Sounds like an app opportunity right there. | nindalf wrote: | Seems like you need /r/relationship_advice. Anything a | romantic partner does is a Red Flag. The only fix is to | immediately hit facebook, delete the gym and fire your | lawyer. | NiceWayToDoIT wrote: | In my mind this is an example of solving a problem that does not | exist. Why just not simply say "we watching 2 movies a week, once | you choose and I'll choose next, and so on..."? | | p.s. Credits and kudos for learning new things ! | pyjug wrote: | I made a "feeding tracker" app because my wife wanted to wean our | infant off breast milk. There are mobile apps that do this, but | the problem was that we didn't want to wake up our child due to | the phone screen at night. So, I hooked up an IoT button to | Lambda + Dynamo, created a UI and everything -- my wife only | needed to press the button. Turns out my wife was generally too | sleepy and forgot to press the button. Also turns out that she | liked to breast feed anyway, so the app went totally unused. User | requirements are hard! | franl wrote: | V2 if necessary, how about a weight sensor under her feeding | chair cushion? No button press necessary! | vuciv1 wrote: | That's adorable, I always thought it was cute when tech people | made things for their partners. | | I'm hoping to make something for our anniversary that she'll | actually enjoy :) | mr_sturd wrote: | Seems like a cool app; will definitely give it a go. | | Does/will the the app filtering by streaming service take region | in to account? | nvahalik wrote: | Seems like this could have just been a mobile web page? | dvt wrote: | > Eat my butt, Apple. Eat my butt, Google. Just let me publish my | frickin app, you already emptied my pockets. | | I feel this. A few years ago, I made a joke app[1] which got a | bit famous on campus back when I was in school, and the process | of getting it on the Play store was literally harder than writing | the darn thing. Nowadays, it even got removed from the Play store | for some reason. I couldn't imagine running an app for a living | where you have to deal with absentee/abusive parents like Google | and Apple just to put bread on the table. | | Cool app and congrats on the users! 400 ain't nothin' to scoff at | :) | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0nn8d6katk | mihaaly wrote: | agreed! publishing is the hardest part. | askafriend wrote: | As a user, I'm very happy the stores impose stringent rules. | | "And there are all these stupid requirements. I need at least X | screenshots, and they have to be this exact resolution blah | blah blah. On top of that, it took so long to get approved. My | ADHD brain really suffered waiting for the gratification." | | I would hate to browse a store where the products didn't have | at least X screenshots with at least X resolution, etc etc. The | process for getting into the store shouldn't be easy and the | quality bar should be high. I pay Apple to uphold this bar by | any means necessary. | flohofwoe wrote: | Why would you care about applications that you wouldn't use | or even know that they exist though? Do you also care about | web pages you don't know about? The store just wouldn't put | such "non-conforming" apps at the top of search results. | bredren wrote: | The hurdles are high but if you've been doing mobile releases | for a while, they aren't that bad. There are more asset | requirements now but I think dealing with iTunes Connect back | in the day and all of its friction was harder. | wccrawford wrote: | They really aren't that high. I had to create a listing for | my test apps at work one day and I was able to create | everything I needed in like 30 minutes, tops. And that was | without actually knowing what I'd need ahead of time. | avereveard wrote: | How do I unlock that mythical high quality app experience? | 99% of the stuff is crap adware and copypasted apps, letting | some indie in it is not going to significantly move the | average. | serf wrote: | > As a user, I'm very happy the stores impose stringent | rules. | | Presumably you're speaking from the Apple side of things, | because the Play Store is a fragmented wasteland of low- | effort/sometimes-malicious shovelware that barely functions. | | To me that means that the hoops Google makes one jump through | for app publishing are accomplishing next to nothing with | regards to app quality. | vuciv1 wrote: | Thanks :) I appreciate it. | | I also meant this to be a learning experience/just for my | friends, so I totally feel that frustration! | fake-name wrote: | I feel like we need a add-on to the old quote 'Some people, when | confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular | expressions." Now they have two problems.' | | 'Some people, when confronted with a interpersonal relationship | problem, think "I know, I'll use software". Now they have two | problems.' | | This is cute, but it's trying to solve a people problem with | software. | speedcoder wrote: | My therapist told me once: "people are not programs." | arkitaip wrote: | Her name didn't happen to be Eliza, huh? | great_reversal wrote: | > Last weekend, my partner had her friends stay with us over the | weekend. We needed to find a movie to watch. This was my chance! | I was so excited! | | > "Let's use WeWatch!" | | > "No, it would take too long. Let's just watch Space Jam." | | I watch a lot of movies and honestly the swipe-approach would | take way too long. My preferred way is to just scroll through a | long list of movies (alphabetically) and pick one I want to | watch. Or some of the movies in the list will remind me of a | different movie I want to watch. Just movie titles, no images or | anything else. | | One thing you realize is that a lot of movies start with "The". | tenryuu wrote: | An uncommon solution I've seen for this is to instead place | 'the" after the rest of the title | | "Mummy, The", "Thing, The" | shric wrote: | Kodi ignores "The" for sorting purposes but still displays it | on the titles | clairity wrote: | that's not uncommon. that's literally how you're supposed to | alphabetize, by ignoring the introductory article (referring | to 'a', 'an', & 'the', not a piece of writing). | mihaaly wrote: | Interesting, I made an app for anyone, but only my significant | other used it. :) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-10 23:00 UTC)