[HN Gopher] MaskerAid iOS App
___________________________________________________________________
MaskerAid iOS App
Author : ilarum
Score : 233 points
Date : 2022-03-17 12:42 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.caseyliss.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.caseyliss.com)
| Grustaf wrote:
| I heard him say on some podcast that he thinks there is a
| possibility for him to make real money on this, but I would say
| there isn't. Very few people care about this, and almost none of
| that already small group will have heard of the app.
|
| Plus I can't even see how this simplifies anything, if you're
| posting to instagram it's surely simpler to skip the extra step
| and just use instagram's built in editor, even if you have to
| place the emojis yourself?
|
| Or you could just not post those photos. What's even the point of
| posting a photo of your child, with the face hidden? Seems very
| niche. Just post another photo.
|
| Casey Liss is a very anxious person, there is nothing wrong with
| that but if you make apps for people like yourself, it's an
| advantage to be more mainstream!
| scarface74 wrote:
| There is another reason that he mentioned. If podcasting
| doesn't work out, he can show that he still has up to date iOS
| development skills.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Ok, but he also mentioned it took him 6 months to make it, so
| those skills might not be quite up to date...
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Personal attacks are a bad look.
|
| This sort of nitpicky comment is exactly why people stress
| about putting stuff on the Internet.
| Grustaf wrote:
| It's not an attack, it's just a statement. If one purpose
| is to appear employable, he should not mention that it
| took him 6 months to write it because that is just too
| long.
| yokoprime wrote:
| From reading your comments it seems like you're hoping or
| at least expecting this app to fail, not because it's
| bad, but because of what you think about the personality
| of the creator. It's weird and seems pretty toxic. You
| don't like the app, say what's bad about the app, don't
| shit all over the creator.
| Grustaf wrote:
| The app is not bad. If I had this need I would have used
| it. Well if Instagram hadn't had it built in.
|
| Many apps with worse UX and UI have been roaring
| successes, that is not the issue. I'm just saying that I
| think it's very unlikely he will make any money from it,
| for reasons I've outlined before.
|
| If malice was my motive, then I would egg him on,
| encourage him to spend lots of time doing something that
| doesn't appear to be a strength.
| scarface74 wrote:
| It isn't his full time job. He was doing it as a side
| project
|
| He's on a 3 person podcast that could very well gross
| over $850K a year - 3 ad reads * 5500 * 52 weeks a year
| [1]. I wouldn't make doing an app a high priority either.
|
| He's also on other podcasts.
|
| [1] https://atp.fm/sponsor
| Grustaf wrote:
| Yeah I wouldn't spend a second thinking of that if I were
| on a high profile podcast like that. Much better to focus
| on growing that brand.
| kemayo wrote:
| Mind you, given that Liss is on a bunch of Apple-focused
| podcasts, writing and publishing and marketing an iOS app
| really is giving him useful brand-related experiences.
| Being able to pull out recent personal anecdotes is very
| handy, even if he doesn't make any notable money directly
| from it.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Sure, in theory that makes sense. But he hasn't mentioned
| it once before last week, and he usually talks very
| little about his apps, so I don't think that is the main,
| or even an important reason. He also hasn't mentioned
| that as a reason.
| scarface74 wrote:
| He's been talking about his apps for a decade. I first
| heard about FastText from an episode of Marco's first
| podcast.
|
| He talked about his other app too.
|
| Siracusa even talks about his little Mac App Store apps
| that he admits may have made $30.
|
| Marco is the only one who considers his app development
| as a real income stream.
| Pyramus wrote:
| It's one thing to "write an app" and something else
| completely to bring it to a standard consumable by lay
| users.
|
| Having published and maintained an app that is in active
| use by even a couple hundred users gives you an advantage
| in employability and quite a big one at that.
|
| Your post makes it seem like you have neither published
| an app yourself nor hired single devs who have, and it's
| easy to not appreciate.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I've been a professional iOS developer for a decade. 6
| months is way too long for that app. My very first app
| took 10 weeks, including learning to program, and it was
| more complex than MaskerAid. And better looking, was even
| featured in the app store in a few countries.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Well then - congratulations! You are an outlier.
|
| From my experience significantly less than 5% of
| iOS/Android devs have created a somewhat popular app, and
| maintained it for some time.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Oh, it wasn't popular, only got a few thousand downloads,
| I was hired by a social media app right when I finished
| my own app so I never had time to market it. Not that I
| would know how to do that. It was just an experiment.
| vxNsr wrote:
| I just took a look at your website, and your profile
| there, such as it is, it says you "built product at
| Apple". Not sure what that means, though it implies you
| worked at apple, meanwhile your LinkedIn profile only
| lists your finance and environmental industry positions,
| so not really sure what to make of that. Regardless you
| appear to be a 0.01%er congrats, but no need to talk down
| to others.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Unless you want to hire me or invest, you don't need to
| make anything of that. Just trust me, 6 months is way too
| long. Or listen to the cohosts' reaction when he mentions
| it.
|
| Not talking down, just telling it like it is. There is no
| rule on HN that you may only post laudatory comments.
| That would make the whole site useless. My point is that
| if he wants to be employable, he either needs to become
| more efficient, or at least hide how slow he is.
|
| I'm sure he's raking in cash from the podcast so he
| shouldn't really worry about it at all in my opinion.
| scarface74 wrote:
| It was a passion project. I'm sure he wasn't expecting to
| make even as much money as he makes from being a cohost
| on a podcast that charges $5500/ad read * 3 ad reads.
|
| I wouldn't be in a hurry to get it done either.
| Grustaf wrote:
| That's not the impression I got. To me it sounded like he
| was hoping to earn money from it. He said the same thing
| about his youtube channel, which also seemed very
| unlikely.
| scarface74 wrote:
| He's been friends with most of the most successful indie
| developers in the iOS world - his cohost Marco - do you
| really think that Marco didn't help set realistic
| expectations?
| Grustaf wrote:
| Well clearly he didn't, or at least it didn't help. Did
| you hear Casey talk about the app? Very unrealistic. Plus
| Marco didn't even test the app before it was launched, so
| I don't think he's been very involved. To be honest their
| friendship looks very asymmetric.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Now let's say you were already making over a quarter
| million a year doing one podcast for 3 hours a week. How
| much effort would you put into an app?
| Grustaf wrote:
| Zero, that's my point. It's a waste of time.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So you have never done passion projects just to keep your
| skills up and stay familiar with an ecosystem?
| Grustaf wrote:
| No, not really. I've done passion projects for things I
| have a passion for, but not for keeping my skills up.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Well many people do. Like Casey, I did a pivot from pure
| software development to a job that pays much more given
| my skillset and interest. But is much more of a niche.
|
| I keep an active open source profile just so I can pivot
| back to pure software development if needed. Casey likely
| makes more as a podcast host than he would make in corp
| dev as a mobile developer. Before that he was a .Net
| developer.
| cjensen wrote:
| It's something to talk about on a podcast, so it is not a
| waste of time. Also, for many of us programmers, we
| really need programming in our lives otherwise we get
| that itch.
|
| Your comments have been terribly absolutist about your
| own opinions. Please accept that other people have
| different priorities than you. Accept that other people
| have different comfort levels regarding their children's
| privacy than you. There's nothing wrong with your
| priorities, but there's also nothing wrong with people
| whose priorities are different.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I'm not saying people don't hide their children's faces,
| I know they do, saw it first in Japan more than a decade
| ago.
|
| Im also not saying anything against his priorities, I
| don't care how he spends his time.
|
| What I am saying is I don't think this app will make
| money, so _if_ that is his main motivation, _then_ it 's
| a waste of time.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| When someone says they spent N months on something,
| that's not total clock time they spent in the code
| editor. It means they built it over the course of N
| months. You actually have no idea how long it took them.
| kemayo wrote:
| Yeah, unless Liss explicitly said he was working full-
| time on it, I'd very much assume this is a "the thing I
| was fiddling with around my other responsibilities"
| project.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Not long after that, they talk about how the first version
| of the app that had all the functionality was done much
| earlier, and the rest of the time was due to him doing pass
| after pass improving the UX (and time off for the
| holidays). That's incredible dedication and I honestly
| think it reflects well on him.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Have you tried the app? The UX is not that good, you
| can't resize and move the emojis at the same time, you
| have to choose one task at a time. Plus you need to put
| both fingers inside the rectangle it seems, there should
| be a very generous touch area outside the emoji itself.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Most corporation don't hire iOS developers because of
| their great UX skills. They have an entire department to
| worry about the look and feel of the app.
|
| Heck Marco, his cohost, has been very successful first
| with Instapaper and then with Overcast. He will be the
| first to admit that his UI skills aren't that great.
|
| It's not like Tumblr - he was the initial developer - was
| ever a thing of beauty.
| Grustaf wrote:
| It was a comment on the comment I replied to.
|
| But:
|
| 1. UI is not UX 2. Marco doesn't have a UX department
|
| Not sure what your point is about Marco to be honest.
| scarface74 wrote:
| That software engineers are not usually judged by their
| ability to do good UX and UI.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I replied to this:
|
| > the rest of the time was due to him doing pass after
| pass improving the UX
| greedo wrote:
| From what he's said, MaskerAid is completely written in
| Swift/SwiftUI so perhaps his goal is to bring his skills up
| to date?
| [deleted]
| _fat_santa wrote:
| You also have to consider the modal, a one time 99 cent
| purchase. As much as a despise all those apps with
| subscriptions, it's the only way for an app like this to bring
| in the dough.
|
| That is not so say what the developer here did was wrong, I
| commend him for having the integrity to not reach for a
| "99cents/month" subscription, but that is unfortunately where
| all the money is unless you have a high volume app.
| vohu43 wrote:
| Guess you have no idea with what apps you can make money :) If
| you have a decent app and good pricing you can convert
| something between 1-5% of downloads to paying customers. With
| his audience and reach he can easily make real money. Probably
| not life changing, but still a few hundred bucks each month.
| [deleted]
| xnyan wrote:
| He said on a podcast that he spent "6 months" developing it.
| I very much doubt that was 6 months of full-time work, but
| even if that was only 10 hours a week, and even if the "cost"
| was let's say $100 (probably much more) an hour, that's
| around $25k or 7 straight years of $300 a month (that never
| goes down for 7 years, aka impossible) to recoup his
| investment. That's an absolute low end, I think you could
| easily argue the cost was 4x that, which means it would take
| 28 years of sales that never dip to break even. There's no
| possible way he could make anything besides less-than-nothing
| level money at $300 a month or anything close to that amount.
|
| As he explained on his podcast, this project was designed to
| solve his own problem. The problem with apps designed to
| solve your own problem is that very often, your problem is
| not 1) shared by others willing to pay or 2) you don't solve
| the problem in the same way others want to solve a problem.
| Grustaf wrote:
| A few hundred bucks a month is for all intents and purposes
| "nothing". It's a rounding error in terms of the time he
| spent on it.
| eddieroger wrote:
| Heard the same, thought the same. Casey succumbed to the
| struggle I find myself dealing with all the time - he found a
| problem with a technological solve and solved it with
| technology, which is only something other technologists do or
| want. Like you said, Instagram has a facility to already put
| stickers on images for people who wish to censor their pics. If
| they're not using Instagram, maybe the other program can do the
| same, if they user even cares at all. How do you convince
| someone with an existing workflow to change? "Why do I need
| another app," they will ask you. I wish him luck and applaud
| the nerve to go it alone in the tech world, but I'm not sure
| this is a diamond waiting to be found.
| samhw wrote:
| As one of our VCs once wisely said to us: "The hardest thing
| is to get a consumer to install a new app. Deliver your
| solution any way other than its own app."
| vincentmarle wrote:
| I would take "VC advice" with a big grain of salt...
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| That doesn't sound like it's generalizable.
|
| You may as well say, "the hardest thing is to get a
| consumer to sign up for yet another service". And it is
| hard. But that is precisely how a new consumer app would
| get traction. It's not like Buzzfeed where no login is
| required, and the only thing that matters is ad
| impressions.
| Grustaf wrote:
| The point is if you can avoid making an app, that's
| better. Obviously if it has to be an app, then make an
| app.
| rchaud wrote:
| That too doesn't sound right. Every consumer app I use
| begs me to use their dedicated native app on mobile. Even
| though I'm a signed up user on the web site. The only
| reason they do this is because app-level surveillance and
| telemetry is unblockable, whereas the web allows me to
| block what I want.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Of course it's better for them if the CAN make you
| install it. Just like it's better for a company if they
| can convince you to sign up for something, or at least
| give them your email. But the point is that if you can
| expose your clients to your service without all that,
| then you should avoid introducing the hurdle, you don't
| want to scare anyone off.
|
| So: make it possible to use the service without any
| hurdles, but _try_ to get them to agree to as much as
| possible.
| nradov wrote:
| That doesn't seem so wise. Consumers install a lot of apps.
| On the Google Play store, even some obscure apps have huge
| download numbers.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yes and no; there are a few handfuls of apps that Made It
| in that they are only viable as apps, the ones that people
| will cycle through and open up multiple times a day. It is
| really hard to get to that point though. I mean the last
| ones I can think of that people installed were TikTok
| (similar appeal as Instagram, maybe Snapchat) and FaceApp
| (short lived gimmick).
| reaperducer wrote:
| I think the app gold rush is over. We've passed the time
| when every company "needs" an app.
|
| Even marketing managers can look at their phones and
| realize, "Why do I have all of these apps? I don't even
| know what half of these things are for anymore?"
|
| I recently moved, and my new building has separate apps
| for: Package notifications, dry cleaning pick up/drop
| off, paying rent, the speakers in the ceilings, building
| bulletin board, reserving a common space, reserving the
| freight elevators, maintenance requests, pet care
| service, doorman notifications, self-parking, valet
| parking, and probably a bunch more that I've forgotten
| because I'd rather let my wife deal with that stuff than
| overwhelm myself with apps.
|
| And that's just the building. Nevermind grocery delivery,
| each individual utility, food delivery, restaurants, and
| on and on and on.
|
| My wife is a big app person. Hates using mobile web
| sites. She has at least 200 apps on her phone, all
| obsessively organized in tiny folders. But even she has
| started using the web versions of things, just because
| having so many apps has finally become harder than
| clicking a bookmark in Safari.
| rchaud wrote:
| Just curious, can your wife tell the difference between a
| native mobile app and an app that's mostly a webview?
| freedomben wrote:
| Not GP, but no mine can't. She replaced the facebook app
| with Slim Social (which is basically FB in a web view)
| and barely noticed a difference between native and web
| view.
| spoonjim wrote:
| I have hundreds or maybe even thousands of apps on my
| phone but don't scroll through them. I always use search
| or Siri to open them
| freedomben wrote:
| I agree. I hesitate to use myself as a data point because
| I'm very sensitive to privacy and security issues (and
| thus often refuse to use apps that don't have a web
| version), but it seems like there are a lot more web
| options than there used to be.
|
| Apps definitely have a place for some use cases, but for
| most they just have so many downsides, especially
| invasive privacy violations. I think of running an app as
| similar to running some unknown/close source binary as
| root on my machine. Why give an app access to a whole
| bunch of APIs that can be used to mine me for data when
| it isn't needed?
|
| Cross platform usability is also a big thing. Any apps
| that require typing are much better done on a laptop or
| desktop with a keyboard. Why should I be forced to use my
| tiny phone screen and super awkward mobile keyboard to
| fill out a form when I have a perfectly good laptop right
| next to me? Why should I have to run a specific operating
| system (apple or android) in order to be able to fill out
| the form?
|
| Few people I know still get excited about apps. The
| curiosity and fascination is largely over. Unless there's
| a compelling reason, people don't want to install
| "another app"
| scarface74 wrote:
| I keep reading about websites providing more privacy.
| What exactly can apps do to invade your privacy on iOS
| without your explicit permission?
| brundolf wrote:
| I know lots of pseudonymous people on Twitter who have large
| enough followings that they don't want to share their face or
| real name, and I've seen them do this sort of thing
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I think the issue is that adding stickers to images is second
| nature to anyone who uses Instagram.
| kemayo wrote:
| This is a little strange to hear, since it's genuinely not
| possible (as far as I can tell) in the _main part of the
| app_. Stories, yes, but not in the feed.
|
| It's as if people use these things in wildly divergent
| ways, I guess.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Good point, I forgot that's only for stories.
|
| The iOS markup editor isn't nearly as friendly for
| slapping on emojis and resizing them with two fingers.
|
| That said there seem to be various photo editing apps
| that do make it easier that OP app is competing with.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| I said on Twitter that there is a very obvious revenue strategy
| here. Pivot from tots to thots. Thots need to post censored
| versions of their photos on Instagram as the top of their Only
| Fans funnel. It's a business expense for them. Seed it to some
| influencers but ask them to leave on the watermarks and then
| wait for other cam girls to buy it because all their friends
| are using it.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Brilliant! Then he could also bring back the old name.
| thenayr wrote:
| eckza wrote:
| Personally, I've been waiting for an app like this for a long
| time.
|
| I don't use social media, but I have a group chat with a
| handful of close friends. Sometimes, I like to insert emojis
| into a photo for comedic effect.
|
| Now I can do this without fighting with iOS's horrible Markup
| editor.
|
| (Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this isn't part of iOS
| already.)
| vxNsr wrote:
| But it's relatively easy to use iOS's markup editor. The
| whole time he was explaining this app all I could think
| was... it's so much easier to just use the markup editor.
|
| If you're sharing to WhatsApp... just use their editor, it
| allows adding stickers and emojis natively, it doesn't auto
| detect faces... but is that strictly necessary?
|
| For double points, if you don't wanna share on WhatsApp you
| can still use their editor and just send it to yourself. Now
| you are still only using one app, and the new photo is saved
| automatically to your camera roll.
| perardi wrote:
| I kind of hate-listen to ATP at this point, as the only one
| who lives in the real world is Siracusa...
|
| ...but this is actually not easy to do via the iOS markup
| editor. It defaults to a pencil tool that draws way too
| fine of a line to mask a face without a loooot of
| scribbling, and adding a shape is a lot of taps. And text,
| forget about it, that's a pain in the default iOS editor.
| (Instagram: way better at this.)
|
| This is a weird niche of a tool--it's for people who are
| posting photos to the Instagram timeline where you can't
| use the built-in stickers feature, or sending a lot of
| photos via Messages. But for this tiny niche: sure, useful.
| greedo wrote:
| Siracusa is great to listen to since he can make very
| complex subjects seem simple. His writing with Ars was
| similar. I listen to his other podcast and wish there was
| a way to mute his co-host so I only heard John. Despite
| the rambling, incoherent interruptions from said co-host,
| I still listen to the podcast because the value in
| listening to Siracusa outweighs the pain from MM.
| soylentcola wrote:
| Can you do it in the default photo editing app? Don't have
| any iOS devices handy to check out, but on my current phone,
| the standard Google Photos app has text markup - including
| emojis.
|
| Just tested it out and I was easily able to put an emoji over
| a face and resize/rotate it with pinch/drag type motions.
| Anything like that in the default Apple app?
|
| Granted, there is nothing like the automation features in
| OP's app, so at least that part is interesting.
| perardi wrote:
| Frustratingly, no.
|
| If you insert a photo into Messages and hit Markup, the
| first view gives you a bunch of pen/pencil/brush options,
| with fixed sizes per brush. There's a plus button that
| allows you to insert shapes and text...but you _can 't
| pinch-zoom_ to scale the text. You then have to tap around
| again to set the font size and color.
|
| It's a weird, neglected-feeling interface. They could
| borrow a lot from Instagram's story editor.
| prea wrote:
| > What's even the point of posting a photo of your child, with
| the face hidden? Seems very niche.
|
| Might be a cultural US thing, but this is something my wife
| does a lot and I see a lot of people doing. It's one of those
| things that might not make sense if you don't have kids.
| rchaud wrote:
| It makes total sense. I don't have kids, but I certainly
| understand that they aren't old enough to understand the
| principle of consent when it comes to being photographed for
| pics that will be shared online by their parents.
|
| So blurring them out somehow protects privacy and lets
| parents their habitual social media posting.
| distartin wrote:
| I think it's not just US thing, I've seen parents did the
| same thing outside US. There's a market for this but urgency
| is probably low, fortunately this got viral
| Grustaf wrote:
| I have kids, and don't mind posting their photos. But if I
| did, why post at all? It just seems weird. "Here's my son,
| minus the face. Oh he's so cute!"
| mysterydip wrote:
| I have a friend who does this for her foster kid(s).
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| My in-laws foster and this is the first use case I
| thought of. It's sad to take a big family photo and
| either not be able to share it, or have to take a
| duplicate without the foster child.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Why do you need to do that?
| ajbourg wrote:
| Speaking as a foster parent: my agency like many have
| rules against posting foster kids to social media.
| Usually intended to help protect kid's privacy. I think
| the motivation comes from a handful of places, protecting
| kids from being exploited for likes, keeping kids
| privacy, but a big one in foster circles is so that
| people don't know you're a foster kid unless you say so.
| Most adults in the system take great care to not
| acknowledge kids if they run into them in public to avoid
| situations where kids have to explain to their friends,
| "Who is that?" and then having an awkward situation where
| they have to say something like, "That's my
| caseworker/therapist/whatever".
| Grustaf wrote:
| Some of these make sense (not that I agree with them),
| but don't seem peculiar to foster children. But what does
| this one mean?
|
| > so that people don't know you're a foster kid unless
| you say so.
|
| If you post a photo of your family and none of the
| children have emoji faces, why would anyone conclude that
| the foster child is a foster child? Because he looks
| different? Seems to me that emoji:ing out one child would
| do the opposite, draw attention to him.
|
| EDIT: It seems we are talking about temporary
| arrangements, then things become clearer. Still very
| weird photos.
| ajbourg wrote:
| I was referring generally to the general desire for "the
| system" to preserve the privacy of kids in care. I think
| you have to look at it holistically and not just social
| media. We also signed agreements that we would be very
| careful with the information we received about our
| placements, they don't deserve their story being blasted
| around (even to close friends and family) unless it is
| needed for the benefit of the child, and even then only
| to the degree necessary.
|
| I've been in doctor's appointments where the nurse is
| quizzing me on my family medical history and I've had to
| stop them with, "We're not biologically related and I
| don't know the biological history". No need for them to
| know the whole story.
|
| I feel privacy for kids is really important, for a number
| of different reasons. (preventing kids from being
| exploited for likes by foster parents, preservation and
| ownership for them to tell their story in their way when
| they are ready for it, privacy, sometimes protection from
| relatives that don't have their best interests at heart,
| and probably a dozen other reasons I have never thought
| of.) The best default is really to keep everything
| private in my opinion, but obviously not every agency or
| foster parent will agree to all the same specifics as me.
| greedo wrote:
| Not all foster kids come from the same ethnic
| backgrounds. So for example if you're Caucasian and post
| a picture of your family with a foster child who is
| Asian, or African-American etc, it can bring unwanted
| attention.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Not saying you're wrong at all, I have zero insight into
| foster care. Just trying to understand.
|
| But why is it a problem if someone sees a family photo
| and notices that one kid looks different? He could just
| be adopted, or a friend or something. Is it something
| like witness protection, the children might have abusive
| parents that shouldn't be able to find them?
|
| If it's a matter of not standing out, they will stand out
| just as much when you meet them anyway, right?
| greedo wrote:
| The number of people you meet in person is limited by
| geography. The number of people who might view a photo
| online is 7+ billion.
|
| Foster kids might have abusive parents as you surmised.
| They might have been removed from an unsafe home, or have
| relatives that were denied custody and might act on a
| photo.
| andrewoneone wrote:
| Why do you care? Nearly every comment you've left here in
| this post has negative language. You claim to have been
| an iOS developer for ten years - where's your podcast?
| Where are your apps on the app store that you're posting
| publicly about? Why aren't we talking about Grustaf in
| this post? Find empathy. Find humility. Find more in life
| than being a negative person on the internet.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I asked because I didn't see why foster children
| specifically had to be hidden.
|
| The reason you are not talking about me is that I'm not
| famous. Does that disqualify me from having an opinion?
| Do all opinions have to be positive? Do I have to
| (pretend to) believe that this app can make money? That
| seems pretty strange, this is not a kindergarten,
| grownups should be able to handle feedback even when it's
| not praise. If he needs empathy, he should go to his
| friends and family. I will just write what I believe, and
| that is that this is not a monetizable service, he is
| wasting his time.
|
| He obviously has made a name for himself in podcasting,
| so he should double down on that. He is clearly not a
| product person, and I don't think he's a very good
| developer, he will do much better focusing on his
| strengths.
|
| I'm curious, why do I need to have a podcast if I have
| been an iOS developer for 10 years, what's the
| connection?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Probably varies by location but here's what Connecticut
| DCF has to say about it:
|
| _> Please refrain from posting any photos or information
| on social media websites about the child /ren in your
| care. Their presence in your home should be treated as
| confidential information is not to be referred to on any
| social media websites._
|
| https://portal.ct.gov/DCF/CTFosterAdopt/Manual/Chapter2#S
| cho...
| coin wrote:
| Yes it's bizarre and I don't understand it. Didn't even
| realize it's a thing.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| For some, its not about the kids its about showing
| themselves as a parent.
|
| For others, its about sharing with people that you know
| that you and your kids had a good time while providing some
| privacy protection for your kids. Micro-managing who can
| see what picture is hard, the people that know your kids
| get the full mental image from the picture.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| This post made it make sense to me. It's about the people
| taking the photos and some external validation thing.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > the people that know your kids get the full mental
| image from the picture.
|
| Maybe it's just me but this kinda thing seems a little
| weird. If it's too much work to partition into groups
| then maybe not post at all? But then again I'm not doing
| any social networks so I guess I'm not the intended
| audience.
| ProAm wrote:
| To be fair their podcast has two programmers and a stay at
| home dad so it makes sense why he only had focus on his
| kids. The app isnt worth .99 cents though with questionable
| utility and a plethora of other apps that do this for free.
| greedo wrote:
| To be accurate, all three of the hosts are programmers.
| ProAm wrote:
| Two of them are working programmers though and, in my
| opinion, much stronger programmers. I just think it's
| clear why he thought this was a valuable app idea.
| greedo wrote:
| I've listened to ATP since day one. My impression of
| Siracusa as a programmer is limited to the few apps he's
| released. But he could be a fantastic programmer at his
| "jobby-job." Or he could just be average. We have no way
| of telling, despite how intelligent both his writing and
| his speaking on the podcast might convey.
|
| Marco is very successful with Tumblr, Instapaper, and
| Overcast, yet we don't know how good a programmer he is.
| He's made great money, and has strong opinions, but
| again, we don't know how good a programmer he is.
|
| Casey used to have a "jobby-job" before leaving the
| corporate world. So he too might be a good, bad or
| excellent programmer. We don't know.
|
| It's kind of like how you don't really know someone until
| you live with them. For programming, it's until you've
| worked with them and seen their code. All three of the
| hosts might be world class; or they might be average. But
| there's no way to determine who is the strongest
| programmer of the three.
|
| We can debate who's been more successful selling their
| code, but we don't know where Siracusa works and code/app
| sales are a poor metric for code quality.
| Grustaf wrote:
| We obviously can't know, but hearing someone talk about
| something gives you an idea.
|
| My impression is that Casey is quite weak (as in
| average), but meticulous.
|
| Siracusa is almost certainly the one with the best
| understanding of theory, but hard to say how he is
| practically. He could be very good at what he's doing.
|
| Marco also doesn't seem very strong in raw programming
| (he resisted Swift for half a decade, complains that it's
| hard to deal with, says that architecture is only for
| beginners etc) but obviously he can solve whatever
| problem he is faced with, even quite complex ones. And
| this is obviously what matters if you are an indie
| developer. That and product sense, which he is also very
| good at. He probably has the perfect skillset for an
| indie developer, better programming wouldn't make him any
| more successful.
| greedo wrote:
| I think Marco's resistance to Swift doesn't indicate
| anything about programming skill. Based on his low level
| audio programming (he hates to rely on code outside of
| his own), he's quite an accomplished programmer, unafraid
| of complex problems or reinventing the wheel when an
| existing library doesn't satisfy his desires. I doubt he
| would survive well in the world of unit tests, CI/CD,
| Jira and managers though. And I envy him for being able
| to avoid that.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| I think it's like a preference - I don't understand it
| either, but I've seen it enough times that I don't think it
| matters whether I understand. Some people like it.
| [deleted]
| gnicholas wrote:
| I recently saw a friend post photos like this on FB. She was
| visiting her sister and blocked the sister's kids' faces. She
| didn't block the faces of her own kids, who are much older.
| Made sense to me! I don't know how often I'd use the app, but
| I've just downloaded it. I'm sure my kids would have fun
| playing with it, regardless!
| sdimitris wrote:
| Nice implementation! We made a similar app a couple of years ago
| as part of a hackathon project but we never really polished it to
| submit to an app store
|
| Description: https://devpost.com/software/patronus-k61iv4
|
| Code: https://github.com/parasmehta/patronus
|
| Unlike this app, we also used age and emotion detection on top of
| face recognition.
| sschueller wrote:
| I wish the makers of live video apps would add an AI feature to
| auto blur unknown faces, car plates and mask unknown voices.
|
| This would make it possible to legally live stream in countries
| with strict privacy laws like Switzerland or Germany.
| zabaki wrote:
| Added a picture with a bunch of people. Not all of them got an
| emoji, so as I continued to add emojis, I wanted to pinch to zoom
| but that behaviour turned out to be for the emoji. Handling a
| tiny emoji was really add, so I'd appreciate be able to zoom in
| and out of the picture when I have to add more emojis :)
| paul7986 wrote:
| I bet Apple or Android will probably include adding emojis the
| same in their photo/crop edit tools in a year or two.
|
| People are already doing this with other apps as you see in
| dating apps and stuff.
| 123jay7 wrote:
| elpakal wrote:
| Hey, mine detects and redacts faces too (++text and ++macOS)
| https://gorp.app
| WoodenChair wrote:
| How do you feel about the fact that yours has been out for a
| couple years, does essentially the same thing (although maybe
| has less appealing marketing images on the App Store TBH), and
| only has a handful of ratings compared to the 300+ for this new
| app from this popular podcaster? I ask sincerely, and I wonder
| if it speaks to the power of marketing.
| elpakal wrote:
| I think it does speak to the power of marketing but that can
| mean a lot. I'm also not out here trying to get ratings, I'm
| making things I use and publish them because I think others
| will too. That's why it's free and ad free (and admittedly
| slow to update).
|
| Also reviews can be paid for...
| FirstLvR wrote:
| the app is simple and clever... tho, you should NOT post
| personnal stuff on social platforms, do NOT post pictures of your
| kids ... the internet has become a dreamland for pedos and
| psychos
| rchaud wrote:
| I agree, but only a small % of parents are going to refrain
| from the temptation to share pics widely, and that means
| online. So this app has a very beneficial use case.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| So you're saying pedos are going to be jerking off to the image
| of two kids standing with their mother, possibly on their first
| day of school?
| xcambar wrote:
| > There's several reasons you may want to hide a face:
|
| > [...]
|
| > * The faces of protestors who are standing up against a
| grotesque war
|
| I don't know if I find this disgustingly opportunistic or a solid
| gesture of protest and support.
|
| Maybe both
| matt_heimer wrote:
| In addition to emojis, imagine if this had deep fake support.
| For the war protestor use-case imagine if everyone in the crowd
| having the face of Zelenskyy.
|
| It'd be nice if this was usually built into whatever social
| media app people use but I wouldn't trust most social media
| companies to not store the original image.
|
| A sea of mini Nickolas Cage faces in pictures of your child at
| a playground would entertain some people.
| rchaud wrote:
| Zelensky holding up signs for peace/ceasefire wouldn't be
| surprising.
|
| We need pics of thousands in the streets with Sergei Lavrov's
| face. Or better yet, the warmonger in chief himself.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Virtue signaling at it's best.
|
| (In this case, there is true virtue - but profoundly unlikely
| to be safely applied in the use case that exists)
| ravi-delia wrote:
| Creator clearly wants the app for their own use case, but
| correctly identified another. It is neither.
| xcambar wrote:
| "Neither" is an option. The marketing copy indicates
| something else.
|
| But that'd be the best option yes.
| minton wrote:
| It seems like a significant investment to spend six months
| developing an iOS app solo, knowing it will likely be cloned and
| copied within a month.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| First mover advantage, but it'll only take off if you work
| really hard in the first month or so to get the word out and
| become a 'household name'.
|
| That said, yeah it's likely there will be competitors springing
| up left and right if it becomes popular (recent example is this
| "unpacking" game, the app store was flooded with clones within
| a month). For apps like this, your best hope is probably that a
| bigger party like Instagram knocks on your door and offers to
| buy you out to integrate the feature into their own apps. It's
| cynical, but this is where we find ourselves; I don't believe
| single feature apps have much of a future.
|
| A photo manipulation app (generally speaking) is great, but
| unless you add a social network to it like Instagram did it's
| not going to go far.
| deanc wrote:
| This is such an obvious thing now that I see it. Great idea and
| execution. One might argue this should be a feature available
| natively, and a valid use-case for face-detection other than
| identification and tagging.
| jwhite_nc wrote:
| Is the app simple? Yes. Do you have to purchase it? No. Not sure
| why this turned into a critique of the programmer and
| subsequently his podcast and co-hosts.... weird.
| samwestdev wrote:
| App has already 317 ratings on the App Store. Crazy what the
| power of hosting a popular tech podcast can do for you.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I'm not sure why a bunch of commenters are dismissing the idea of
| hiding faces by placing emoji over them. That's already a thing.
| I see it a lot on photos that are shared online. It's a good
| alternatives to having to carefully frame or crop an image to
| hide objects and faces you don't want others to see.
| micheljansen wrote:
| As a parent of a preschooler I can confirm this is definitely a
| thing. We have decided to do what we can to avoid our child's
| life being subject to data mining or the creation of shadow
| profiles by whatever company (past or present) thinks it can
| profit from it. We always cover his face with an emoji. So do
| most of the parents in our social circle.
| ectopod wrote:
| To turn it round, do you spend time looking at other people's
| emoji-obscured photos?
|
| I don't, so I can't see the point of posting them because I
| don't imagine that anyone would look at them. But I could
| well be wrong.
| thomasjudge wrote:
| As seen on the "Accidental Tech Podcast" atp.fm
| nbzso wrote:
| I don't get the use case at all. Just stop sharing images of
| people. We are living in backward times indeed. What is next? The
| social app that makes you anonymous?
| mjlee wrote:
| Have you heard of 4chan?
| gpmcadam wrote:
| FYI Markup, a feature of the Photos app in iOS can essentially do
| this fairly trivially.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206885
| kemayo wrote:
| True, but it's honestly pretty fiddly. If you want to do
| exactly-this, adding an emoji is a pain because you have to
| jump through a few hoops to resize it -- pinch-dragging doesn't
| work.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| Where I struggle with this is on the basis of the idea. At this
| point why not turn everyone into a Holo Live character or some
| other metaverse style creation? Our face is part of who we are
| and removing that feels very unnatural to me.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I think the point is in fact to obscure the subjects' identity.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Another similar app that also works with video:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anonymous-camera/id1504102584
| kennydude wrote:
| I love it. I'd love to also see something like this that can hide
| or change number plates of cars before posting online.
| jachee wrote:
| Why? I've never understood this practice. The number plate is
| already out in public nearly 24/7 anyway, what difference does
| it make if it's unobscured in a photograph, unless it's a
| stolen car or plate or something?
| sschueller wrote:
| In countries like Switzerland where we have strict privacy
| laws you can not just post pictures online of cars plates
| that may expose someone's privacy.
|
| For example a parking lot at a cancer hospital. The owner of
| a car can be identified by plate and therefore you need to
| make sure you don't expose them possibly having cancer etc.
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