Ask HN: Any way to find why users uninstall my app?

Is there a way to find for how long they use the app before deleting it? Can you track the activity of the user, e.g. number of tasks added per day? Or, in other words, are you losing long-term users or the ones that are trying out 5 different todo/reminder apps just to pick the one they like the most?

> because they got mixed up by the other apps they were testing.

How do you know that is the reason? Could it instead be that users aren't guided well enough to discovering the features your app has?

If it were me installing your app, I would uninstall it for lack of enough features. (I did not actually try your app, maybe I will.)

Some things that appear to be missing (from the google page, I didn't actually try it):

A way to sleep/snooze a reminder for a specific period of time.

Per-todo item auto-sleep rules. (Sleep, and just stay as a notification? Sleep and go away? Sleep and alarm again?)

Options for what kind of alert - noisy, quiet, speak the alert, buzz, start quiet, get louder. (All per todo, not global.)

Does it turn on the screen when there is an alarm? It shouldn't.

A guarantee that no alerts will be "lost" if the device is off when the reminder should have gone off.

Way, way more flexible options for reminders. You need things like: Remind for 4 days, then sleep for 2 weeks. Or every other week, but only on these days of the week. There are many patterns.

They way you program that is start with a basic repeat, then you add exclusions, "not on these, days/weeks/months/dayofweek".

Next you add "don't start until date", and "stop after date".

Then you add unlimited "don't alarm on this date", and "alarm on this date", where they just add a list of them.

Next you need multiple alarms per todo - the first one is just a notification, and if I dismiss it the rest of the alarms go away. The next alarm is a short quiet one. And then a loud one. But the user picks what kind of alarm, and how much before the event. They can add as many pre-alarms as they like.

I have not found a good reminder program, very very very few have flexible enough reminders. The best I've found is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splunchy.a... - install it just to check out how to do complex alarms, and complex repetitions. It's a beta though, with bugs, so I'm not suggesting it for use, just to see examples.

Do you want to make a comprehensive alarm program? Or do you want something simple? There is a market for both.

In that field I'd say your problem isn't really about your app, it's just hard for people to get into the habit of using an app, so a high uninstall app once people give up should be expected.

One thing that I haven't seen yet (and I haven't tried yours) is a way to add a task through the notification screen. I don't want a widget on my screen, and having to flip to the right screen to load the app is enough work that I just don't do it.

App evolution is purely Darwinian. There is no $$ lock-in, so as soon as the user finds what he feels is a better one, yours is killed off. As to what is a better one, it might be that it has more functions, less crashing, easier to use, lower CPU burden, better marketing BS and so on - nothing stands still. So you have to fine tune your ap to make it evolve faster than the others into a better thing.