Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

tannerchristensen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 197 posts

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#81

Post by mister_hn »

bengale wrote: post #40
mister_hn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still, claiming to hacking a mobile app together in one hour is something strange as well. Does the "hour of code" includes setting up project in the IDE, setting a repo, testing it, making it AppStore-ready? Options are: a. you have already the code somewhere (own sources, StackOverflow, GitHub, etc.) b. you are bluffing

> setting a repo `git init`? Clicking create repo in GitHub? > setting up project in the IDE are you doing this stuff blindfolded or something?

you forgot the "git remote add" part. That takes a couple of minutes

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#82

Post by tiborsaas »

curiousigor wrote: post #37
rkho wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the original screenshot in the post, it looks like it debuted at $0.99, I wonder if there's a way to look up App Store price history

You're right, totally missed from the screenshot and based my comment on the current App Store data. I looked the app on Appannie (non paid account) and the pricing history is quite interesting: 26 Mar 2017 - 0.99 to Free 29 Mar 2017 - Free to 0.99 19 Jul 2017 - 0.99 to 1.99 20 Jul 2017 - 1.99 to Free 02 Aug 2017 - Free to 0.99 04 Feb 2018 - 0.99 to Free 10 Feb 2018 - Free to 0.99 03 Mar 2018 - 0.99 to Free 27 Mar 20…

That looks like just generating numbers for income models to predict what might work best.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#83

Post by nirui »

> I held my place in the book with one hand while thumbing through the app store on my phone in the other, unable to find an app that could accomplish what I was looking for. Then an idea suddenly struck me: I could easily create — or try to create — an app that allows me to highlight and share quotes from the books I’m reading.

This, my dear, is what an application should be created for -- To help resolve real problems and improve lives.

"Best New App" is well desired.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#84

Post by jamesmoss »

lerxst00 wrote: post #26
liquidise wrote: post #2

> “Snaplight serves an extremely niche need: mine.” There is a subtle brilliance in this sentence. With this recognition comes the permission to not try adding a mountain of features and complicating matters. Build something you will use. Solve a problem you have. Enjoy the process and accept the vulnerability that comes with shipping something to the world. Chances are good things will come of it.

I recently had a similar experience: I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I like reading through the comments. Often, comments quote specific timestamps from the video and I would find it a pain to keep scrolling between the comment section at the bottom of the page and the video at the top and then find the specific time in the video that the comment was talking about. So, I created a Chrome extension that surfaces Y…

This is awesome, I have the exact same problem. One thing though, when I go to install the extension it asks to read and change data on youtube.com, which makes sense, but also wants permission to access my browsing history. Just wondering why this is?

http://shots.moss.io/a67bd6/Screenshot%202019-09-19%20at%201...

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#85

Post by acollins1331 »

lerxst00 wrote: post #26
liquidise wrote: post #2

> “Snaplight serves an extremely niche need: mine.” There is a subtle brilliance in this sentence. With this recognition comes the permission to not try adding a mountain of features and complicating matters. Build something you will use. Solve a problem you have. Enjoy the process and accept the vulnerability that comes with shipping something to the world. Chances are good things will come of it.

I recently had a similar experience: I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I like reading through the comments. Often, comments quote specific timestamps from the video and I would find it a pain to keep scrolling between the comment section at the bottom of the page and the video at the top and then find the specific time in the video that the comment was talking about. So, I created a Chrome extension that surfaces Y…

But when you click the timestamp in the comment doesn't it automatically jump the video to that point? It's worked that way for me for years...

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#86

Post by tgtweak »

luke14free wrote: post #62
yoz-y wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that the author has better visibility to actual download numbers than App Annie or Sensor Tower. I assume they just got the number from the App Store connect. That is, apple highlights are massively more impactful that any other venue. My app had reviews in multiple publications and I average about 200 downloads per week, at around 4500 impressions. It got featured once in some list (in Thailand) and I got a…

I work on models like those of Sensor Tower and App Annie use to estimate downloads. They are extremely precise, the cross-validated error is << 10% for apps that are this small, and in the US (it increases with much bigger apps in countries where little data is available).

For Android apps that are popular in rest-of-world geographies (including my own) those tools (and analogs like similarweb and apptopia) are way off in both download counts and active users, sometimes by 2-3x.

Maybe iOS apps in US can get here but I'm doubtful.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#87

Post by gridspy »

SuperGent wrote: post #52
melling wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s an old proverb. “Necessity is the mother of invention” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_is_the_mother_of_inv...

Whenever I hear that I'm always reminded of my father saying 'We put a man on the moon before we put wheels on a suitcase'

Perhaps wheels on a suitcase required modern plastics?

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#88

Post by CogitoCogito »

nothis wrote: post #53
paxys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author noted that it was his fifth app, so it's likely that he had the knowledge and patterns/libraries/boilerplate etc. already in place.

I think it's perfectly fair to say "this took me an hour", but statements like this always come with history. Dude probably spent at least hundreds of hours getting proficient at programming, app design and iOS development specifically. I don't know if that's misleading, encouraging or simply talking to a specific target group.

I think it's both highly encouraging and humbling. What it means is that even though his skills could allow him to work on much fancier, complex applications, this simple 1 hour job made an enormous impact. Just think about what you do best and imagine if you could redirect the same energies somewhere else and maximize your payoff with a minimum of effort. It's not a feat that's easy to reproduce, but it is something we can all learn from.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#89

Post by ihatemondays »

ladberg wrote: post #49
The_Androctonus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at how old this all is. The app was released in 2015 and last updated over a year ago. The app climate has changed a lot over the past four years so take it with a grain of salt.

I definitely will. Still, the article was written last year and I've been hearing that the gold rush is over since way before 2015.

Article is from 2015, not 2018. Title is incorrect.
Post reply on HN