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I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

arstechnica.com

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Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#191

Post by mosburger »

anyfactor wrote: post #46

I've built quite a few dashboards while working on proof-of-concept feature/product engineering. Even though people often think I'm joking, almost always the backend database was a Google Sheet. Google Sheets has great API support, easy to write functionality, convenient read and file dumps, works well with Pandas/SQL, and has a universally appreciated UX. Data validation can be annoying if the "admin" directly enter…

I wonder if anyone has ever made an ORM adapter that works with Google Sheets as its "Database"?

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#192

Post by martyvis »

sneak wrote: post #155
londons_explore wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only care about humans seeing my data. Most big tech companies very rarely/never let a human review private customer data. Therefore I'm fine handing all the data over to big tech companies. I don't really understand any other point of view - if you're worried about a machine seeing your private stuff, why did you type it into a keyboard in the first place?

> Most big tech companies very rarely/never let a human review private customer data. Therefore I'm fine handing all the data over to big tech companies. This isn't true. Google and Apple and others turn over user data to human analysts at NSA and FBI and others without search warrants all of the time, on hundreds of thousands of user accounts per year. To be fine handing all the data over to big tech companies, you…

Actually I have heard the exact opposite of what you are stating is true. Both Google and Apple fight very hard to avoid handing data to authorities. They don't want to be seen as some sort of easy conduit to government surveillance or shill. How does that benefit their reputation? I know of one case where Google spent millions on lawyers fighting government wanting access to an activist's email. Their FAQ here makes their policy pretty clear. https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/9713961...

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#193

Post by sneak »

martyvis wrote: post #192
sneak wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most big tech companies very rarely/never let a human review private customer data. Therefore I'm fine handing all the data over to big tech companies. This isn't true. Google and Apple and others turn over user data to human analysts at NSA and FBI and others without search warrants all of the time, on hundreds of thousands of user accounts per year. To be fine handing all the data over to big tech companies, you…

Actually I have heard the exact opposite of what you are stating is true. Both Google and Apple fight very hard to avoid handing data to authorities. They don't want to be seen as some sort of easy conduit to government surveillance or shill. How does that benefit their reputation? I know of one case where Google spent millions on lawyers fighting government wanting access to an activist's email. Their FAQ here makes…

Apple’s own transparency report indicates they turn over data to the USG for over 100,000 different apple IDs each year in the no-warrant-or-probable-cause (FISA orders and NSLs) category.

(Mind you; this includes device location histories due to geoip logs, unique identifiers, iMessage histories, photos, documents, everything.)

The cases they are allowed to tell you about aren’t in this category. They aren’t even allowed to say exactly how many of the secret warrantless orders they received, or exactly how many users were affectee, only 500-count ranges.

For just Apple, for just January 2023 to June 2023 (six months):

National Security - FISA Non-Content Requests

Table for National Security - FISA Non-Content Requests Data

Requests Received 0 - 499

Users/Accounts 40,500 - 40,999

National Security - FISA Content Requests

Table displaying National Security - FISA Content Requests

Requests Received 500 - 999

Users/Accounts 50,500 - 50,999

National Security Letter Requests

Table for National Security Letter Requests data

Requests Received 0 - 499

Users/Accounts 1,000 - 1,499

National Security Letters where Non-disclosure Order Lifted

0

I encourage you to read it for yourself:

https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#194

Post by jagged-chisel »

rashidae wrote: post #85

During COVID, I built a quick no-code solution to help ‘all-inclusive resorts’ in Cancun and Punta Cana. It started with guests scanning a QR code, filling out a short form, and scheduling their Antigen/PCR tests. Over time, it evolved to help nurses manage operations, streamline test results, and send certificates via email. What began as a DIY project during lockdown scaled quickly to Mexico City, the Dominican Rep…

> … the day after New Year’s Eve.

OT nitpick, but isn’t this “New Year’s Day?” Or did you mean January 2nd?

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#195

Post by flokie »

smusamashah wrote: post #94
anyfactor wrote: post #46

I've built quite a few dashboards while working on proof-of-concept feature/product engineering. Even though people often think I'm joking, almost always the backend database was a Google Sheet. Google Sheets has great API support, easy to write functionality, convenient read and file dumps, works well with Pandas/SQL, and has a universally appreciated UX. Data validation can be annoying if the "admin" directly enter…

Monzo (online bank in UK) let you see all your transactions in a Google sheet (with some caveats e.g. interest earned is skipped). I wanted to make a total wealth chart over all years. It's so damn complicated in Google sheets. In MS Excel I could simply make a pivot chart, apply any aggregation on days/weeks and be done with it. But with Sheets I had to make a new aggregate column, filter data in another new column,…

What about just plain old query() SQL i usually find the easiest vs. mucking around with pivot tables.

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#196

Post by dvdsgl »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #186
flanbiscuit wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when you launched your product on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163081 I favorited it back then. Glad to see it's doing well, it looks like a cool product. I haven't found a reason to use it yet but that's also because I have slowed down on coding personal projects after work in general.

Glide was cool when it launched but they never made that product work. Right now they have moved to an agency model and that is their product.

This is not true. We don’t build apps for customers, although there are Glide agencies that we match customers with. We’ve learned that some businesses prefer to pay for someone else to build for them no matter the platform, so we’re happy to facilitate that given our agency ecosystem.

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#197

Post by dvdsgl »

deweywsu wrote: post #182
ta988 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people who started to use glide for personal apps and were put off by the price. ($200/mo for over 3 personal apps is a bit tough). They showed me what they were doing and that was absolutely incredible for people without programming experience. They integrated with spreadsheets and llms and their PDF collections of manuals for devices etc. But as lower-income people they were stopped in their tracks and…

I second this. I'm guessing you're limiting access at a lower price point because you're worried too many business customers will opt for the lower cost plan when they should be on the higher priced one? I would pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $10/mo or so for a personal plan that had more than your free tier and less than the business one.

Yes, I’m also sad we couldn’t find a way to be affordable for everyone while also growing our business. We’ve learned that the personal/community app ‘market’ is impossible to grow upon, and that pricing for this group undercuts your pricing power with businesses.

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#198

Post by dvdsgl »

rashidae wrote: post #165
dvdsgl wrote: post #138

Founder of Glide (YC W19) mentioned in the article — thanks for the recognition. This was not an ad from us, we were surprised by the coverage. Glide’s customers are businesses building software for internal use. During YC we called these “dark apps” but since then we call them “apps for work.” We wanted something usable by IT and operations staff (not developers) that emphasized design and UX. Glide started as a sim…

I haven’t used Glide yet, but I’ve worked extensively with other ‘front-end interfaces for Airtable and Spreadsheets’, like Softr, Noloco and Bubble. The first time I tried Glide, I struggled with the interface, and unfortunately, support didn’t respond to my messages, so I had to take a different direction. That said, I’d love to give Glide a try. It’s incredible that we have direct access to founders like you here…

Thank you! Please let me know how your second attempt goes.

AI and no code platforms will merge into new high-level software creation tools. We already view Glide as a hybrid—try our AI component for the bottoms-up view. Our top-down AI approach will soon be live in our onboarding.

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#199

Post by caseyy »

blizkreeg wrote: post #185
caseyy wrote: post #162

The idea is neat but holy SaaS, the price for what it offers is ridiculous. It’s not even about having the money, it’s just that $828 p.a. price of entry to build a spreadsheet front-end is objectively a bad buy/business decision. Most people would just learn to code at a boot camp for $828 so they don’t need codeless.

This comment reminds me of the infamous Dropbox comment :)

Touché, but let’s see…

Re: I keep turning my Google Sheets into phone-friendly webapps

#200

Post by jayd16 »

ezst wrote: post #149
vishnugupta wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently I manage my startup’s accounting in Google sheet, and your comment gave me an idea to enhance it with Google Forms!

That... Sounds scary.

Accounting in a spreadsheet is scary?
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