31–40 of 84 posts
Here’s the talk about it:
https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineeri...
And the project website:
https://tonies-wiki.revvox.de/
There’s even a custom firmware that can send activity data to Home Assistant, can pull audio from a local server, etc.
Love the concept here and I would be a customer if you were still offering lifetime, but with so many things going subscription nowadays adding another at $40/year just feels a bit on the higher side. Definitely understand how that assists with cash flow for ongoing development though.
Very well executed product and posts, and congratulations on your success!
Unsure if you're able to but can you speak to how many users you have? Have you done advertising? What rate do people sign up for it now that your on a subscription.
Advertising: Zero paid advertising so far. All organic - App Store search, word of mouth, a few blog mentions. First HN post and review in German print Magazine helped a lot. Subscription journey: Started with one-time payment, but hard to justify ongoing development time. Switched to subscription. Not everybody was amused. First model was freemium – one playlist with max 10 tracks for free. Felt too limiting for new…
Love the idea. If you don't mind sharing, besides producthunt launches, how have you promoted it?
Thanks! Honestly, still figuring this out. Tried social media (Instagram, Threads, Bluesky) and reaching out to blogs/reviewers. Gets some traction but reach is limited. A German print magazine review helped, and the first HN post brought a spike. What's funny – parent to parent word of mouth has been really helpful. I get lots of emails from parents with ideas or bug reports. They found the app through friends or fa…
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Thanks! Exactly. The mental model thing is brutal. You know every corner of the app, so everything feels obvious. Then you watch someone use it for the first time and they're completely lost. Need to do that more often, perfect way to learn. And yes - QR sharing was about bringing back that "here, just take it" moment. Sending library export as JSON, explaining how to import... too much friction. Scan and done feels…
1. I bought her an "old school" mp3 player for Christmas, like an iPod. It's pretty good, but it's really missing the easy to use app similar to the original iTunes where she can load and manage songs by herself, without needing me to grab them from a folder, plug in the device, copy the songs across after it mounts, etc. Does Muky provide that functionaliy, like an iTunes for kids before everything went streaming and on-device?
2. She also loves audiobooks. You mention audiobooks, alongside Apple Music (I don't have Spotify). Does Apple Music support audiobooks? I would love a similar interface that promotes discover of songs, but for audiobooks.
Congrats on getting this out there. I truely believe there is a viable niche for kids music apps that sits between toddler and access to all-the-music-in-the-world-at-your-fingertips that becomes a huge time sink for kids who can't quite self regulate the shiny interface of modern streaming apps on mobile phones. I almost went down a rabbithole of building one myself, thinking, how hard can it be...thank you for saving me the 2 years to understand its hard! :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! Honestly, still figuring this out. Tried social media (Instagram, Threads, Bluesky) and reaching out to blogs/reviewers. Gets some traction but reach is limited. A German print magazine review helped, and the first HN post brought a spike. What's funny – parent to parent word of mouth has been really helpful. I get lots of emails from parents with ideas or bug reports. They found the app through friends or fa…
Thanks a lot. As an unrelated follow-up, I searched for the spotify API and found that spotify changed their criteria for Web API Extended Access last year. I suppose this will not affect your app, since existing API users can continue to use it. Would the new rule affect you if you were just starting to develop this app?
By having users create their own developer app, each user has their own quota and I stay out of the approval process entirely. Works well for a niche app like this.
More context here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-for-Developers/Upda...