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Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

appsto.re

61–70 of 139 posts

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a new app, and actively doing work to support anything older than iOS 7 is a waste of time.

To target a lower iOS can be as simple as selecting from a menu. For most apps, it really is as simple as changing the target to iOS 5.0.

You also need to do QA on the older version(s).

(That said, I personally appreciate allowing it to work with older versions since I haven't upgraded to iOS 7 yet and waited a long time to upgrade to iOS 6.)

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#62
post #52

A lot of the people whom I met in Vancouver via Twitter I actually met via an app called Twinkle, which was essentially a wrapper around Twitter that added this sort of geographically-located content, and which was released shortly after the iPhone 3G and iOS 2.0 added location-based functionality (but long before Twitter did). Basically, Twinkle could work on its own or with a Twitter account. When you posted a mess…

Wow… I had no idea people still remembered Twinkle. I was one of the engineers at Tapulous, back in the day, and worked briefly on Twinkle.

That service was actually a huge disaster for us. The users were mostly tweens, and we had a huge Chartroulette-esque problem with child porn, where users would expose themselves through the service. Our community management team is probably scarred for life. Our engineers also hated it, because its backend was horrendous and we had a lot of availability issues; the service would go down constantly.

The very last thing I did at Tapulous / Disney (on my last day) was kill off Twinkle, shutting down the servers. Everybody was quite happy to see it gone.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#64
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a new app, and actively doing work to support anything older than iOS 7 is a waste of time.

Unless the app uses some iOS 7.0 specific API, it makes sense to support at least 6.xx considering 7.xx is just over a month old.

The UI changes in iOS 7 make supporting both 6 and 7 more of a pain than most previous iOS releases. Certainly possible and not a huge deal, but it doesn't just come down to iOS 7 specific APIs.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://racut.com Currently only available for iOS. The version in the store is a hybrid, we're working on an objective-C build that should be done in the near future. It's a fun project.

just downloaded. i can't seem to hit "register" for a new user after i fill in my information.

It looks like button is slightly jacked up. Tap the register text. Thanks for the 411.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#66
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After seeing the criticisms of Dropbox[1] on Hacker News, I'm much more analytical of the stereotypical "critical top post(s)" when introducing a new project. Getting candid, constructive critical feedback is certainly one of the values of posting on HN, but criticising that a product or service is just a combination of known technologies is an incredibly weak criticism: it could be applied to any innovation. Here's…

I am imaging you in the Amazon meeting a previously uncontacted tribe and asking, "How could you eat today if you didnt feel like hunting and gathering?" When the elders answer "we dont know" you would go back to the lab and try to invent Cheerios. Just because people dont know about something doesnt mean that it doesnt exist. Just because something exists doesnt mean that one shouldnt work solving the same problem.

Not sure what your point is here, but I'd reinforce that in your Amazon example that would be perfectly good justification to create a food product directed towards Amazonians (or perhaps just a Cheerios distribution network in the Amazon?).

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#67

waiting for my location to be unlocked, i.e. midtown Manhattan

so, a few thoughts now that we have a room created for midtown NYC: 1. no push notifications? seems like a no brainer to have this when a new user enters the "room" (i'm calling these chat spaces that) and when a new message appears. suspect you'll get more re-engagement 2. why do I have a ribbon next to my username? see: https://twitter.com/daveambrose/status/395630523961577473 3. photos! would be good to share medi…

On top of that, @replies would be awesome as well. We already have a nice Back Bay/Cambridge/Boston chatroom going that is going along fine, but we have already naturally used @replies since we are so used to them.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#68
post #43

I'm curious about how this actually works, geometrically. Example: A B C Those are three people. Imagine each segment is 1 mile long. So A can see B; B can see C; but A can't see C. If B and C are having a conversation, does A see B talking to someone who effectively does not exist?

does A see B talking to someone who effectively does not exist? No, why would you want them to see who else they're talking to? What messaging application allows you to see who other people are privately conversing with??? Not a popular one, I assure you that.

I'm not sure who, but clearly one of us has not understood the purpose of the app under discussion here. My impression is this facilitates public, pseudo-anonymous conversation with anyone in a 1 mile radius of yourself.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nifty little app. I'm just pointing out that I heard an idea a few months ago that was nearly identical. Our advice to the folks was "Yeah, this is cool--go code it!". These toy campus apps are really great for building experience and learning; that said, they're still just that: toy campus apps. The obligatory "but but but facebook" rebuttal is that it was a matter of timing more than anyt…

Don't you think calling this a "little app" and "toy campus app" is a little bit condescending? And that dismissing it as a simple rehashing of other ideas is not actually constructive? How many successful new products/services in the last decade aren't just rehashes of existing ideas? I'd say kudos to the author for actually rolling up your sleeves and making this idea happen; it's way harder and more admirable IMO…

Would you like me to give you some Ruby code that would emulate this functionality? I am fairly sure the size of the program would be less than 300 LOC, tops.

That is indeed a "little app". The 30-something line regex parser Pike wrote (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/bea...) ? Also a "little app".

There is no shame in solving a small problem, solving it well, and solving it concisely.

As far as being a "rehashing of other ideas"--how many hackathons have you been to on college campuses, and/or how many students doing mobile dev stuff have you chatted with, and/or how many people with a great idea for a local messaging app have you met?

This is not, will not, and never has been a novel idea. That doesn't make it worthless, that doesn't make it pointless, but it also doesn't make it new.

As for the "toy campus app": that's what this is...a toy application (small, concise, single-function) targeting primarily college kids (see the comparisons in this very thread to JuicyCampus).

I honestly don't understand why you're getting so defensive just because I'm not getting down on my hands and knees to praise the obvious genius and ingenuity and novelty that went into this (this is sarcasm, by the way).

I can respect it as a work on its own merits, but I will not afford it more than that.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#70
post #51

In the early 2000s there was a device/toy called the Cybiko ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko ) which offered similar functionality. It was amazing in theory, however, adoption was never very high so it never took off.

There were also something known as Citizen-Band radios, but that was a long time before all this computer nonsense.
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