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Show HN: Places iOS App – Find beautiful destinations around the world

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Re: Show HN: Places iOS App – Find beautiful destinations around the world

#4
post #3

This is the first iOS app that I've ever made, so I'm pretty proud of it! Would love to hear what you guys think about it.

Looks very pretty! Where do you get the images and content from? How are you monetizing?

Images and content are retrieved algorithmically from various places (Flickr, Wikipedia, etc.). Planning to monetize later by letting people purchase specific categories (like "romantic getaways"). Right now, all categories are free.

Re: Show HN: Places iOS App – Find beautiful destinations around the world

#6

I got stuck on a weird screen that said No definition found with no buttons to get back to the app. Interface is nice but app feels too sales-y and light on content.

Weird. I've never encountered that issue (and I've done a lot of beta testing). Could you explain how you got to that page?

Sorry to hear that the app was too sales-y :( What gave off that impression?

Re: Show HN: Places iOS App – Find beautiful destinations around the world

#7
Really nice design. Playing around with it now and want to offer some minor feedback:

1. Onboarding screens seem unnecessary. I've already read the description and decided to download the app. Unless you're teaching me something I don't need to be sold again.

2. The images in the tables seem slow to load for me. Are these being fetched from a server and if so would you not be able to keep the images for at least the first screen local? Also you need to implement some sort of cache as when I scroll and the cell is reused and I scroll back it has to reload the image (slowly, I'm guessing from the server).

3. When I click through to a category (e.g. South America) your table has an activity indicator and loading text plus there is a HUD with activity indicator. Only seems to happen when going form top level to next level. Doesn't happen on the third level.

Overall really nicely designed app with some good information. I'll be keeping it installed. Do you plan on making money from it?

Re: Show HN: Places iOS App – Find beautiful destinations around the world

#8

Really nice design. Playing around with it now and want to offer some minor feedback: 1. Onboarding screens seem unnecessary. I've already read the description and decided to download the app. Unless you're teaching me something I don't need to be sold again. 2. The images in the tables seem slow to load for me. Are these being fetched from a server and if so would you not be able to keep the images for at least the…

Thanks so much for the feedback. This is why I love HN To reply to your thoughts: 1) Good point. I'll consider removing it for the next release, but from my beta testing, some users felt that an onboarding flow would be nicer. I figured making it short and sweet wouldn't hurt.

2) The images are fetched from the server, because the entire app is very API-driven. You're right though - I could architect it so that the images for the initial page are stored locally and I could use some special category-key to fetch the right image.

3) Yeah, I realized that pretty late when Apple had already approved the app. Fix coming in v1.0.1!

Thanks so much for giving it a try. I do plan on monetizing it later. I replied below on how I plan to do that, but the most important thing for me is to make a quality product that people like using. That's what I'm tracking right now.

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