Show HN: Pocket - my first app ever

HN - I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts on this app. Would you use it? What do you think of the user interface? What could be improved? How does it compare to similar apps? I’m ready for your (hopefully constructive) criticisms! For the record – all of the design, programming, and imagining was done by me =]

== Experience & Motivation

Pocket was developed to scratch a personal itch - a very itchy itch. I am the most forgetful person I know, and that sucks. I am aware that the note app space is extremely crowded, but I have been thoroughly unimpressed with everything I’ve seen. Here’s a rundown of how Pocket came to be:

* 9 months ago: Searched for a multi-platform note taking solution to record daily thoughts and ideas. They all seemed overly complicated for such a simple task of quickly jotting down ideas. Even with a smartphone, I stuck with my pocket notebook to jot down ideas, songs to download, grocery lists, etc. At the time, I had no programming experience whatsoever so I didn’t even consider developing a solution on my own.

* 6 months ago: Still hadn’t found a decent note app. Began to think about how I would go about building one, and discovered Ruby on Rails. At this point, the only coding I had ever done was basic HTML and CSS, which hardly counts for anything. Briefly tried Ruby on Rails, but gave up after numerous attempts to wrap my head around the mysterious and elusive world of programming.

* 3 months ago: The list of apps I would like to eventually develop became quite lengthy and the vision for my note app was as clear as day. If only I knew how to code. Tried Ruby on Rails once again. Struggled through some tutorials and half of an ebook. Still didn’t really understand it, but I stuck with it.

* 2 months ago: Sudden realization that programming would never “click” unless I jumped in and started developing. I began to hack together any code I could muster, and my vision slowly became a reality. With a spark of passion, a fire was lit that I couldn’t extinguish. Although time was limited as it was my last semester in college with a heavy workload on my shoulders, I coded relentlessly every chance I could (which amounted to a mere 1-2 nights a week). Started using a rough version of Pocket to keep track of everything, including updates and ideas for the very app I was developing.

* 1 month ago: Programming was real for me. I felt like I actually knew what I was doing, and I didn’t want to stop. With every tiny milestone in learning and development, I would literally jump out of my chair with excitement. The code itself was nothing extraordinary, but knowing that I could have an idea and bring it to life was quite empowering. The fire burned hotter.

* today: Pocket has reached the point where I can share it with the world. While it may not be the most technologically advanced application (especially compared to the amazing stuff I see here on HN), it does exactly what I want it to do – and that’s a great feeling. I am ready to harness my newly discovered passion to develop the apps on my ever-growing list of ideas. I think there are at least a few winners on that list, so we’ll see what happens!

== Known Issues

* Lack of password reset

* Lack of mobile number confirmation

* IE (9 beta): dragging doesn’t work, CSS padding is occasionally funky

== Tech Specs

* Built with Ruby on Rails + JQuery

* Hosted by Heroku (Amazon EC2?)

Congratulations on shipping! Some notes:

* The logo is very hard to see. If I'm not mistaken, it's suppsoed to be pressed text on a brown background with a glow around it. It doesn't stand out nearly as much as it should.

* "Keep your ideas on a personal dashboard" has a "Learn more" with an arrow. I tried to click the arrow unsuccessfully. It looks like you have to click the post-it-note. Make the arrow clickable too.

* The idea of texting a note to myself is very appealing but when I click the post-it-note it takes me to something that doesn't really talk about it. I expected to be taken to a blurb about how that works. What number do I text? How are they delivered to me? Etc.

* Essentially the same comment as above for the other post-it-note, Access from anywhere. Is there an app I need to download? Does it work on Android? Etc, etc.

* Don't make me click through to sign up. Instead of an image of your sign up form, put your sign up form on the front page.

Hope that helps. Keep plugging, it's looking good!

How about replacing that image of the sign up form on your first page with... The actual sign up form? It should be simple enough and also reduce friction.

As a marketing heads-up, the site name, letspocket.com , may raise negative connotations. See for instance definitions 21-23 here:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pocket

if you want help developing the Android version, reply here and I'll get back to you. I really like the idea (free)