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MaskerAid iOS App

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Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#151

Post by scarface74 »

Grustaf wrote: post #146
scarface74 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet we don't know how good a programmer he is You know he is good because… > Marco is very successful with Tumblr, Instapaper, and Overcast, I don’t need to “see his code” to know whether he is good. He is able to produce software that people pay money to acquire without the sliminess. Software is a means to an end. Not an end onto itself.

He's undoubtedly a world class indie developer, but we were discussing his abilities as a programmer, in the sense of writing good code. True, it's not necessarily important or valuable in life, but that is what we were talking about. Most of the people I worked with at my FAANG job were excellent programmers, surely better than Marco, but none of them would have any chance of even coming up with a decent idea for an…

Our definition of a “well written app” is different.

An app to me is well written if it is meets a need well enough to be successful. I would be much more impressed by an Indy developer who has a successful sustainable business without being slimy than a “FAANG” software engineer that got in because he can reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard while juggling two bowling balls and riding a unicycle on a tightrope.

I also know we are both talking hypothetically. If you listen to him about some of the low level audio processing he does, he’s definitely pretty good.

Before I get the expected replies, no I’m not “jealous of FAANG SWEs”. I work for BigTech myself after a very slight pivot from enterprise development.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#152

Post by tedmiston »

perardi wrote: post #92
soylentcola wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you do it in the default photo editing app? Don't have any iOS devices handy to check out, but on my current phone, the standard Google Photos app has text markup - including emojis. Just tested it out and I was easily able to put an emoji over a face and resize/rotate it with pinch/drag type motions. Anything like that in the default Apple app? Granted, there is nothing like the automation features in OP's app,…

Frustratingly, no. If you insert a photo into Messages and hit Markup, the first view gives you a bunch of pen/pencil/brush options, with fixed sizes per brush. There's a plus button that allows you to insert shapes and text…but you can't pinch-zoom to scale the text. You then have to tap around again to set the font size and color. It's a weird, neglected-feeling interface. They could borrow a lot from Instagram's s…

I just tested and you can do it in Photos.app (activate Markup in the top right).

That said, fully agreed the UI is very clunky compared to doing similar things in Instagram's editor.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#153

Post by scarface74 »

greedo wrote: post #147
scarface74 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet we don't know how good a programmer he is You know he is good because… > Marco is very successful with Tumblr, Instapaper, and Overcast, I don’t need to “see his code” to know whether he is good. He is able to produce software that people pay money to acquire without the sliminess. Software is a means to an end. Not an end onto itself.

You're conflating smart business choices with good programming. His code could be well marketed shit that just barely works under the covers, but he sells it well (Narrator's voice: "It isn't shit...") Marco is an excellent indie developer because he selects markets he has a good understanding of, finds his niche, then simply outclasses his competition by being ahead on features. He also has a loyal following from hi…

Let’s take the opposite argument. Is an app “well written” if it doesn’t meet anyone’s needs?

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#154

Post by greedo »

scarface74 wrote: post #153
greedo wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating smart business choices with good programming. His code could be well marketed shit that just barely works under the covers, but he sells it well (Narrator's voice: "It isn't shit...") Marco is an excellent indie developer because he selects markets he has a good understanding of, finds his niche, then simply outclasses his competition by being ahead on features. He also has a loyal following from hi…

Let’s take the opposite argument. Is an app “well written” if it doesn’t meet anyone’s needs?

As I'm sure you know, it "depends."

Well-written apps can meet a need, but it's like furniture. You can buy some cheap futon that gives you something to sleep on, but doesn't last long. Or you can buy a bespoke bed with handcrafted mortise and tenon joints, perfectly straight grained wood, and French polish finish. Both will give you a place to sleep, but one might last longer.

It's like my code. I have some super ugly python utils I've written that a "real" programmer would cringe when looking at the code. But it works 100% of the time when run (assuming the processes they call don't change their specs). The code is written for Python2, and breaks on Python3. It's not very clear how things work, despite extensive commenting. By your definition, these utilities would be "well written." To me, they're brittle, fragile eggs that I eventually will have to rewrite when Enterprise Security decides we can't have python2 binaries on our servers.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#155

Post by abrichr »

sschueller wrote: post #111

I wish the makers of live video apps would add an AI feature to auto blur unknown faces, car plates and mask unknown voices. This would make it possible to legally live stream in countries with strict privacy laws like Switzerland or Germany.

Can you please give some examples of live video apps you are referring to?

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#156

Post by scarface74 »

greedo wrote: post #154
scarface74 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s take the opposite argument. Is an app “well written” if it doesn’t meet anyone’s needs?

As I'm sure you know, it "depends." Well-written apps can meet a need, but it's like furniture. You can buy some cheap futon that gives you something to sleep on, but doesn't last long. Or you can buy a bespoke bed with handcrafted mortise and tenon joints, perfectly straight grained wood, and French polish finish. Both will give you a place to sleep, but one might last longer. It's like my code. I have some super ug…

Fair point. No one else could probably maintain it but you.

Marco has already solved that problem. He said if he dies, his app dies with him…

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#157

Post by [deleted] »

ProAm wrote: post #32
Grustaf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have kids, and don't mind posting their photos. But if I did, why post at all? It just seems weird. "Here's my son, minus the face. Oh he's so cute!"

To be fair their podcast has two programmers and a stay at home dad so it makes sense why he only had focus on his kids. The app isnt worth .99 cents though with questionable utility and a plethora of other apps that do this for free.

[deleted]

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#159

Post by Larrikin »

xcambar wrote: post #26

> There’s several reasons you may want to hide a face: > [...] > * The faces of protestors who are standing up against a grotesque war I don't know if I find this disgustingly opportunistic or a solid gesture of protest and support. Maybe both

The privacy of others was the original use I came up with when I made this same app for my final project in Intro to iOS class in grad school way back in 2017. From my initial project proposal

>Governments and tech companies such as Facebook are now continuously scanning all photos uploaded to the internet for faces, locations, and objects, effectively removing anonymity for anybody that is in any picture. A user might want to share a picture from a protest, but other users in the background might not want it known they were there.

>I would like to make a privacy focused camera application. The application will allow the user to take a picture and then it will find the faces in the picture. The user then will have to tap on the individuals in the photo they would like to be included in the final picture. By default all the faces in the picture will be marked as discard. After the user has finished selecting the faces the final picture will be produced. The faces not selected will have an effect applied to them to obscure that person identity. The user will then have the ability to share the photo to other applications, such as Twitter.

There is a lot of code in the standard library that includes face detection, didn't even have to add any libraries and was able to do the project in the last 2 weeks of class. I ended up putting a heavy mosaic over the faces, but emojis would have been just as easy. Still preferred Android dev over iOS after it, but was impressed with the included camera features.

To me the use case seems weird that she is trying to hide her kids so she can constantly post them on Instagram, when she has full control over taking pictures of her kids and what she puts on her page.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#160

Post by andrewoneone »

Grustaf wrote: post #90
andrewoneone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care? Nearly every comment you've left here in this post has negative language. You claim to have been an iOS developer for ten years - where's your podcast? Where are your apps on the app store that you're posting publicly about? Why aren't we talking about Grustaf in this post? Find empathy. Find humility. Find more in life than being a negative person on the internet.

I asked because I didn't see why foster children specifically had to be hidden. The reason you are not talking about me is that I'm not famous. Does that disqualify me from having an opinion? Do all opinions have to be positive? Do I have to (pretend to) believe that this app can make money? That seems pretty strange, this is not a kindergarten, grownups should be able to handle feedback even when it's not praise. If…

lol
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