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MaskerAid iOS App

caseyliss.com

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Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#31

Post by Cthulhu_ »

samhw wrote: post #28
eddieroger wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heard the same, thought the same. Casey succumbed to the struggle I find myself dealing with all the time - he found a problem with a technological solve and solved it with technology, which is only something other technologists do or want. Like you said, Instagram has a facility to already put stickers on images for people who wish to censor their pics. If they're not using Instagram, maybe the other program can do…

As one of our VCs once wisely said to us: "The hardest thing is to get a consumer to install a new app. Deliver your solution any way other than its own app."

Yes and no; there are a few handfuls of apps that Made It in that they are only viable as apps, the ones that people will cycle through and open up multiple times a day. It is really hard to get to that point though. I mean the last ones I can think of that people installed were TikTok (similar appeal as Instagram, maybe Snapchat) and FaceApp (short lived gimmick).

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#32

Post by ProAm »

Grustaf wrote: post #7
prea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's even the point of posting a photo of your child, with the face hidden? Seems very niche. Might be a cultural US thing, but this is something my wife does a lot and I see a lot of people doing. It's one of those things that might not make sense if you don't have kids.

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.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#33

Post by xcambar »

ravi-delia wrote: post #30
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

Creator clearly wants the app for their own use case, but correctly identified another. It is neither.

"Neither" is an option. The marketing copy indicates something else.

But that'd be the best option yes.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#34

Post by Nathanael_M »

mysterydip wrote: post #8
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!"

I have a friend who does this for her foster kid(s).

My in-laws foster and this is the first use case I thought of. It’s sad to take a big family photo and either not be able to share it, or have to take a duplicate without the foster child.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#35

Post by Grustaf »

Pyramus wrote: post #27
Grustaf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an attack, it's just a statement. If one purpose is to appear employable, he should not mention that it took him 6 months to write it because that is just too long.

It's one thing to "write an app" and something else completely to bring it to a standard consumable by lay users. Having published and maintained an app that is in active use by even a couple hundred users gives you an advantage in employability and quite a big one at that. Your post makes it seem like you have neither published an app yourself nor hired single devs who have, and it's easy to not appreciate.

I've been a professional iOS developer for a decade. 6 months is way too long for that app. My very first app took 10 weeks, including learning to program, and it was more complex than MaskerAid. And better looking, was even featured in the app store in a few countries.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#36

Post by Cthulhu_ »

minton wrote: post #17

It seems like a significant investment to spend six months developing an iOS app solo, knowing it will likely be cloned and copied within a month.

First mover advantage, but it'll only take off if you work really hard in the first month or so to get the word out and become a 'household name'.

That said, yeah it's likely there will be competitors springing up left and right if it becomes popular (recent example is this "unpacking" game, the app store was flooded with clones within a month). For apps like this, your best hope is probably that a bigger party like Instagram knocks on your door and offers to buy you out to integrate the feature into their own apps. It's cynical, but this is where we find ourselves; I don't believe single feature apps have much of a future.

A photo manipulation app (generally speaking) is great, but unless you add a social network to it like Instagram did it's not going to go far.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#37

Post by matt_heimer »

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

In addition to emojis, imagine if this had deep fake support. For the war protestor use-case imagine if everyone in the crowd having the face of Zelenskyy.

It'd be nice if this was usually built into whatever social media app people use but I wouldn't trust most social media companies to not store the original image.

A sea of mini Nickolas Cage faces in pictures of your child at a playground would entertain some people.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#38

Post by vxNsr »

eckza wrote: post #13
Grustaf wrote: post #3

I heard him say on some podcast that he thinks there is a possibility for him to make real money on this, but I would say there isn't. Very few people care about this, and almost none of that already small group will have heard of the app. Plus I can't even see how this simplifies anything, if you're posting to instagram it's surely simpler to skip the extra step and just use instagram's built in editor, even if you…

Personally, I've been waiting for an app like this for a long time. I don't use social media, but I have a group chat with a handful of close friends. Sometimes, I like to insert emojis into a photo for comedic effect. Now I can do this without fighting with iOS's horrible Markup editor. (Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this isn't part of iOS already.)

But it’s relatively easy to use iOS’s markup editor. The whole time he was explaining this app all I could think was… it’s so much easier to just use the markup editor.

If you’re sharing to WhatsApp… just use their editor, it allows adding stickers and emojis natively, it doesn’t auto detect faces… but is that strictly necessary?

For double points, if you don’t wanna share on WhatsApp you can still use their editor and just send it to yourself. Now you are still only using one app, and the new photo is saved automatically to your camera roll.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#39

Post by reaperducer »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31
samhw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of our VCs once wisely said to us: "The hardest thing is to get a consumer to install a new app. Deliver your solution any way other than its own app."

Yes and no; there are a few handfuls of apps that Made It in that they are only viable as apps, the ones that people will cycle through and open up multiple times a day. It is really hard to get to that point though. I mean the last ones I can think of that people installed were TikTok (similar appeal as Instagram, maybe Snapchat) and FaceApp (short lived gimmick).

I think the app gold rush is over. We've passed the time when every company "needs" an app.

Even marketing managers can look at their phones and realize, "Why do I have all of these apps? I don't even know what half of these things are for anymore?"

I recently moved, and my new building has separate apps for: Package notifications, dry cleaning pick up/drop off, paying rent, the speakers in the ceilings, building bulletin board, reserving a common space, reserving the freight elevators, maintenance requests, pet care service, doorman notifications, self-parking, valet parking, and probably a bunch more that I've forgotten because I'd rather let my wife deal with that stuff than overwhelm myself with apps.

And that's just the building. Nevermind grocery delivery, each individual utility, food delivery, restaurants, and on and on and on.

My wife is a big app person. Hates using mobile web sites. She has at least 200 apps on her phone, all obsessively organized in tiny folders. But even she has started using the web versions of things, just because having so many apps has finally become harder than clicking a bookmark in Safari.

Re: MaskerAid iOS App

#40

Post by Grustaf »

Nathanael_M wrote: post #34
mysterydip wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who does this for her foster kid(s).

My in-laws foster and this is the first use case I thought of. It’s sad to take a big family photo and either not be able to share it, or have to take a duplicate without the foster child.

Why do you need to do that?
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