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Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

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Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#71

Post by oliverjanssen »

holoduke wrote: post #61
oliverjanssen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bold! Full AI-driven, including deploys and server access – respect for going all in. Curious how you handle when AI makes mistakes on production systems?

I think I now went all in about 2, 3 months ago. It does make a lot of mistakes and its cowboy style 4.0. I cant remember a case were everything became a broken chaos. I think the AI does a much better job in maintaining my machines than i could do. Its able to configure low level stuff like fail2ban, iftables perfectly fine. Its much better in reading logs or solving issues. Once in a while it makes a mistake, like…

"A senior developer behaving like a child" – ha, that's a perfect description. Knows everything but sometimes does the weirdest things.

Interesting that it handles server config well. I'm still hesitant on production systems, but maybe that changes over time. Getting locked out by misconfigured firewall rules sounds stressful though!

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#72

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #70
willtemperley wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to build high performance custom components, for example with Canvas which is excellent. However, at the top level of an app it’s got to be the standard way. That may be a good thing for usability across apps but it feels like a low code platform sometimes.

Know what you mean. SwiftUI can feel similar – great for standard patterns, but you hit walls when you want something custom. Ended up mixing in UIKit for some edge cases. Trade-off I'm willing to make though. For a solo project, fast iteration beats pixel-perfect control.

> fast iteration beats pixel-perfect control

Wait until you work with a professional designer. They insist on perfection. Can drive me nuts.

But I have to admit; the projects that I’ve done with designers, are a lot more popular than the ones I did, myself.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#73

Post by oliverjanssen »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #72
oliverjanssen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Know what you mean. SwiftUI can feel similar – great for standard patterns, but you hit walls when you want something custom. Ended up mixing in UIKit for some edge cases. Trade-off I'm willing to make though. For a solo project, fast iteration beats pixel-perfect control.

> fast iteration beats pixel-perfect control Wait until you work with a professional designer. They insist on perfection. Can drive me nuts. But I have to admit; the projects that I’ve done with designers, are a lot more popular than the ones I did, myself.

Can understand – depends on the designer though! ;)

I've had both experiences. Good designers push you to make things better. But some insist on details no user will ever notice. Finding the right balance is key.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#74

Post by coffeefirst »

zombot wrote: post #67

> ... if Apple grants me the entitlement. I have a sneaking suspicion they might steal your idea and release their own version before they do that. But maybe you get lucky and they don't do that, so definitely go for it. Best of luck!

They could. So could Spotify. But in general the big tech products really seem allergic to the problems OP is after.

Anyway I’m a newly minted dad and I’m bookmarking this for a few years out. Congrats! This is brilliant and feels inspired.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#75

Post by Zigurd »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #12
Zigurd wrote: post #8

I'm currently using Flutter for a project. Considering I've been lead author or co-author on a few Android programming books, using a cross platform SDK was new for me. Dart is easy to learn, and Flutter makes attractive UI easy. I love to work on a big ambitious projects that really need platform specific implementations, but for the vast majority of cases a good cross platform SDK works well, and is a cost-efficien…

Makes sense. Flutter has a good reputation - I've heard mostly positive things. For me, I had bad experiences with React Native in the past and already built another iOS app in Swift. Knew the ecosystem, liked SwiftUI, so sticking with native felt right. Less context switching, and I can use Apple frameworks directly – MusicKit for Apple Music integration and native offline playback would've been painful to wrap. Cro…

I haven't tried anything music related, but I did have a need to embed video playback in user-created content in a consistent way across platforms. I'm pretty impressed with how that turned out.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#76

Post by oliverjanssen »

coffeefirst wrote: post #74
zombot wrote: post #67

> ... if Apple grants me the entitlement. I have a sneaking suspicion they might steal your idea and release their own version before they do that. But maybe you get lucky and they don't do that, so definitely go for it. Best of luck!

They could. So could Spotify. But in general the big tech products really seem allergic to the problems OP is after. Anyway I’m a newly minted dad and I’m bookmarking this for a few years out. Congrats! This is brilliant and feels inspired.

Congrats on the new dad status! Enjoy the early years – the Toniebox phase is actually pretty great. Muky will be waiting when they start asking for "that song from the movie" on repeat. ;)

And yes – big tech seems to avoid this space. Maybe too niche, maybe too much liability with kids content. Works for me!

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#77

Post by stogot »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #17
stogot wrote: post #14

I like this idea, but I really don’t get it (maybe I haven’t read enough of your webpage) but how do you integrate with Spotify? Is this native or something they can block/ban. And is it possible to upload content (I have mp3s I let kids listen to on a dumb mp3 player)

Spotify integration is all official - iOS SDK for playback, Web API for fetching playlists and tracks. Users connect their own Spotify account. Nothing hacky, so no ban risk. Same for Apple Music via MusicKit. MP3s aren't supported right now – Muky only works with streaming content. But you're not the first to ask. Adding local files to the roadmap, maybe in the future.

Thanks for the response

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#78

Post by knuit »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #45
knuit wrote: post #32

I’m currently using a Yoto (3 devices) with my 1 and 4 year old and they thoroughly enjoy it. The MYO experience and loading up cards is pretty straightforward as well. Love the concept here and I would be a customer if you were still offering lifetime, but with so many things going subscription nowadays adding another at $40/year just feels a bit on the higher side. Definitely understand how that assists with cash f…

Totally get it – subscription fatigue is real. Yoto is great for that age, we still have the Toniebox for our younger one. The pricing is tricky. One-time worked for users but not for ongoing development. $40/year sounds steep, but it's ~$3.30/month – less than a single Tonie figurine. Family plan can be shared with grandparents too. That said, I hear you. Always evaluating the model.

Totally understood. Currently we're subbed at the ~$150/year for Yoto for access to the club and credits for cards, so adding on at this point is somewhat unnecessary right now.

As they age out of Yoto this would certainly be worth it at that point.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#79

Post by som »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #69
som wrote: post #65

YouTube music support? (ᵕ•_•) I set a (very) old phone into child mode total lockdown with only YouTube music installed to make use of my family account and streaming playlists ... only to find it (the YTM app) wouldn't open due to the social media ban in Australia (legislation which I otherwise - controversially - completely support).

YouTube Music would be great, but there's no official API for third-party apps. Only unofficial libraries that scrape the web interface – not something I'd want to build an app on. Too fragile and could break anytime. Interesting about Australia – sounds like the social media ban for under-16s now includes YouTube, but YouTube Music as a pure streaming service should be separate. The ban targets social platforms with…

That's fair. Lack of any official APIs outside of the standard YT data API is frustrating. Would love to see / hear about a rosetta stone for the streaming services to allow easier migration (and integration) between them. Though I guess that's not in anyone's interest.

Also regards the ban, from what I've read Google have included Music by choice. Potentially as a bargaining chip.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#80

Post by jonplackett »

oliverjanssen wrote: post #59
jonplackett wrote: post #54

This is a great idea. I’ve been thinking about making something like this for a while due to all the problems you describe. I was planning to make something that used rfid cards to play specific songs / albums so it worked more like yoto. But that would just make it even more niche! Good luck you you!

Thanks! The RFID approach is cool – I actually built a box with real buttons and RFID connected to our Sonos system at some point. Was fun, but in the end I prefer the digital approach. Less hardware to maintain. And niche isn't bad – sometimes that's exactly where the best apps live.

Yeah the little hardware I had actually tried to make was so painful compared to software dev. Interested to read the part about asking users to make their own spotify dev account. How’s that going so far? Seems like it could be a big roadblock for non techy users?
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