HN Explorer

My first app: Habit Streaks (itunes.apple.com)

60 points by espitia ↗ HN
2 months ago I had never touched code but I was always dreaming of releasing my own product. 2 months later and with A LOT of help from teamtreehouse and stackoverflow, I've released my first app.

Any feedback would be very appreciated.

51 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 86.8 ms ] thread
espitia
2 months ago I had only some basic HTML/CSS experience and was tired of only dreaming of shipping some product. I put myself through many long hours of courses with Treehouse and a lot of help from the community over at Stackoverflow and released my first app. I'm very proud of just that, shipping something.

Any feedback would be very appreciated!

matthewking
How do I get this from the UK? I've been looking for an app just like it and this looks really nice. Is it only on the US app store at the moment? (is that a thing?)

Edit: found it but doesn't seem to be on the iPad app store even though it says its compatible. Any plans for an iPad release?

espitia
Glad you found it. As of now, I'm just trying to perfect it on the iPhone. No plans on iPad sorry.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
xivzgrev
Congrats on the ship!

But...why is it paid? If you're trying to develop a reputation for yourself, as well as get that early user feedback, I think you're making your job harder.

Yes it's only 99 cents, but there's a tremendous amount of hesitancy to buy an app when there's such a strong expectation of getting for free.

Being a first time app developer, developing an app in a crowded market place, only compounds that.

espitia
You're completely right. I made 99 cents though to validate first if people would actually buy based on icon/keywords/screenshots. I submitted an update yesterday to make it free though, seeing how little reviews I am getting.
xivzgrev
Experimentation - I love it :). I'll make a note to check it back out in a week to see if it's avail.
soundlab
>>But...why is it paid?

Because he wants to be rewarded in a small way for his efforts? Geez it's 99 cents - 30% Apple cut.

eddieroger
Plus you gotta pay to play in the App Store. If he sells 100ish of these, he's covered his developer fee for the year. To me, that's a successful ship.
espitia
Agreed 100%. To me just selling 10 units was amazing, considering I did not know what Obj-C was a few months ago.
xivzgrev
Fair point - all depends on your goals / ambitions for a project. Given his story of creating his first app, your suggestion be a perfect first goal.
xivzgrev
I get that. But he's asking a community for feedback. It's like asking someone to coffee to pick their brain, and then asking them to pay for your coffee because you didn't have time to run to the bank.

You can give us a free download link or a web version.

Downvote me if you must, but I think it's tacky.

espitia
I understand your point. I didn't mean to do it like this, I was trying to get validation (with $1) from actual customers, not the HN community.
jbigelow76 

    >Yes it's only 99 cents, but there's a tremendous amount of hesitancy to buy an app when there's such a strong expectation of getting for free.
99 cents may make some hesitate but it's also low enough that I'll sometimes buy an app just to support a developer even if I don't intend to use the app.

Anything we can do to help uncondition the public that everything should be ad supported the better.

Congrats to the OP on shipping!

DLarsen
Really neat. This kind of simple approach to behavior improvement really resonates with me.

I'm working on a (web) app that takes a similar approach to improving spending habits. It's the same idea that you track progress not merely in terms of bare numbers, but that you can also record some context and notes about improvement.

Have you thought about adding support for sharing progress with other users? For example, I could think of a friendly reading competition with a friend where we try to build the longest streak and daily note what we've been reading.

espitia
Yes I have actually. The whole idea from the beginning was to build an app my 'mastermind' group and I could use to keep each other on check on making our dreams reality. That feature is definitely in the works. I just needed to release this to get validation and some initial traction.

Please post your web app when released, I'd love to give feedback and share ideas.

Cheers

hmcm55
Congrats on getting it out there. Where'd you learn iOS? just using Treehouse? any other resources?

Congrats again!

espitia
Yup most of the initial learning was done through Treehouse. So much so that I did not know what language was to be used to build ios. They took me from beggining to complete projects. Then when building my own app, it was a lot of Google/Stackoverflow/trial and error.
lui8906
This is very inspirational, congratulations. I suppose I am where you were at 2 months ago. Have basic HTML/CSS and starting to learn fundamentals of JS and want to start actually completing projects. Would you recommend Treehouse?
espitia
I definitely recommend Treehouse. All it is putting in the time and more importantly, at least for me, was having a purpose. Knowing what you are going to build to have in mind while you learn is key to staying motivated. It is also very rewarding to implement little by little what you know towards your project.
espitia
HN got me to top 65 app in the productivity category for the USA. Thank you!
openjck
Looks beautiful. Great job!

I was searching for habit tracking apps on Firefox OS just the other day. None so far.

If the app is already written in HTML/CSS/JS, getting it to run on Firefox OS should be super easy. Basically just a matter of writing a manifest file. I think Phonegap even has an export feature that will do that for you.

magnet1c
Congrats on shipping. I haven't downloaded it yet but the App Store screenshots look low quality/compressed. Probably not noticeable on an iPhone but I see it on my desktop.
ToastyMallows
Does anyone have any suggestions for an existing Android app that does just this?
jaytheham
I use habitflow which seems fairly similar, there are a few other ones I checked out but HF had the best UI.
danieldankworth
I wrote a habit tracking app a few years ago, it's very simplistic and doesn't look nice but I use it every day and it does what I need it to do:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doboko.hab...

I've recently got a new phone (was on Android 2.3) so I'm going to try and release a new version soon to take advantage of the better UI available in the newer versions of Android, like the action bar. Going to drop the timer as well as it doesn't work properly, clutters the screen up and I never use it.

Envec83
Congrats on the app. Looks pretty good.

My suggestion: make it freemium. Give away the basic functionality, and charge for extra features.

I believe this will make your app much more popular and also be more lucrative to you in the long run.

espitia
I will be looking into that, have to find the right balance between basic and premium. Thanks for the advice.
GraffitiTim
You could make it free for up to 2 habits.
espitia
Wow, great idea. Thank you.
pboschmann
Congratulations on shipping. I've bought it as an expression of sympathy — I'm building apps in my freetime too, but they were too complex even for a two man show… so I've never shipped anything. :)

What I would like to see in your app are high res icons. They look pixelated on my 5s.

espitia
Thank you for that. About the pixelated icons: I did not know how to do icons for retina until yesterday, I fixed them and submitted an update last night to fix that and a bug I found :)
pboschmann
Ok, I will check the store tomorrow for the update. In the meantime I'll try to cultivate a habit of getting up early in the morning. ;)
trevmckendrick
Good on you for finishing and getting it out there. So few get that far.
tronium
It looks like a great idea, and a well designed app. Even as much as I want it, I'm afraid I can't justify spending $0.99 for a productivity app. Just my opinion, I would much rather have an occasional ad, with an in-app purchase to get rid of ads. Thereby, if I really loved and used the app, I would pay the price. Otherwise, I'm afraid not. Still a good looking app though!
espitia
I appreciate the comments!
gress
How did you afford your iPhone?
dionidium
Nice work! I especially like how you introduce the functionality with a couple default tasks.

Criticism/suggestions:

* It feels like I should be able to touch a task to select it (to show history?)

* I'd rather not be required to enter a note

* Redo-ing a habit still shows all the old notes (and crashed the app once)

* Swiping left to hide the redo/stats causes the delete button to briefly flash in a clunky way

espitia
A few questions:

- What do you mean by history? What would you like to see when a Habit is selected?

- Thanks for pointing that out. I figured not all habits require a note.

- i will look in to those two bugs.

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

dionidium
- What do you mean by history? What would you like to see when a Habit is selected?

Maybe the progress for that task (i.e. old notes)? Either that or the stats, I guess.

parrots
Congrats! Quick nitpick - fix your icon in the app store itself. Looks like you have the corner radius from iOS6 on your icon so you get some black edging in the corner. I usually just export a square version for the iTunes image, they'll add corners as needed.

(great template: http://appicontemplate.com)

dwg
Congratulations on getting your app out!

I'm working on similar app, tracking and building/breaking good/bad habits. It's very close to an alpha release. Please get in touch if you'd like to compare notes (contact info on http://drewgoodwin.com).

espitia
Will get in contact soon :)
jbrooksuk
If you're making it free, any chance of seeing some of the code? I'm looking to make a UI with the same row layouts.
Treyno
Pretty much the exact same idea I had about three weeks ago. Even wrote it in my 'idea pad' with some other detail. This has convinced me to get my ideas out sooner. Well played and good job! - (I am also very new to programming and the amount of ideas I have are unreal, so chances of me ever doing this were slim) - But it's nice to confirm my ideas were on the right track :)
hoggle
Congratulations and kudos to you, that was hard work! It's a very useful app too!
JoeyTheTitan
Hey big congratulations on getting your app released!

Looks really clean & minimalistic which user's love! I'm working on a similar app for achieving your goals, setting rewards & basically motivating you to success. I'm even using the app myself.. I would love to share ideas with you, maybe even a partnership of some sort.

Please contact me at joeytawadrous@gmail.com if you would like that.

Strive: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id877308957