

First Week Analysis for news:yc (HN for iPhone) - news-yc
http://newsyc.me/aftermath.html

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izak30
I bought it from the iTunes store directly, after seeing the post and reading
the comments (specifically, $5 isn't much to support a fellow indie-dev trying
to make his way through the app store, for an app that I'll probably use every
dayish). Next time I was out, had my phone, and was bored, I looked for the $5
app, because it had to be yours. It's really well put together, and I really
like the features you added. My only complaint is that it goes to comments
first, not stories first, but that's easy to get used to.

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omaranto
I think a lot of Hacker News readers actually look at the comments first. I
remember people mentioning that on HN and I know my wife and I usually do,
presumably so does the app's developer.

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sant0sk1
Spot on. I often use the comments to quickly judge if a link is worth
visiting. If so, I click through and then come back for more conversation if
I'm still interested.

I think showing comments first was a great design decision.

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shii
Hey Grant, I saw your news:yc app in Installous and see that it was submitted
by you (chpwn). Usually when app-authors submit their own apps to Installous,
it's to deter pirates by shaming them and disabling the whole functionality of
the app until it gets cracked by someone else, or to log who actually pirates.

I haven't gone the Installous route, so I'm wondering what you've decided to
do with the version on filedude and fileape?

~~~
news-yc
That's actually the full app. news:yc is open source, and I want anyone to be
able to use it, even if they don't want to (or can't) pay. Since building the
app yourself isn't always easy (or possible), I submitted it there so anyone
could install it easily.

~~~
shii
You're a pretty cool guy, Grant.

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stevenj
You made something of value to people and put a price tag on it.

People bought it.

Nice work!

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Joshim5
Your strategy involving submitting cracked versions of your app was quite
interesting. It would be interesting to see the rate of the app store
purchases vs. piracy for your app. I would expect your strategy would reduce
the rate of piracy

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msie
I'm really surprised at the number of sales. Congrats!

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noahhs
Still waiting for that price drop. I understand if you have to wait a few
weeks, to appease the buyers.

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aherlambang
So did you get an internship already because of this? That would be another
interesting story to tell

