
Launch an App - wallflower
https://danielgauthier.me/launch-an-app/
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eigen-vector
This is cool. Just to give you some product validation, this is essentially
what WhatsApp was before it became a messaging service. The 'status' that you
see when you look at your WhatsApp contacts was the entire app; launched to
ensure people knew when was a good time to text or call a contact. It was
free, and more importantly, instant. So what ended up happening was that
people started using it to broadcast announcements, have conversations etc.
That's when WhatsApp pivoted to a messaging service.

Good luck!

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ratsimihah
Sounds like messaging would be the next logic iteration for this app to grow
indeed. It's async and not too intrusive to solve this issue.

Regardless, very neat project and execution, hope it gets where you want it
to!

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zomglings
Really like the look of the app although I can't use it since it's iOS only.

Actually, my wife and I need something like this - we work together, and it's
hard to coordinate around periods where I am in programming flow.

If you are the developer of the app, congratulations on your launch! :)

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danielmgauthier
Hi, I'm the developer!

Thanks for the kind words. Sorry you can't check it out – really wish I could
get this onto Android too, but I'm a solo iOS developer who can only take on
so much at once :(

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airstrike
Congrats on the launch and thanks for writing about your story – it's truly
invaluable to me, personally.

How did you cut your teeth with iOS development? I'm traditionally a backend
(hobbyist) developer, and am a little lost as to what are good resources to
get started on iOS development for someone who's already familiar with
programming

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danielmgauthier
I started doing iOS stuff in 2012, so a lot has changed since then! If you're
just getting into it now, I'd probably recommend diving straight into SwiftUI,
which is Apple's new UI framework, and likely the future of iOS dev. Paul
Hudson's "Hacking with Swift" website has a "100 days of SwiftUI" series that
I've seen people really enjoying – might be worth checking out!

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airstrike
Thank you! Definitely will!

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abnercoimbre
This may or may not be the place, but isn't there something unfortunate about
the ever-increasing "need" for public validation (at scale)?

The author mostly managed to extricate himself by defining his own successful
launch, but it's not the norm. Our conversations are rated by strangers, and I
have friends who go back to old tweets regularly and delete the ones that
"didn't get enough likes."

I'd _really_ like to know if there's a place to discuss and advocate against
this phenomenon. Or at least mitigate.

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_alex_
sounds like a good medium post. i’m sure you’ll get lots of claps :-P

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felideon
Love this story. Idea to launch in less than 2 months.

Are iOS devs still shying away from SwiftUI for now?

Also, I find it interesting to start coding on day 1 with just a vague idea in
your mind. It's probably my UX influence, but I wouldn't dare do that anymore
these days. In the least, I want to hash out my domain/data model, no matter
how simple the app might be.

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danielmgauthier
Hi, I'm the dev!

This is a great point, and you're not wrong. This was a pretty unique case
where I had a really clear idea in my head of what this would require from the
get-go, and it was also meant to be a pretty quick, experimental little
project. It seems to have struck a chord with some folks, so now I get to find
out if my off-the-cuff approach is going to come back to haunt me soon.

As for SwiftUI, I think it'll be a slow and steady process for most of us.
I've been a UIKit developer for the better part of a decade now, so I still
feel most comfortable in that domain, but I think most folks acknowledge
SwiftUI is the future. Although it's still a bit immature, I'm hoping to start
shipping bits of SwiftUI here and there soon.

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applecrazy
> I still feel most comfortable in that domain, but I think most folks
> acknowledge SwiftUI is the future.

As a counterpoint, SwiftUI is easier to grok to me (a student who's done a lot
of web work in React) than UIKit ( _especially_ storyboards and the
constraints system, but maybe I haven't made enough of an effort to learn it).
HStacks and VStacks are very similar to flexbox layout.

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jereees
I admire your writing style. Did you take any courses or practice regularly
otherwise? English is not my native language but I find your texts incredibly
natural to read. Kudos on the launch!

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snazz
It's a good example of informal but easily understandable technical writing.
Most of the progress update phrases are written lightheartedly and don't
contain subjects (i.e. the subject is implicitly "I"). This type of writing is
appealing because it's conversational: it's pretty much exactly how a native
English speaker might tell the story to a friend.

I don't have any advice for nonnative speakers on this particular subject
other than to analyze how native speakers write and speak informally (like in
movie scripts or text messages). Saying what you're writing out loud before
writing it can help as well.

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danielmgauthier
Yep, I think snazz said it better than I could have here! I'll emphasize the
last point especially, about saying it out loud – I may not /actually/ read my
stuff out loud, but I'm always very focused on how my writing would sound if I
was talking to someone. I want it to sound comfortable and natural, while also
keeping it well-structured and grammatically correct.

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mnjn
Your sense of design is imo simply impeccable! I was wondering what you used
to build your blog? Checked out the code and it seems custom-built! Is that
right?

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ihuman
Looks like it's using github pages and jekyll. Here's the source code:
[https://github.com/danielmgauthier/danielmgauthier.github.io](https://github.com/danielmgauthier/danielmgauthier.github.io)

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danielmgauthier
Yep, I just started with a Jekyll template and tweaked it over time. But, fair
warning: I am by no means a web developer, and most of my "tweaks" are just
poorly written css changes.

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airstrike
This is really cool. Thanks for posting and congrats to @danielmgauthier for
launching!

Probably makes sense to link to [https://danielgauthier.me/2020/01/26/indie-
intro.html](https://danielgauthier.me/2020/01/26/indie-intro.html) instead of
this final chapter, since I don't believe this series has ever been shared on
HN before

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jashe
For the tips screen (May 5 update), can you elaborate on what the app store
team made you change about it?

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hckr_news
This is quite nice. How do you plan to evolve it once people get back into
offices (if ever) ? I can potentially see teams using it in their slack
workflow as an integration. But how do you forsee it evolving outside of
perhaps roommates or couples wfh?

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danielmgauthier
So far, my approach has been to not think too much about the in-office use
case since, in theory at least, there are already tools like Slack that
_should_ be able to serve this purpose (though admittedly, they don't always
do it well).

It's still very early days with this thing, and I've got lots of ideas
bouncing around, but one avenue that might be interesting to explore is to try
to better serve the use case of letting friends and family know, at a glance,
what you're up to and whether you're up for a chat. I know I've already got
users doing this kind of thing with the app today.

But we'll see! I think what makes the app appealing is its simplicity, so I
don't want to stray from that too quickly.

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_31
Enjoyed the writing style of the post and the clean design of the app. Cheers
to launching!

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danielmgauthier
Thanks!

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mromanuk
Congratulations on your launch! I like the design

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danielmgauthier
Thanks!

