

I launched an iPhone app yesterday, and all I got were some stupid lessons - 54mf
http://skrivr.com/samuel/general/iphonelessons
[Update] It seems Skrivr has crashed under the HN load. I've thrown up a flat-file version of the article here:<p>http://samuelfine.com/iphone_lessons_learned.html
======
seclorum
I took a look at your product, and your site, and I just thought I'd list a
few negatives in case it helps you somehow:

1) No screenshots? I don't want to watch a movie. Also, if I have to watch a
movie, I want to be able to scrub through it. 2) Wheres the one-liner that
describes why your app is so great? 3) No sync'ing? WTF? Its the 21st century,
I already have a Calendar app - and I've been using it. If I want to switch to
your product, I'm going to need data in/data out.

~~~
54mf
It really does help, thanks a ton. I'm all about constructive criticism, very
useful after being so closely focused on specific aspects of the app for
months.

1) Great points. I'm working on a updated version of the site that will
include a better video (scrubbable) and screenshots, amongst other
improvements.

2) Working on it, that has been the #1 recommendation so far.

3) Straight-up iCal syncing probably won't happen, for a lot of reasons I
mentioned in another comment here. (Import doesn't make a lot of sense
logistically, mainly.) But, I'm playing with some import/export possibilities.
There will _definitely_ be a way to get data out soon, if for no other purpose
than freedom/portability, and some kind of syncing option will surely show up
eventually.

------
FiddlerClamp
A one-line description of why Faraday is different/cool from other calendars
would help - both in your flat-file post ("It's a simple day calendar called
Faraday, and it's the first iOS calendar to XYZ..."), as well as Faraday's
home page, under the video. I can't tell enough from the screen cap, except
that the UI reminds me a bit of the Clear to-do list app that was making the
rounds a few weeks ago.

Good luck with it!

~~~
54mf
Absolutely, I've heard similar from other folks checking out the app. I'm
going to spend time this weekend updating the "marketing" stuff. Website,
photos, copy, etc. Some of the decisions I made don't show Faraday in its best
light, or don't do enough to really sell it and differentiate it from every
other calendar or todo app out there. I had like 3 paragraphs about
differentiation alone in the original version of my post, but decided to scrap
it for later.

Thanks for your input and the kind words!

------
54mf
Apparently Skrivr can't handle HN, so I've put up a flat-file version of the
post here:

<http://samuelfine.com/iphone_lessons_learned.html>

[Edit] Looks like Skrivr is entirely down. Not sure it's my fault, but it was
working all morning.

~~~
54mf
An update: they're working on it, and it was all our fault.
<https://twitter.com/#!/skrivr/status/178173526308683777> (And they misspelled
my name!)

------
RobertLysik
Congratulations, it looks like you're on your way to escaping from developer
obscurity :) I really like the clean spare design of your calendar app. Great
job on the promotional page and video, it looks very professional. However,
when I watched the video I had a bit of difficulty understanding the number of
steps required to set the background color for each list item. Very sharp
looking, though, I like it.

~~~
ddagradi
Watching him set the color for every chunk of an item was really painful. It
looked like 1) not a simple or intuitive action and 2) really repetitive and
boring.

I imagine it's a case of being slightly blind to one's own features. There's
not a single case in the video where sets multiple colors for an item, so it
seems like an oversight, probably due to the underlying implementation.
Definitely a problem worth solving.

~~~
54mf
Oh yeah, it hurts. Like I mentioned in my reply to the parent, totally
embarrassed by it and have already built a fix for the issue in v1.0.2, coming
in a week or two.

------
rpledge
The app looks well designed, but the lack of sync features would be an issue
for me. But I'm sure there's a good market for people that don't need to
coordinate calendars between devices and people.

~~~
54mf
I'm still on the fence about sync. There are a lot of good reasons not to;
besides intentionally not including it for the sake of compartmentalizing
functionality, it would be a pain in the ass to make it work with the UI and
UX of the app. Exporting events would be simple (in fact, data exporting will
be coming soon, just to an email or text file if nothing else - data
portability!), but importing existing events would be a disaster. I'd have to
massacre any overlapping events.

But, I'm intentionally leaving that door open, simply because I'm willing to
at least consider any user requests. Maybe there's a place for it, we'll see
how things grow.

------
bobthedino
You've done pretty well to have you app approved with your "support" link
going to a 404 page (<http://faradaycal.com/support>). I had an app rejected
just because the reviewer couldn't see a contact email address on the support
page we provided... even though there was in fact one there!

~~~
54mf
Good catch. That just jumped to the top of my list. Regardless of the app
store approval, the last thing I'd want is to piss off a user because they
can't contact me about an issue. Much appreciated.

------
elliotb
It seems your post has become inaccessible. I'm getting: Cannot connect to
your Dropbox account. Are you sure you have connected Skrivr to Dropbox

Oops. Page does not exist.

… the page you are looking for does not exist.

~~~
54mf
Awesome. I don't have a "proper blog" up yet and assumed a third-party service
reading a static text file wouldn't die. Serves me right. I'll work on getting
that page forwarded to something more stable, I appreciate the heads-up.

~~~
rhizome
Amazon S3 can serve static HTML.

~~~
54mf
You know, the sad thing is that I've got a Linode server that's more than
capable of handling the load of static pages. I just liked the themes on
Skrivr and didn't want to let aesthetics distract me from writing up my post,
so I just went with their theme and posted. Probably should have set something
up on my own in advance.

~~~
biot
The good news is that tomorrow you can post a new story to HN: "I posted a
story to HN yesterday and all I got were some stupid lessons". :)

~~~
54mf
BRB WRITING AN EBOOK

------
j45
About the app:

\- I'm really surprised Apple's ical doesn't let me create entries like that.
You've out appled apple. If I could create todo's and categorize them GTD
style I might return to iOS.

\- Floating Tasks (where they carry over) to me would be an instant sell. It's
an absolute must and few people even know about it. I'd buy it on the spot if
there was there.

\- My work flow is - create todo's in general, and then the floating todo's
get scheduled on a day. Each day, I then assign a time to them (drag them) and
I have my schedule for the day. My job is just to create the todo's as they
come up, or enter the hard appointments. In the end, todo's become calendar
items.

\- Allow syncing via wifi to your computer instead of just through icloud or
google sync. All three would appeal to everyone

\- If you want to connect off line feel free, I have obsessed over the perfect
calendar/todo system for about 6 years trying to replicate the productivity
nirvana I had on Palm OS with DateBK6. DateBK6 was the one app made me use the
Treo years after it was outdated and it was by far the smartest and most
productive app I've ever used in my life. All my efforts through Windows
Mobile, iOS and now Android have been to replicate _that_ experience.

Pimlical is becoming more intuitive by the day, it's highly gestured workflow
is sinking it's teeth into me. I might not be fond of Gingerbread but the
tractorbeam of a working calendar/todo is too strong. The app was built by the
same company that has built the best calendar/todo I've ever used, DateBK6.

About the site:

\- The video was great. The music selection helped express the magicalness of
how light and easy it is.

\- It might be worthwhile having an interactive demo where people can drag
things themselves. Might be a moot point in the beginning but a lack of
buttons can be intimidating. Not for me though.

Good luck.

What I like about yours is natively tying in the power of gestures. They're
simple, but could become advanced easily for advanced users.

~~~
54mf
I'm keeping most of my roadmap close to the vest for obvious reasons, but
repeating events (I like the term "floating tasks") are definitely coming very
soon, probably with v1.1. Looking in to various syncing options as well.

Your description of your work flow is very interesting. The concept of a sort
of todo "queue" from which items gets dropped into time slots is a really cool
pattern. Only problem is, the closer Faraday comes to handling todo items, the
hairier things get. Once general todo items are added, then you need projects
and tags and ownership and etc etc etc.

That said, it would be impossible to ignore how well Faraday's UX would work
with a todo list. Stay tuned.

I have heard before - quite possibly on HN, and quite possibly from you - that
old Palm calendar apps are kind of legendary. I'll do some research in to
DateBK6 for sure, I saw a YouTube video demoing the interface and it looks
like a productivity machine.

Thanks for such an in-depth response, and for all the kind words.

~~~
j45
Maybe I can clarify.

\- Everything on a calendar is a to-do item, ultimately. We want to remember
to do something at a certain time, on a certain date. You're already in that
business.

\- The problem you are solving is hairy. Shaving the problem doesn't make it
go away. Things always come up to ruin a schedule.

\- Trivializing the issue means it's on it's path to potentially becoming
another calendar or to-do list that does neither well, because we always have
to manage both, integrated. I've probably tried 30+ apps over the years to
handle my workflow, and it's been a tough go.

\- Instead of a to-do queue, it's different types of appointments with your
time : unscheduled, tentative (floating), and scheduled.

\- Appointments for your time ("tasks") come into an inbox (GTDesq but
simpler) and end up on a list. The list gets put into categories (nothing
more), which are the GTD contexts (Phone, online, email, home, etc). You can
then drop the categories on your day into blocks of hours and the list fills
itself, according to the ranking you give everything, and any dates you might
assign. :)

\- Floating task advance notice - One other thign that's critical is having an
advance notice for a task or appointment. Sometimes i like 2 days, other times
10 days. I like being able to set that without a separate reminder entry. It
just starts showing up in my list early (lower ranked than the rest of my
current stuff on an earlier day). I can start thinking about it or start
tackling it in advance... it ends my last minute rushes.

\- Each task can be bundled to handle other things of a similar context. I can
show you what I do. It works like gangbusters.

\- Mini Reviews: Omnifocus came close but their calendar view isn't how it
needs to be. Any.do has great UI integration but their calendar view sucks.
Astrid is a lot better, and has different types of syncs, their calendar view
is a bit better. GTasks for android is the diamond in the rough, the
calendar/todo list view was perfect, but entering, categorizing and syncing of
tasks is still coming along. The Datebk6 calendar view is the best I've ever
found.

There is a very good chance I talked about DateBK5 / Palm apps.. check my
history, I'm almost sure I have. Pimlical is
<http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/>, and intended to be the next reincarnation
of Datebk6 for android. I specifically left iOS to use this app because I knew
he gets me. Actually, his app is the one that taught me to be productive, lol.
It's not perfect though and I think Faraday has things I really want too.

Why am I sharing all this? I just want to pay $20 for an app that does all
this instead of building it and getting distracted from my core business. I've
often thought of sinking in my own money but as you know, building a polished,
gestured app isn't a $1-5,000 app development effort. :)

I have spent 10+ years being completely and constantly overwhelmed with having
too many projects on the go and getting them all done somehow, and that
somehow becoming the norm that I can be peaceful with it as much as possible.

What I learnt is more complex solutions don't work as you get busier. They
have to be simpler, quicker and easier than scribbling something down.
Everything has to go to one inbox, including emails. It has to be even
simpler, but help compartmentalize, self organize, self rank, and self
generate as much of your daily list as possible.

------
RBerenguel
The app looks very neat... A pity I use more my iTouch than my iPad for
calendaring (which is not very often), and that it's a 2nd Gen iPod: no iOS5,
no downloading. Maybe when I buy a new one...

~~~
54mf
Thanks! Unfortunately, iOS 5 is required for a few of the tricks I'm using in
the app. For what it's worth, my fiancee uses my old iPhone 3G and she can't
run Faraday either. I really hope the next gen iPhone/iPod Touch will send the
low-end iOS5-capable device prices down so they're more available than they
are now.

~~~
RBerenguel
The problem is not the price (of course a cheaper iTouch 4 wouldn't hurt),
it's the time spans. The iTouch line needs a new version (retina display!?),
and afaik they are a profitable line for Apple, so it's not like they will
ditch it. But no new version yet, and I'm still waiting for my new one. Anyway
it's a great looking app, congratulations and I bet it will get traction from
this HN post :)

~~~
allwein
The iPod Touch has had a retina display since it first came out in September
2010.

The last update to the iPod Touch was in October 2011, so that may be the one
you're looking for.

~~~
RBerenguel
Hmmm you're right, I missed the retina part of the 2010 launch. But the
October 11 release was just being pre-installed with iOS 5 and having a white
back version. Same chip & RAM as before (previous launch was in September
2010), nothing new & fancy, just a year-old model, running to be 2 years old
already.

------
FuzzyDunlop
I think it's prudent to classify a couple of the OP's points differently:

Marketing.

You can be the best developer in the world, but you also need to know how to
market your creations if you want them to really succeed. Chances are that
otherwise, you're either preaching to the choir or an empty audience.

Know who you're targeting, know how to pique their interest. Know similar
markets you can expand into. And know how to make people you don't know like
what you do.

~~~
ja27
I just launched my first iOS app a few days ago. The marketing is probably at
least half the work. We're in the education space and it's been a little hard
really developing contacts and getting attention without an app, so we built a
fairly simple first app mostly to get into the space and build a network.
We're hoping that pays off for later, more ambitious apps.

Even though I should know better, I was surprised how many people asked for
our app on Android, especially for the Kindle Fire. I had planned to
eventually do an Android port, but I scrambled and got a port done and
submitted to Amazon today (Google Play to follow). It really hit me today that
if half or more of the work is the marketing and non-development tasks, it
makes even more sense to address the top two markets. I just don't know how
much Android users will really pay. We're hoping that the education space,
again especially on the Kindle Fire, is a little more willing to buy apps
rather than just grab the free game of the day.

------
cl8ton
You made good points about the data not lying, took me a while to learn that
one (actually I'm still learning it)

I up voted you to help your hustle efforts!

~~~
54mf
Thanks! I've been a big Gary Vaynerchuk fan for a while, he's all about the
hustle. To an insane degree. Check him out if you want to go more in-depth
about it.

------
DavidBishop
Kudos for the title if nothing else.

------
raphaelcaixeta
Chartbeat looks awesome! Definitely going to give it a look.

~~~
54mf
Aw yeah, Chartbeat is way cool. Can't recommend it highly enough for any sites
or services that could benefit from up-to-the-minute data.

------
MatthewPhillips
I don't own an iphone but I'm buying it anyways. And I'll be sure my
girlfriend (iphone user) will buy it too. Good luck to you!

~~~
jacktoole1
As I'm developing my first iPad app right now, I've been reading up on all the
tips I can find. As thanks for the blog post, and to support someone else
trying to break into the market, I bought your app too; good luck!

------
pghimire
Hang in there - you never know. Plus, I could not find a link to your app on
your blog post. To say it in your own words: you aren't yelling loud enough.
Keep hustling!

~~~
54mf
Oh wow, I linked to it right at the top, guess it wasn't as obvious as I
thought! I'll edit to make it a little more noticable, thanks for pointing
that out.

