my 8yo daughter caught me playing and now she's hooked!
679 karma · joined August 12, 2011
1. You cannot tap on any links in iMessage. You have to hold your thumb down on the link, copy it to clipboard, switch to Safari, paste
2. If someone posts a gif in an iMessage thread, it doesn't show up
3. All inbound requests for FaceTime calls seem to be automatically blocked, even when they are coming from people who are favorites in my contacts. I haven't looked into why yet. Maybe it's because I don't have their phone number saved with a `+1` prefix in my contacts?
Other than that it's hardly noticeable, and I think it's fantastic that we now have this option.
Though I do wonder why many of the other apps that came up as a search result for "weight loss tracker" continue to do so, and mine was singled out. It's an important search term, because predictive text will suggest "weight loss tracker" when you start typing "weight." If tracker were being penalized as noise, then adjusting the predictive text would be a great way to handle the transition.
I assure you, I won’t be pulling this app anytime soon. I didn’t intend to communicate that. It’s just that I have three small kids at home, so I don’t get much nights and weekends time for the app anymore. If I have to go back to full time work because of this, I’ll just shift into maintenance mode for the app (like making sure it’s compatible with new versions of iOS).
That said, a few counterpoints:
1. Something like 70% of all installs, for all apps, come from App Store search. It's the most popular way for users to find what they're looking for.
2. My business had to come alive before it could grow to be robust. I built this app from scratch. I didn't have an audience. I just built it, and App Store search connected me to people who were looking for an app like this, and it grew to the point where I could do it full-time.
Has the time come for me to take steps to make my business more robust? Yes. And your advice is great in that regard.
But a fledgling business must first survive before it can grow to be robust. This is a tale of me hitting an inflection point. I hope to learn from it, and grow.
If you struggle, keep your mind open to looking for and experimenting with small tweaks. I've discovered that details such as how tightly a nipple is on a bottle (keep it somewhat loose so air can exchange), or looking for signals like thrashing legs (gas? need to poop?) can make a huge difference. Treat it like debugging code, if that's a domain you are comfortable in.
And may you feel no shame in reaching out for help. I've never understood humility in the way I do now, and I'm grateful that I do.
I wish you the best!
Look at how supermarkets now have self-checkout. 4 self-checkout stations going with one employee monitoring, and customers don't mind using them. In fact many customers prefer them because they help them get out of the store more quickly. There's no reason to think that McDonalds won't eventually try to eliminate some of the staff that takes orders. It's just a question of when they'll be incentivized enough to try it.
Consequently, some smart people choose to play down their intelligence during conversation because it's disarming to do so, and they want to help people feel at ease.
I do also have an advanced settings section for the forecast calculation, but it's good to know there's interest in controlling the MV factors too. Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, Body Fat % is a pretty important thing on my list. I don't have it scheduled for the next release, but I do hope to get it into one of the next couple of releases.
If you wouldn't mind sharing, how do they let you customize it, and what do you enjoy about that?
Oh man, can't believe that copy issue (triple-line instead of plus) has been in the first run experience for over a month and I didn't realize it... thanks for pointing it out!
Great insight about not hiding the feature list behind that button... hadn't thought about that since as a dev I know that button can never charge me w/out another prompt from Apple. Dev blindness.
Also, what an interesting (and new to me) idea about trying a conversion during onboarding. Apple would indeed allow it. Great opportunity for an A/B test.
Yes, defaulting to actual weights is something I've wrestled with. The fact is, while I knew I could play up the moving average angle with this audience, many of my customers got confused about how moving averages worked and why they were seeing weights they didn't type in on their second day of usage. Also, moving average predictions are pretty inaccurate until there's a week's worth of data, so it's really hard to have a great day 2 experience using just the moving averages. In my experience, defaulting to simple weight tracking for the numbers I display and letting power users switch to moving averages seems to have worked best.
Kevin- This is some of the most thought-provoking feedback I've gotten. You clearly put a good amount of your time into the review and the feedback, and I really appreciate how you gave actionable advice. Thanks for your help!
Happy Scale helps people who are losing weight to redefine their relationship with the scale. By using their daily weigh-in as a single data point in a moving average instead of a source of truth, you can see daily weight loss progress in the app even when your scale weight plateaus for a few days. Over time, you become desensitized to the horror of a bad weigh-in and can avoid discouragement during the tender moments of building your new lifestyle habits.
I created this iOS app because I would be devastated in the first few days of a diet when I hopped on the scale and saw a number that was higher than my starting weight. I went on to learn that there are many factors that can cause fluctuations of a few pounds in our weight from day to day (glycogen stores, water retention, food in the belly, etc.), and using a moving average is a convenient way to neutralize these factors.
I've been working on this as a nights and weekends project for a bit over 4 years. I have some big ideas for where I'd like to take it in the future, but I'd love to get your feedback on where it is today!