Show HN: Continuo, a simple activity tracker for iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Continuo, a simple activity tracker for iPhone

continuoapp.com

60 pointsbornon543 comments

Hi, developer here! I’ve taught myself to code over the past 16 months, and last year I released my first app, a simple tip calculator. I’m excited to release this somewhat more substantial app.

I was inspired to make Continuo as a replacement for a pen-and-paper calendar I’ve kept since 2012. It’s based around the idea of recording the activities you do each day, without getting bogged down in specific numbers.

Feedback is welcome. Thanks for looking!

YES YES YES I have wanted something just like this for so long. I want a nice high-level view of which "optional" tasks I'm doing. Am I learning French for half an hour a day? Good job, me. Am I exercising? Eugh, probably not, c'mon Johnny, step it up there boy.

I'm a very visual person and this looks gorgeous; having it all in one place, rather than trying to track "half an hour learning French on Wednesday" in my French notes, is perfect.

I'm downloading this now. Thanks in advance, bornon5 - I'll leave a review on the App Store proper if I like the app after a few days' use.

Update: it's gorgeous. I love that I don't have to define "30 minutes of French per day" - I just fill the bar depending on how much I know I did; was ten minutes today enough, given my schedule and mood? Perhaps it was.

Perfect, just perfect. $2 spent. Thanks.

I think a dev can't ask for more praise than this comment.

Will buy it, too, because of your little review.

Wow, you've made my day. Thank you for this, and for so perfectly understanding my intention.

And this is why HN can be magical. :-)

Also, I'm on the iOS 9 beta so I can't leave an App Store review yet - but I will when it goes public, I promise.

One bit of feedback - the Reminders icon could very easily be put in the three-dots settings page to make the interface even cleaner. I'm likely to set a Reminder time once and change it very infrequently, so I'm not going to be pushing the button very often. But, very minor quibble just for the sake of feedback really.

Thank you!

The reminder icon was a tough one, and ended up in the main header based on beta test feedback (and my own opinion). But you're right to catch that possibility, and I'll keep it in mind. :)

If you like this you should check out Way of Life (http://wayoflifeapp.com/).

Awesome app I came across several months ago and havn't stopped using. I think it's the best one in this category!

Looks interesting, but too complicated (for me). The beauty of Continuo is its simplicity. It feels like the dashboard to my life, without the effort of tracking everything to the n-th degree.

Haven't tried it but looks nice. My input would be to resist the urge to add features. A lot of what makes these simple mobile apps great is the simplicity. I used a checklist app all the time, then the developer added so many features it became too complicated to maintain a checklist, and the app became useless.

I totally agree. In this case I made this app initially for myself, and the current feature set is exactly what I want, so I'm not really tempted to bloat it with features. Thanks for the feedback!

Absolutely agree from the 3 minutes use I've had so far.

as a developer building something, thanks for reinforcing this idea. It's really easy to start wanting to add more features to my app (for the wrong reasons).

Beautiful! I can totally see myself using this. I'm sure it's in the works, but I'd pay to have more reminders and (maybe) reminders that are also customizable for a particular activity. So like, a dollar for an additional reminder (and so on).

Consistently crashes shortly after tapping 'Add an activity'. iPhone 6+, iOS 8.4.1.

For anyone using an iPhone 6+ experiencing a crash: It's a memory issue specific to the 6+, and I've submitted an update that corrects this. Apple's doing an expedited review, so the fix should be out very soon.

Update: The fixed version is live, and I have confirmation that it's working correctly on iPhone 6+.

Shucks. If you would email me at naftali@continuoapp.com, I'd be very grateful.

Sure thing

Yeah, seeing the same thing on my 6+

Looks really nice, I love the concept behind it, and avoiding trying to quantify everything. Of course I have to ask the obligatory 'Any timeline for an android release'? If not, that's perfectly alright, I was just curious.

I wrote an app that does something similar but albeit not as pretty :)

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

Thanks! I'm definitely intrigued, but I can't promise anything because I don't really know what's involved in porting it. But it's on the table!

I don't usually write comments on HN, but this app is so beautiful and tasteful that I just had to get it out. If I'd be allowed to use one word, I'd use "Delightful".

Well done, really!

That's so nice to hear. I've so been nervous about launching and this incredible HN community makes that fear seem ridiculous. Thank you!

I've been looking for something like this forever. Thank you for saving me from having to write it myself (it would certainly have been uglier!) Got, bought, used, rated.

I wanted this really badly back when I was dabbling in writing about a year ago.

Still pretty sure I'll find it very useful. $2 spent. =3

Is the data stored on the device / does it sync across multiple devices if I have an iPhone + iPad or similar?

Also, one thing that would be cool to see is an API, so I can poll my progress/etc

It's stored locally, and does not currently sync. I'm actively trying to figure out sync for multiple devices, but at best that'll be months away (if I do it, I want to do it right. I have nightmares about losing people's data).

If you're looking for simple I'd give CloudKit a shot. Should be pretty easy to pick up after learning iOS.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a similar Android app?

Love it. Been looking for something like this for while.

Love it. Just bought and upgraded in 10 seconds.

Awesome, thanks for the support!

I can't seem to get past the blue landing page that says

CONTINUO

> > >

on it. Server issues?

I like the screenshots, and look forward to trying it out.

I'm on an iphone 5, btw.

Sounds obvious, but just in case ... swiping right does nothing?

jen729w's comment about swiping is correct - does swiping right get you to the next screen? I could be guilty of prioritizing visual design over clear UI, but I want to make sure the app didn't freeze for you.

Hah! That does it. I have just lost my developer card I guess. Thanks jen729w.

I've got to say, this did trip me up too. I was trying to swipe the screen in the direction of the arrows, which it seems was the wrong way. It's beautiful, but that particular screen could certainly be a bit clearer.

Yeah, this was a strangely tough screen to design. There's no established shorthand for "swipe this way" - I tried arrows in both directions, and each time approximately half of my testers swiped the wrong way. Gotta think about this one more - it's definitely not the user's fault here!

Needs iOS8 (why??)

I got worried about supporting older OSes (there have apparently been changes to push notifications between 7 and 8). Probably not a necessary limitation, but as a relatively new developer I'm playing it very safe.

It's not an unreasonable choice given that most users are running iOS 8 or later:

9.X 0.1%

8.X 81.3%

7.X 13.5%

6.X 3.1%

5.X 1.9%

https://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/

well done.

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