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Comment by standan | Hacker News Reader

To go one step further, we had created the site https://www.allthingsmine.com and the ios/android app which basically auto looks up the manual in online manual sites. In addition, it points to youtube videos for the product, provides specs if the product is available in our database. Also users can also store their purchase receipts, price etc and get notified of price changes and view the trend if the product is sold by retailers such as Amazon, BestBuy, Walmart etc.

Will point to manualslib.com if it is comprehensive.

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Looks neat but you ask for a massive amount of permissions.

Yes. For known products we provide manufacturer support phone numbers, hence ability to make a call from the app. For adding recipts we need file system/camera access. If you would like to connect with friends to share reviews/recommendations then contacts. Hence the long list...

Best practice is to ask for those permissions as they come up, rather than asking a user to trust your app with the world up front. https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requestin...

you should improve the UX if manuals is the focus of your app

it sounded interesting so i downloaded it. there was a prompt to add items to a wishlist after starting it... i was only able to monitor the price of the added item afterwards. there was no mention about any user feedback, youtube videos or manuals anywhere i could find after a cursory look.

Yes. You are right. We ran into the issue of user adoption for the post-purchase usecase. So we added the price monitoring as more users wanted prepurchase options but there are lots of players there.

very understandable. while a user manual database with additional youtube videos or other comments would be values to ... some, it wouldn't be many people, as most never look at any manuals, no matter how many problems they've got with their devices.

sorry for the ninja edit on my previous comment. i didn't see your response before i rewrote it. i kept the meaning, just clarified my point a little.

Your website breaks the back button.

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