Show HN: Privacy-focused iOS hiking app | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Privacy-focused iOS hiking app

headings.carrd.co

Fitness changed my life, and I wanted to use my strengths as a software engineer to help others explore the outdoors.

A lot of fitness apps present information in a newsfeed or through competitions. Unfortunately, this is the same kind of environment that is intimidating in a gym or any activity where there's a large group of people who have been doing it for years. I made Headings to make it comfortable for people to explore at their own pace and privacy.

Everything in Headings is private by default. So you never see others' stats, or have emotions about how you're doing compared to someone else. It also respects your privacy by not displaying ads, or selling your information.

Could you add your twitter or contact page on the product page which I can use to reach out to you?

It's hard for me to make that commitment to download if the website provides literally zero information on UI, Features, or how my privacy may be protected.

if this is a privacy focused app. Could you add the privacy policy to your website and post also an article explain you strategy how to keep privacy while still earning money.

Looks cool! Could you allow creating an account with just email?

Thank you! I was considering creating an account with email+password, but I wanted to reduce the cognitive load on both sides. The consumer side of having to remember passwords (made somewhat moot by the iOS keychain auto-suggesting strong passwords). And the implementation side (since I'm just 1 engineer) getting tricky of saving passwords securely and handling that flow.

Having said that, if there is more interest in having email+password accounts, I'm more than happy to look into it, but it would have to wait for a later version.

Presumably an app focused on privacy wouldn't even _have_ an account for the user to sign up with? Just let them install the app and off they go.

This is what I’d like!

You could maybe offer a cloud save feature (for users who want that) like Duck Duck Go does for settings.

When the user wants to save something they enter some phrase/password/whatever with which they can later retrieve it.

This would allow users to change devices or reinstall without loosing their data temporarily. Maybe delete it after it’s been retrieved?

I agree that this is most ideal. Thank you for the suggestions, let me investigate and see what I can do :)

there is no information on the website.

or does the website for the privacy focused app require javascript to display anything other than a download button?

Thanks for checking it out! The website is just a placeholder for the beta test. I didn't want to link directly to the TestFlight link, as that would have been jarring.

I've copy pasted the description from the TestFlight app description here:

Thank you for beta testing Headings! You can track your hikes, drop pins, view all of your past hikes and pins with a free Headings account

Tips for beta testing: * Test the app during a hike, bike ride, or your commute to work by pressing the “Start Hike” button. When you’ve reached your destination, tap on the red flag to stop recording * Look at the stats, are they accurate? * How was your battery life? Did it drain too much too quickly? * Save them to your account, did signing up for a new account work? * Drop pins along the way and see if they show up in the map * Log out of your account and log back in. Did all of your previously saved info come back?

Hope this helps!

You should add more details about how you’re protecting the user’s privacy. If you are saving all the geo ip data that is linked to a fb/google account in your database that may be problematic. I suggest you encrypt that with a client side key or just store everything on the client.

A client side key sounds great, let me investigate this route and see how to do this. I imagine it's a similar pattern to end to end encryption.

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