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Comment by DenisM | Hacker News Reader

Bummer. I've been enjoying my competition-free life for the last 18 month since I've launched my iPhone app GeeTasks, but this was not meant to last, it seems.

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Wow, you made GeeTasks? Thanks for the killer app man, better than all the rest in the AppStore by far imo. I love the offline feature and the quick and easy sync.

My only gripe with it is the icon/logo of the app. A little garishly and too-brightly colored. Amazing app otherwise.

Yes I did. The sync took a lot of work, and I am glad that people appreciate it (many do). :) The icon needs to change, I agree. I am planning to run a 99-design contest and then have users (such as you) vote on the best option.

The poll will be announced within the app itself, so just keep installing the updates and you will not miss it.

Interesting you mentioned that the sync took a lot of work. Would love to know how you did it and some pointers. A writeup or a blog post perhaps?

The general problem of sync is just too large for a comment, a blog post, or even a research paper. One who wants to pursue this route should buckle up and start here: http://www.ysaito.com/survey.pdf

If you tell me your specific problem I might be able to help. Shoot me an email via support page on geetasks.com

If your problem is specific to Google Tasks API I will not help you. Sorry, business is business. :)

Thanks for the link to the paper, turns out to be both an interesting and useful read.

Great response, and I think you're right.

But I wonder... lets say you show how to solve some problems with Google Tasks, you get a higher page rank, and people with a problem with Google Tasks arrive at your page... where you incidentally note problems that your solution solves better than Google Tasks (which will be true, since they are mass market and general, and you can be happy with a smaller, more specific niche).

When your competitor has made larger market share than you, this can work. It can be help that is applicable to every product, even advising where your competitor is a better solution.

But I guess this mightn't work for a developer API, if they want the platform with the largest install base.

disclaimer: I'm not seriously suggesting this - just thinking aloud.

That kind of post can only attract a small number of developers, and developers are not my target users. The only thing I can get from it is SEO juice, but I have better ways of getting that.

Just wanted to take a minute to thank you for that app. It's been tremendously useful for me for a year or so now.

You're welcome!

I'm delighted to find (so far) two happy users on hacker news and it brightens up my day. It rains so heavily today in Seattle that I need all the brightening I can get. :)

No chance you could integrate with this API?

Oh I will! So will many others, and thus will end my unfair advantage - being brave enough and tenacious enough to uncover undocumented API by sniffing the wire. It is important to have unfair advantage in business, so much so that I wouldn't start a business without one such advantage.

To be fair (he-he) I now have a new unfair advantage - a significant number of happy active users. I hope they will help me to stand out.

Just lie like every other iOS developer does and make your description something like this:

#1 GOOGLE TASKS APP IN THE APP STORE

NO ONE COMES CLOSE TO BEING AS AWESOME AS US

OBAMA HIMSELF USES THIS APP AND HE LOVES IT!

Don't forget to litter the description with emoji stars and thumbs up and whatnot.

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