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Show HN: Bookmark iPhone apps (weekend+ project)

appquu.com

40 pointssatjot35 comments

AppQuu lets you bookmark iPhone apps you find on the web. It puts those apps in a 'Quu' (Queue) for you to browse on your phone. @ankit and I come across a bunch of apps on our computers during the day, but never remember to check them out on our phones. [FYI: full-time, we're working on an awesome (hopefully) app recommendation project.]

Anyway, try out AppQuu - maybe you find it useful too.

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This is actually eerily similar to a site I launched a couple of months ago called Aptly: http://apt.ly/

I've described it to people as "Instapaper for Apps" but it seems like AppQuu may even fit that description better than Aptly. (I haven't finished the companion iPhone app yet, but feel free to try it. I'd love to hear what you think.)

I really like how simple and elegant AppQuu is. Being able to send the user an SMS is a great idea. It makes it feel a little magical. (Though, it's a little strange that I can't get to the list just by browsing to the site on my phone.)

I was definitely hesitant about putting in my phone number. That's actually why I went with email instead of phone numbers for login on Aptly. Talking with people made me realize it was a huge barrier of entry. I guess emails feel less valuable and are more commonly used for signing up with sites that you're not sure about.

How do you find or determine the app on the page? What happens if there are multiple apps linked on the page? Does it just add all of them? Also, what happens if someone enters a number that isn't theirs? Maybe you could send a confirmation SMS that requires the user to respond in order to verify their account.

Also, I'd love your feedback on Aptly since it's such a similar concept, but with a completely different execution. Well done!

P.s. Let me know if you have any questions. I've probably run across a few of the same ones myself. Cheers!

@ mirthlab - thanks a lot for your feedback.

we tried to make it as simple as possible, thanks :)

reg phone/email: we're learning the same thing. we opted to keep it phone only so it felt "magical" for the people that did sign up. we should probably allow email sign up.

reg app: for now we take the first app that is found on the page. we could just as easily put all the apps in your Quu if multiple ones were found... or ask the user which ones they want to add. i guess we'll see how often/where/why that comes up.

reg fake #: yup, on it.

reg Apt.ly: really cool! i love how you're showing the details of the app right there for the user to see. i guess there's a balance between quick/effective.

where are you based? we should def talk in more depth off HN.

thanks again for the feedback - satjot (satjot at appquu)

That "we" is painful to read. I had a similar service earlier this year, initial reaction was positive, but everyone signed up and never used it again.

Me included.

My take on it? it's easier to pull up the app store and search for whatever than it is to open safari, load the webpage, then click and wait for the app store to load anyway.

Long lists would work? I thought so too, but then people don't like the back and forth between safari and app store.

Saying that, SMS was a feature I didn't have.

Good luck all the same, and do make a 1 month later update if you have time!

thanks for the feedback!

"That "we" is painful to read." - what do you mean?

it would be cool to followup in more depth if you have some time. i'm at satjot at geemail - you?

Maybe for the phone number you can wait until they hit the "Send me a Text Message" button, then ask for it there. Since it's something they want to do at that moment it makes sense. Then you can attach the number to their account. They might be more apt to do it if it's obvious why you need the number.

I'm based out of Honolulu, Hawaii but I'm also in California every few months for work. Feel free to hit me up anytime: mark [at] mirthlab.com.

1. Overall, fantastic idea. I would actually use this if you had an option to sign up with email address only. I think a lot of people might be uncomfortable with putting their phone numbers online that fast without a secure connection.

2. Make an option to have profiles private. Networking and social plugins aside, people might want to discreetly bookmark apps they find for various reasons.

3. I think one of your biggest challenges at this stage is implementing this for mobile machines. There is an easy way around this, coding a browser which will have the interface plugged in already. But I don't see many iPhone users doing that just to bookmark something, it'd be downloaded and rarely used, and eventually, deleted. Your best bet is integrating that function into the app.

dylangs1030 - thanks for all that feedback. all your points are very helpful.

No problem, good luck!

Not a comment specifically on your app, but I found it amazing how quickly I closed out of this when the tutorial video showed up. I hadn't really thought of this before, and it might just be me, but most tutorial videos make me want to leave your site as quickly as possible.

I can't disagree more. I am the kind of person that is very unlikely to ever sign up for a site that doesnt have some kind of demo or a video. It takes only a minute or two to passively watch a video to see if something might be interesting, where signing up to use some new service is way past my level of interest. A video is a much lower barrier to entry than much else.

maybe tutorial videos should have a button on the bottom that says - "skip the video and use the service"

Maybe even make it snarkier - "I've seen enough, sign me up!" etc. etc. to grab the user's attention. Confidence sells.

I can see why you (and other users) would think this, but a good demo video is the hallmark of tech startups. Dropbox's homepage displays nothing other than a login micro in the top right hand corner and a much larger demo video presented. It was the demo which made me immediately decide to download and use Dropbox (and I still do). This isn't an isolated technique - it's a trend on many different tech platforms to have a short animated skit describing its innovations. Another great example is Meraki - the "Meraki story in 2 minutes" brilliantly summarizes the company's mission and technology in an appealing way that a text rich page can't achieve nearly as easily.

Yeah, I'm aware of the trend. It's probably just me, but no description at all combined with the expectation of me watching a two minute video I can't progress beyond in an obvious way really turns me off. Your site is not the first one I've closed out of when a demo video comes up.

Very cool. Like how lightweight it is, sending me an SMS is slick.

Kind of wish you suggested more than just 4 apps, it'd be fun to browse a bunch and really take this for a spin.

Minor feedback: your "30 second video" is 55 seconds :)

thanks for the feedback gbelote.

yea, there could be a few more apps to try and bookmark. but hopefully the next time you see an app on the web, you click the appquu bookmark.

you got us on the 30 second video ;)

Also: there's no security/privacy on the URLs. For example, anyone is able to see mine:

http://appquu.com/10/

Yea, we thought about that but decided it would be cool to have the apps in Quus to be public so that it can be shared with friends. For example, I sent my Quu link to my mom earlier today.

Makes sense. I don't personally mind this, but it's not something that I expected (to me, "personal app store" implies privacy). It's probably worth making this more clear on your landing page.

This is cool... I really liked where your idea is going. This really has some good potential.. try to incorporate services to both the app owners and destination users to make either of their experiences better.. Cool idea. Simple, elegant. Do keep ur services as simple as this... the best part is, it is really useful.. In another 1-2 years when there will be a zillion apps.. this can be the saviour :)

thanks for the feedback. keep the feedback coming as you continue to use the app :)

In its current form, adding a bookmark on a mobile device or iPad is impossible. You need to find a way to let users do that. You also need to add a way that people can delete there accounts since you're asking for our phone numbers

thanks for the feedback geuis.

shoot me an email [satjot at appquu dot com] and I can delete your account.

Oh I don't want to delete mine. It just occurred to me that some folks might want to.

One solution is to expose the JavaScript bookmarklet snippet on the page. Then the user can bookmark a dummy page, like the one they're currently on, then edit the URL of the bookmark to the JavaScript.

Some popular bookmarklets are being collected on the page below with that purpose in mind.

http://static.chrisbray.com/bookmarklets/

Edit: Based on the bookmarklet's div in the video, I'm wondering if you're using Instapaper for your data store? If so, have you had any issues?

Surprising that this isn't a feature already. I can go to https://market.android.com/ and install apps straight to my phone from a browser on any machine if I'm signed in.

Old Windows CE devices could do that too: you just had to click on a .cab file link from within the device's browser to install a program.

The Android feature is actually more robust than that: Click "Install" in the browser on your desktop, and seconds later, the app is installed on your phone. Without having to ever touch the phone.

Oh, I see. Thanks, I somehow missed the "any machine" part of the comment.

how often do you use that feature?

If you're looking for general data points, this is my primary means of installing applications on my Android phone. Only ~1/5 of my apps were installed using the on-device Market app.

wow, much higher than I would've thought. but that data point is helpful - thanks!

This is a lot like PushThePage (http://www.pushthepage.com/welcome) which uses push notifications and your google account to send you any bookmark.

This is awesome. Well done!

thanks mponizil

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