Hacker News Reader

Comment by miah_ | Hacker News Reader

This is a neat idea. I don't know why it needs to be an app on a phone though. I guess you "know" a phone has a microphone and the setup is minimal and you have a api for everything? It being a phone app leads me to believe the 'no data collected' bit is temporary as all phone apps eventually gobble data to sell.

I have an Android so I can't try this out, as its in 'private beta' on Android currently.

Would love to see this as a open source project that I can install on Windows or Linux though.

View on HN

Probably a smart idea to be suspicious of new apps, though I will say I am someone who care deeply about privacy. You can take a look at my previous project Boop ( https://boop.okat.best/ ), which is open source and has been on the App Store for 6 years, yet I still don't have any analytics or data collection in it. I have no clue how many people use it beyond download figures I get from Apple.

I have considered making this app open source, and it may still happen in the future, but I do want to release the Android version first. I'm worried that somebody will see my code, repackage it with a new name, beat me with better SEO (which would be easy considering how dumb the copy is on my website) and sell it for profit before I have a chance to reach a wider audience. This is something that did happen with Boop, not a hypothetical.

The reality is that this app cannot collect anything valuable either way. It's a simple serving app that only uses your microphone for a couple of seconds at a time, and I assume most people will delete it once it serves its purpose. If I wanted to monetize it, the best way would be to add a "Pro" version with a subscription or to add ads, but I have no interest in doing either. This is a fun side project/portfolio piece, and I'd rather collect internet love distributing a ton of free copies, rather than sell a small fraction of that number of paid copies for $0.99 and have to deal with things like marketing, taxes, and customer support.

You are the Boop author!? Awesome!

I use it and it's very handy. Thanks for creating useful no-nonsense tools!

Small world! Thanks for using it, I'm glad you like it

> I'm worried that somebody will see my code

But you're not worried that HN folks might run the app through a decompiler and find something approximately as revealing as your source code would be? The results might not be ideal depending on how much obfuscation you use, but I think it would be enough for someone to get the gist of how to replicate.

I have no issue with people decompiling my code for fun or curiosity. I often put easter eggs in my code or built files for this specific purpose. I never use obfuscation unless there is a security component.

The important part is the rest of that sentence, I have an issue with people who steal the code (or concepts) and charge money for it. If I do end up open-sourcing the code later, people will see the code and I have no issue with that.

I understand your hesitation in opening the code. Still, the idea seems really great, low complexity (quick local processing, no database of songs needed) and robust (any reasonable vinyl could work).

I suggest considering writing about it. Maybe a whitepaper? A publication? A patent application? May be colab with audio researchers? Or get sponsored from an audiophile record player manufacturer?

Funny, I have the exact opposite intuition as you. It being a totally-sandboxed phone app means I can trust it not to collect any data without my knowledge, without me having to spend hours looking through the source code for some trick I might miss.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com