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Comment by espitia | Hacker News Reader

2 months ago I had only some basic HTML/CSS experience and was tired of only dreaming of shipping some product. I put myself through many long hours of courses with Treehouse and a lot of help from the community over at Stackoverflow and released my first app. I'm very proud of just that, shipping something.

Any feedback would be very appreciated!

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Really neat. This kind of simple approach to behavior improvement really resonates with me.

I'm working on a (web) app that takes a similar approach to improving spending habits. It's the same idea that you track progress not merely in terms of bare numbers, but that you can also record some context and notes about improvement.

Have you thought about adding support for sharing progress with other users? For example, I could think of a friendly reading competition with a friend where we try to build the longest streak and daily note what we've been reading.

Yes I have actually. The whole idea from the beginning was to build an app my 'mastermind' group and I could use to keep each other on check on making our dreams reality. That feature is definitely in the works. I just needed to release this to get validation and some initial traction.

Please post your web app when released, I'd love to give feedback and share ideas.

Cheers

Looks beautiful. Great job!

I was searching for habit tracking apps on Firefox OS just the other day. None so far.

If the app is already written in HTML/CSS/JS, getting it to run on Firefox OS should be super easy. Basically just a matter of writing a manifest file. I think Phonegap even has an export feature that will do that for you.

Congrats on getting it out there. Where'd you learn iOS? just using Treehouse? any other resources?

Congrats again!

Yup most of the initial learning was done through Treehouse. So much so that I did not know what language was to be used to build ios. They took me from beggining to complete projects. Then when building my own app, it was a lot of Google/Stackoverflow/trial and error.

How do I get this from the UK? I've been looking for an app just like it and this looks really nice. Is it only on the US app store at the moment? (is that a thing?)

Edit: found it but doesn't seem to be on the iPad app store even though it says its compatible. Any plans for an iPad release?

Glad you found it. As of now, I'm just trying to perfect it on the iPhone. No plans on iPad sorry.

This is very inspirational, congratulations. I suppose I am where you were at 2 months ago. Have basic HTML/CSS and starting to learn fundamentals of JS and want to start actually completing projects. Would you recommend Treehouse?

I definitely recommend Treehouse. All it is putting in the time and more importantly, at least for me, was having a purpose. Knowing what you are going to build to have in mind while you learn is key to staying motivated. It is also very rewarding to implement little by little what you know towards your project.

HN got me to top 65 app in the productivity category for the USA. Thank you!

Is it native or scripted?

Native.

Congrats on the ship!

But...why is it paid? If you're trying to develop a reputation for yourself, as well as get that early user feedback, I think you're making your job harder.

Yes it's only 99 cents, but there's a tremendous amount of hesitancy to buy an app when there's such a strong expectation of getting for free.

Being a first time app developer, developing an app in a crowded market place, only compounds that.

You're completely right. I made 99 cents though to validate first if people would actually buy based on icon/keywords/screenshots. I submitted an update yesterday to make it free though, seeing how little reviews I am getting.

Experimentation - I love it :). I'll make a note to check it back out in a week to see if it's avail.

>>But...why is it paid?

Because he wants to be rewarded in a small way for his efforts? Geez it's 99 cents - 30% Apple cut.

Plus you gotta pay to play in the App Store. If he sells 100ish of these, he's covered his developer fee for the year. To me, that's a successful ship.

Agreed 100%. To me just selling 10 units was amazing, considering I did not know what Obj-C was a few months ago.

Fair point - all depends on your goals / ambitions for a project. Given his story of creating his first app, your suggestion be a perfect first goal.

I get that. But he's asking a community for feedback. It's like asking someone to coffee to pick their brain, and then asking them to pay for your coffee because you didn't have time to run to the bank.

You can give us a free download link or a web version.

Downvote me if you must, but I think it's tacky.

I understand your point. I didn't mean to do it like this, I was trying to get validation (with $1) from actual customers, not the HN community.

    >Yes it's only 99 cents, but there's a tremendous amount of hesitancy to buy an app when there's such a strong expectation of getting for free.

99 cents may make some hesitate but it's also low enough that I'll sometimes buy an app just to support a developer even if I don't intend to use the app.

Anything we can do to help uncondition the public that everything should be ad supported the better.

Congrats to the OP on shipping!

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