_kush

It has to be built by those enthusiasts

Great article! I’ve noticed that most screen time discussions focus heavily on mobile usage, which makes sense given the data, but I think we underestimate how much desktop screen time also affects our health.

As someone who’s been building LookAway[0] (a mindful break reminder app for Mac), I’ve seen firsthand how easy it is to slip into hours of continuous screen time at a desk resulting in things like eye strain, posture issues, and even productivity dips.

Would love to see more awareness and tools around managing desktop screen habits!

[0]: https://lookaway.app

This sounds like an interesting area of research! I built LookAway[1], a break reminder app for Mac that helps reduce screen fatigue by nudging users to take short breaks. A lot of users report feeling less eye strain and headaches after using it regularly. Might be useful data for your research!

[1] https://lookaway.app

I'm working full time on growing my app https://lookaway.app. I've been working on it for more than a year now and it's been growing organically since.

The most common model I see these days is a lifetime license and one/two year of free updates with it. Once your free updates are over, you can keep using the last covered version forever, or purchase another year of updates for a discount (20% to 40% off of the original license price).

This has 2 advantages:

- You can buy the additional updates whenever you want in the future so it's leaner than a subscription.

- It also makes sure you get at least 1 year of updates, as opposed to unknown time period of updates when the licenses are tied to a major version.

>At some point, you'll upgrade your computer and find the old version of the app no longer works, and you'll be forced to upgrade.

It comes down to the developers to make sure the older versions are regularly updated and make sure they run on newer operating systems and architectures.

Seems to be working fine. Do you see any console errors?

It detects meetings automatically and pauses itself. Additionally, you can add apps to the deep focus apps list so when those are active, it never shows any breaks.

I've been evolving it for over a year and many such use cases have already been taken care of :)

Thank you! It was reviewed by Brandon Butch recently and you can see exactly how it works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK-UTwVyg5o&t=8s

I'll add a proper explainer video on the website as well.

Yes, there have been major updates since the last Shows I posted:

- LookAway now helps you maintain better posture and eye health with the wellness reminders. - LookAway now detects when you're gaming and pauses automatically. - You can now add deep focus apps with multiple configurations, and LookAway will automatically pause when the conditions are met. - If a break is due but you're typing, LookAway waits for you to finish so you don’t lose your flow.

These are just a few of the many improvements, bringing LookAway closer to what could be called LookAway 2.0 - though I’m reserving that name for a future update.

Yeah that's what I've done!

I used to worry about it a lot but now I have made peace with it. It's a cat and mouse game. Pirates will always find a way no matter how hard you make it to crack. There's no way to make it impossible to crack.

I've been building a break reminder app for mac since slightly more than a year and it's been growing really well - mostly through word of mouth. It currently nets $5k a month.

I sell perpetual licenses but I charge for updates beyond the first year. I do get 2-3 emails every day reporting bugs and general feature requests.

I have some other apps for iOS as well but they are all subscription based.

Thank you so much for purchasing a license + feedback noted!

Thank you! I appreciate your response. You're right - I'll look into adding it to Setapp and also purchase power parity based pricing.

It's funny that your username is the exact name of my app

Reddit.

1. I made an app for the colorblind in 2015 and got my first 100 (and more) users from the r/colorblind subreddit.

2. I made a breathing app in 2017 and got my first users from r/breathing, r/breathwork, and r/meditation subreddits.

3. I recently made a productivity app for the mac and got my first users from r/macapps subreddit.

Reddit is incredibly powerful if you are building something niche and are already a part of the community. Also, the results are compounding because some of my posts get good SEO traffic so I still get a handful of users from Reddit every day.

For crowded markets, search ads are very expensive so display ads on Meta/TikTok are cheaper. You should do some research on what's the competition for keywords you're targeting. If there's a lot of competition, then go with Meta, otherwise go with ASA or Google Search Ads

On paid ads – I’ve also noticed indie devs often dismiss them. It just takes time (and some money) to find what works for your product. You've got to keep experimenting until something works and when it works, double down on it. I've had success with both search ads and display ads.

If your product converts well, your ads will usually work in your favor. Although, designing a good ad creative is like building a product: it needs a clear value and a strong CTA to drive clicks.

Meta ads, for example, has been my top source of users for one of my apps[1].

[1] Unwind - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unwind-daily-breathwork/id1470...

I've been using HTTPie[1] for over a year and it's been great. Super light and does the job really well.

[1]: https://httpie.io/

Why is the homepage[0] under construction? How can we learn more about the product before giving you our email address?

[0]: https://trintai.com/

not expecting to be on the front page maybe

I made a photoshop brush back in 2010 for a competition which awarded me $100 because it received the highest number of upvotes. I bought myself a guitar with the money :)

I sell apps for a living - I have a few iOS apps and a macOS app. Each of them uses a different way of billing (app store, revenuecat, lemonsqueezy etc), which makes it a PITA to check the total revenue (which I need to do everyday because I am so obsessed with it).

So, I recently converted my old phone into a 24/7 live sales dashboard[1] which consolidates the revenue from each service. It resembles a retro device inspired by the pip boy and was finished within a day!

[1] https://twitter.com/kushsolitary/status/1777306909344715158

Currently working on LookAway[0] which is a macOS app aimed at helping people reduce dry eyes and eye strain. I made it for myself initially when I was dealing with these problems because I was glued to my screen whole day.

Made it public and I've been receiving daily emails from users about how it has improved their eye health significantly. Nothing brings more joy to me than this.

[0]: https://lookaway.app

This is exactly what I was looking for - thanks for the suggestion!

This is fixed now

Thanks for reporting - will fix in the next update!

Thank you! My journey has been pretty much the same - extremely dry and irritated eyes after screen use and then 20-20-20 solved it so I decided to build this app :)

I am building a macOS app to help reduce screen strain and dry eyes due to prolonged screen use. It's called LookAway -- https://lookaway.app