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brianpk

73 karma · joined March 15, 2023

Building Apricot, the best way to follow your favorite content sources on the web.

https://theapricot.io

Check it out!

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brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
No, not at the moment. How does your current app know the schema of feeds, in general, for the purpose of setting those alerts? i.e. how do you set an alert on price, when other feeds might have nothing to do with currency?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems complex.

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Thank you! I haven't considered that, but I'm curious to hear more.

Are you thinking a user's Apricot feed could have its own RSS feed so people could follow it, or generating RSS feeds for Apricot users' original content hosted elsewhere?

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Actually, a question - for the tags idea, what kind of tags are you thinking? I can imagine a lot of different directions, do you have any specific examples in mind?
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
I love these ideas -- keep 'em coming!

The algorithmic sort is there, it's just a little hidden (and rudimentary, for the current MVP). Go to settings and check the box for "Algorithmically sort items".

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Good idea, just added a paragraph and link to the landing page.
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
I did start with username & password, but it was pretty annoying to have to type the password on the phone. I thought the email magic link would be easier until I hit the problem with iOS progressive web apps.

Now that you mention it, I'll have to re-think -- with the Google option there as the "easy" route, maybe username & password is a better backup option because it's more universal.

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Oh, you totally can add a YouTube channel (or any other feed) manually - just paste the link into Apricot! For Tattooed Traveler, for example, paste in https://www.youtube.com/@TattooedTraveler.

As you can probably tell, I'm trying the "ship when still a little embarrassed" approach. It stings a bit, but it does get the product out the door...

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Thanks! Lurk looks cool too -- similar, but more in a complementary way I think in that users have to click out of Apricot to read/watch/listen to the content vs. how Lurk brings the content into an embedded browser. Looking forward to seeing it in action!

Apricot's search is a mix -- for a couple platforms, I do call the search endpoint. For the others (including YouTube), it's postgres full-text search. It's a starting point, but it doesn't do fuzzy search, even in this limited lexical task. "mr beast" is a good example -- try searching for "mrbeast" (no space) and you should see it.

I like your idea for finding content, I think it makes sense for what you're doing with Lurk. Are you worried about response time, or is it more of an interactive tool for Lurk users?

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Good to know - there's supposed to be a message to check your email, but it sounds like it got dropped.

I'll blame the AWS us-east outage for now...

brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'm starting to look into a native iOS app, but it's going to be a little while. In the meantime, I think Apple did mention something about progressive web apps last week at WWDC -- I'll have to look that up.
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Yeah, I realize that now, but sadly, I can't edit the link in this post.
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Ah, good point.
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Thanks! I see what you mean - would you expect more explicit feedback when submit the email, or is it more a question of more content on the login page to explain what's going on?
brianpk··on Show HN: Apricot – because RSS won't come back unless we move it forward
Good point. The landing page probably makes the most sense, but that's a Show HN no-no, I think.

It's probably time to merge the landing page and app, I'll put that on the to-do list.

brianpk··on ChatGPT vs. Bard: A Realistic Comparison
ok, the title should probably be more like "One person's anecdotal, totally unscientific but realistic comparison. Still, amidst all the breathless hype, I thought a little actual data might help people evaluate the two tools side by side.
brianpk··on Ask HN: Are there any free email providers in 2023?
Looks that way to me. For email, I'd rather be the customer than the product...
brianpk··on Ask HN: Are there any free email providers in 2023?
I use fastmail with a custom domain and I'm happy with it. At least, in the sense that it just works and I never have to think about it.
brianpk··on Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack
FWIW, Apricot's OPML import is done.

Go to https://app.theapricot.io/, then the settings page.

brianpk··on Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack
Totally, working on it.
brianpk··on Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack
Seems like a reasonable place to plug my new project:

https://theapricot.io

Follow Substack newsletters, YouTube channels, Spotify podcasts, and subreddits in a Twitter-style feed without all the Twitter junk.