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Hi HN, I just wanted to add that I'm looking for any kind of feedback on the app. I've been working on it since graduating in may and released it a couple of da
by rocketsloth 9y ago
Hi HN, I just wanted to add that I'm looking for any kind of feedback on the app. I've been working on it since graduating in may and released it a couple of days ago.
- snakeboy 9y agoVery minor, but on the website "You snooze, you loose" I assume should read "You snooze, you lose". Great concept and I look forward to trying it!
- rocketsloth 9y agoThanks for the catch! Classic English language, am I right. Appreciate that :)
- nerdponx 9y agoIs there any way I can disable the play-a-game-to-unlock feature? I kind of just want cool stars in my phone.
- rocketsloth 9y ago100% there are several dismissal options and one of them is just a simple stop button that you press to collect your star
- k_ 9y agoSeems really nice, congrats! I'll give it a try and give you some feedback in a few days
- rocketsloth 9y agoThank you, really appreciate that
- zamalek 9y agoI'd love to see useful repeat options (it doesn't seem to support repeat at all currently), e.g. work days except public holidays.
- rocketsloth 9y agoI've gotten that request from quite a few people now and am looking in to ways to add that functionality to the alarm while preserving the overall idea of setting meaningful alarms with consequences. The reason behind the single button initially is that it forces you to consciously set your alarm which I felt would increase commitment. I completely understand that it isn't for everyone so am working on the multiple alarm / repeat support options too.
- bert_cwchang 9y agoProbably like this: let the user set the repeated alarms (like, Mon-Fri at 9am, Sat-Sun at 10am), yet the user is required to "confirm" the alarm each night if he/she really wants that alarm be effective. This way, the user can avoid the tedious "keep setting same alarm" each night, and the "conciously set the alarm" thing is still there.
- rocketsloth 9y agoThat's an interesting idea. I've added it to the Trello board of ideas I'm considering for recurring alarms and appreciate your suggestion.
- caio1982 9y agoKudos for such original idea to a simple alarm clock :-)
- rocketsloth 9y agoThank you :)
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoHow long does it take to make an alarm clock app? Why can't you be more like your sister?
- rocketsloth 9y agoyou sound just like my mom!
- t_fatus 9y agoSome feedback here on your website: you've got the best testimonial section I've ever seen, you're mom should be really proud
- rocketsloth 9y agoThanks, I'm so glad someone noticed. Also as a disclaimer, my mom is super supportive and uses my app every day.
- lucasverra 9y agolooooooved it
- alexpetralia 9y agoThis was fantastically creative. Bought the app just for this.
- rocketsloth 9y agoThat's very kind of you, thank you :). I didn't think anyone would notice the testimonials.
- onslauth 9y agoThe feed back section was the only reason I came to check the comments, to see if anyone else noticed it. It really made me chuckle and is just a great new take on the stock standard comments.
- somberi 9y agoCame to type this. The testimonial section is the best I have seen in a long time. Funny and touching.
- King-Aaron 9y ago+1, those testimonials were eerily close to home!
- wool_gather 9y agoReally neat idea. On your website...why are you using an iPhone template to show off an Android-only app?
- rocketsloth 9y agoThat's my mistake, I didn't even notice that and will fix it in a bit. Thank you.
- brennebeck 9y agoI was sorely disappointed when I saw this wasn’t available for iOS. Looks awesome, though.
- randycupertino 9y agoI want to try it, looks awesome! Is it in the iphone store or only on google phone? I didn't see it in the apple app store but maybe I searched the wrong terms? Thanks.
- rocketsloth 9y agoI should have been more clear about that, my apologies. I've only made the Android app so far and have plans to work on an iOS one soon
- smtf 9y agoCongrats! This looks really interesting. One thing I would appreciate clarity on: I'd prefer not to send data to ad networks, if I pay for the ad free version, will that not only prevent the display of ads but also any associated tracking?
- rocketsloth 9y agoThat's a really interesting question that I'm going to look in to. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. At the moment if you pay for the ad free version, ads are immediately destroyed and prevented from loading from there on out. The only thing that I need to look in to is if initializing AdMob in the app results in any tracking. It is not my intention to send any user data to ad networks if they have the ad-free version and I will fix it if I find out that I've overlooked something.
- rocketsloth 9y agoI've looked in to the question and I've changed it so that even the MobileAds SDK is only initialized if premium is not active when the application is first created. This way, if premium is enabled, AdMob is not touched in any way at any stage of the application's lifecycle. I asked whether or not this initialize call I was worried about actually does anything with respect to tracking and the only answer I've gotten so far is a "no", but I still need to do a little more research to make sure there aren't any other possible ways you may be tracked if ads aren't ever being loaded or requested. This additional check will go live in a day or two and I'll update you if I find any other potential issues.
- acidburnNSA 9y agoAwesome, thanks for responding so well to this request.
- rene_bg 9y ago- The site is great, esp. the testimonials :-) - In the app, cut down the introduction texts and steps. It takes like 30 taps to get the alarm started. - Also, I found the pulse of the focused area (the circle) annoying and distracting when reading the text just next to it. - Use briefer descriptions of the things in the guided tour(s). Every word you can remove is often an improvement. And, again, get rid of steps. I'd recommend 3-5 steps tops (and entirely!). - Somewhere you write "Try to tap here to do something..." => Get rid of the "Try to". As a user, I know how to tap - just write "Tap here to ..." - Make the sound selections (radio button lists) play the selected sound on tap: by default the top entry is selected. When I tap it—as I initially don't know how it sounds–it doesn't play the sound. I have to switch to the second entry and then back to the first one. - 42 MB is quite large for "just an alarm clock." Most people won't bother, but keep in mind that even in 2017 software should be performant and, if not necessary, not bloated. Besides these minor points, I have to say that the idea is great! I am really looking forward to use the app tonight :-)
- rocketsloth 9y agoHi! Thanks so much for this very detailed feedback and glad you like the testimonials :). intro/onboarding feedback: I agree with you and will look at ways to cut it down both in length and quality - I just removed the "Try tapping" and changed it to tap cause I agree with you (it will be pushed out next update) - you're 100% correct on the sound previews too, I implemented the listener as an onChanged rather than onClick, but will look into fixing that in the near future. - the 42 MB is almost entirely due to mp3 sound files (the alarm ringtones + sleep engine sounds). I used compression to strike a balance between quality and space and also used seamless looping on the sleep engine to get rid of the need for giant audio files, but there is always room for dramatic improvement on that front and I'll keep working at it. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I think that once I get a back end going what I'd eventually like to do is have users download the tracks based on what they need (this might be a very naive approach though so correct me if that's a bad idea).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pluma 9y agoThe first screen I see on the page has a challenge that at least 8% of males (me included) can't solve. Matching colors is difficult to make accessible so it's no surprise that the example is one I couldn't solve, being partially green blind.
- rocketsloth 9y agoHey really sorry about that, there are a variety of dismissal methods you can choose from including shake dismissal, qr scan, barcode scan and a simple stop button as well as this color tap. That dismissal method is just the one I went with for the screenshot, but there is something for everyone. I'm also looking in to giving users the option to change the color combination because I've received this feedback from two people now. If you have any suggestions for colors that would work for you please let me know and I'll add them to my trello board
- jacalata 9y agohttp://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/colorblind/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/colorblind/
- rocketsloth 9y agothanks!
- chrisux 9y agoUsing text labels to associate the color chips could work too. Even color blind people know Ocean = Blue if given simple terms like you have. :)
- pluma 9y agoYeah, no. That works if the colors are easy to recognise but considering how many times I guessed wrong when facing two unlabeled hues I was able to distinguish but not clearly recognise (e.g. knowing one is green and the other red but guessing wrong because the green is brighter when normally the red would be brighter).
- zamber 9y agoAwesome app, the intro experience is a bit overwhelming but it looks and sounds cool. It would be nice to have a launcher widget with a clock and a render of the nebula, similarly to what I have on my phone: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q2WL8dqZnSnCY8Of1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q2WL8dqZnSnCY8Of1 Also some animations would be nice, maybe use the accelerometer to Pan tilt the star? Would make a streak even more rewarding :). Happily bought the accelerator pack :).
- rocketsloth 9y agoThanks so much really appreciate your support! I experimented with an ios style parallax effect on the background stars but found that the library really used a lot of memory so I removed it for the time being. It looked super cool though so I'm going to try and write it myself in the near future. I'm also really interested in animations for the stars and a swirling nebula. My animation abilities are almost non-existent right now, but it's something I want to work on asap. That clock widget is super cool, Ive got a lot of features in the Todo list ATM but a widget is on the radar eventually too :). Really appreciate the feedback
- zamber 9y agoOn a OnePlus 2 with LineageOS 14.1 it gobbled 146 MB of RAM max. How much more did the parallax lib add? Possibly hiding it behind an option with a warning would be viable? Animating everything would also be nice. You've already did an awesome job on the UI overall ;). I've seen much worse stuff from established apps on the Play Store. Worked on one even. The designers had the displeasure of doing glorified skinning. On top of that there was a lot of bike shedding around buttons but pretty much everyone ignored the dark patterns that were dictated from the top ("Hooked" had to be our new Bible, thankfully we didn't have to read it except for a 4 page snippet explaining the addiction loop we would want to exploit).
- rocketsloth 9y agoI only ever tested the parallax library on a very early build of the app which consumed far less ram overall just cause the app wasn't finished yet, so it's hard to give an exact amount. If ever I did any serious animation work and parallax backgrounds I'd leave the option to disable it for users who don't want it or find it impacts performance. I'd also have to do extensive testing with any third party library for parallax cause it's so vital they release sensors properly and without fail when they are no longer needed to conserve battery. I'd love to work on animations in the future cause I think that's one of the areas the app needs the most improvement in and thank you for the complement on the UI.
- developerdanny 9y agoSome feedback: on my mobile device, the website logo intersects with the LinkedIn icon. Other than that, I can see myself using this app from now on!
- rocketsloth 9y agoThank you, I didn't notice that. I'll fix that soon
- aagha 9y agoFantastic idea!
- telesilla 9y agoI've been using it for a week now and I'm a little disappointed in only one thing: if I wake up early and press the cancel button, I don't get my star! If there is an option to say, 'give me my star if i sleep x% of the total alarm time' I'd love that. I get woken up by kids, birds, whatever, very often and I'm afraid I'll never get a constellation at this rate.