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I’ve downloaded a lot of mediation apps and they all seem same. Throw rhythmic breathing (maybe make it configurable, but not too configurable), mix in some sim

I’ve downloaded a lot of mediation apps and they all seem same. Throw rhythmic breathing (maybe make it configurable, but not too configurable), mix in some simple animations, and the same Creative Commons gongs and bells, and call it a day. Hire some people to do some voice overs for “guided meditations”, and charge a $50 monthly subscription fee. I even started to make my own until I discovered you couldn’t get haptics to work in your own app like how haptics work in Apple’s Breathe watch app. So my question is simple: in a crowded space with low barriers to entry, how do you plan differentiate your app?

jdmg94 5y ago
This post could’ve been about a to-do list app and it wouldn’t change the overall feeling of privilege from the author, all the best for him but you can’t pass this as some inspirational type of post
- jonathankoren 5y ago
  It’s pretty much a content free blog post. I’m surprised it ended up on the front page.
salt-thrower 5y ago
It's nice to see a renewed public interest in meditation driving the trend of new meditation apps, but I feel that most of the apps miss the point. The act of meditating is marketed as an individualistic, prescriptive activity for stress and anxiety; it is absent any of the spiritual content that (for me) makes it potent. To elaborate, I personally didn't get much out of meditation until I starting using it to sit with concepts like impermanence, non-attachment, and oneness from the Zen tradition. By contrast, apps like Headspace are selling themselves like "feeling anxious? Try our app!" and getting corporate sponsorships for employers to give subscriptions to their employees, like a commodity to pacify a stressed out workforce. But who knows, maybe it's still a net good in that it might introduce more people to the practice. And maybe some of the apps get deeper into the practice than the ones I used.
- nfoz 5y ago
  > By contrast, apps like Headspace are selling themselves like "feeling anxious? Try our app!" and getting corporate sponsorships for employers to give subscriptions to their employees, like a commodity to pacify a stressed out workforce. These don't sound like complaints about anything the app itself lacks, they sound like complaints that it is successful at marketing.
  - salt-thrower 5y ago
    It's more a complaint about the commodification of meditation itself, one cause of which is the app's marketing angle.

jdmg94 5y ago

This post could’ve been about a to-do list app and it wouldn’t change the overall feeling of privilege from the author, all the best for him but you can’t pass this as some inspirational type of post

jonathankoren 5y ago
It’s pretty much a content free blog post. I’m surprised it ended up on the front page.

salt-thrower 5y ago

It's nice to see a renewed public interest in meditation driving the trend of new meditation apps, but I feel that most of the apps miss the point. The act of meditating is marketed as an individualistic, prescriptive activity for stress and anxiety; it is absent any of the spiritual content that (for me) makes it potent. To elaborate, I personally didn't get much out of meditation until I starting using it to sit with concepts like impermanence, non-attachment, and oneness from the Zen tradition. By contrast, apps like Headspace are selling themselves like "feeling anxious? Try our app!" and getting corporate sponsorships for employers to give subscriptions to their employees, like a commodity to pacify a stressed out workforce. But who knows, maybe it's still a net good in that it might introduce more people to the practice. And maybe some of the apps get deeper into the practice than the ones I used.

nfoz 5y ago
> By contrast, apps like Headspace are selling themselves like "feeling anxious? Try our app!" and getting corporate sponsorships for employers to give subscriptions to their employees, like a commodity to pacify a stressed out workforce. These don't sound like complaints about anything the app itself lacks, they sound like complaints that it is successful at marketing.
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  It's more a complaint about the commodification of meditation itself, one cause of which is the app's marketing angle.