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Show HN: Another weekend project "Quick Conversions"

2 points by JoeCortopassi 14y ago

Had another few hours free to do another simple iOS project, and am curious what you guys think. The basic problem I wanted to solve, was to make a unit conversion app that is as quick and easy to use as possible, while still being simple enough to be picked up randomly and used. Total time for development was roughly ten hours, and it was built completely programmatically (no interface builder or images). Plenty of promo codes to go around, just let me know so I don't have to waste them by letting them expire. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quick-conversions/id595047250?mt=8

ctruman 14y ago
Seems like a clean and nice solution from the screenshots. Were you not able to find any app on the store that did what you needed? What do you want to make simpler than say, convertbot? http://tapbots.com/software/convertbot/ http://tapbots.com/software/convertbot/
- JoeCortopassi 14y ago
  I think the biggest advantage an app like this has over something like ConvertBot (which is very nice), is that you can get any conversion in no more than 4 steps. Press the category, type in the number, and select the "from" and "to" from the dials. The screen stays the same, the buttons are big, and it auto evaluates. Easy to read, and use with one hand.
  - ctruman 14y ago
    Agreed, especially if you are using this app a lot, number of steps is more important than any aesthetic. More apps need to take this into account. I like it and look forward to seeing if you can find any other ways to simplify the conversion action.
    - JoeCortopassi 14y ago
      Appreciate the kind feedback ctruman, want a promo code so you can play with it?
      - ctruman 14y ago
        Sure, you can email the code to cleetruman [at] gmail
        JoeCortopassi 14y ago
        email gives me an error. Here it is 7NN4YRA9NPKX. If someone snatches it out from under you, shoot me an email (profile)
        ctruman 14y ago
        nabbed it, awesome thanks! App works great. I admit the number of touches and simplicity of the UI makes this a nice standalone utility. Its a little hard to be specific with the UIPickerView, but thats not exactly anything easy to fix. It would be interesting to see if there was a better UI component for selecting the units.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
em00guy 14y ago
I love this kind of app. Take something that exists a million times over and take it to its natural conclusion. There are a lot of useful apps in the app store that I will not install because they are not as simple as the obviously should be. I have two recommendations: First, you should consider adding all the units to the picker so I dont have to change tabs to measure volume weight and time. You can detect what type of unit are in view and auto populate the second picker with appropriate conversions. Second, considering the simplicity of this app, I would consider using a UI template to polish the look. I dont know much about iOS templates but the link below looks acceptable. Hope this helps. Best of luck! http://www.appdesignvault.com/ http://www.appdesignvault.com/

2 points by JoeCortopassi 14y ago

ctruman 14y ago

Seems like a clean and nice solution from the screenshots. Were you not able to find any app on the store that did what you needed? What do you want to make simpler than say, convertbot? http://tapbots.com/software/convertbot/ http://tapbots.com/software/convertbot/

JoeCortopassi 14y ago
I think the biggest advantage an app like this has over something like ConvertBot (which is very nice), is that you can get any conversion in no more than 4 steps. Press the category, type in the number, and select the "from" and "to" from the dials. The screen stays the same, the buttons are big, and it auto evaluates. Easy to read, and use with one hand.
- ctruman 14y ago
  Agreed, especially if you are using this app a lot, number of steps is more important than any aesthetic. More apps need to take this into account. I like it and look forward to seeing if you can find any other ways to simplify the conversion action.
  - JoeCortopassi 14y ago
    Appreciate the kind feedback ctruman, want a promo code so you can play with it?
    - ctruman 14y ago
      Sure, you can email the code to cleetruman [at] gmail
      - JoeCortopassi 14y ago
        email gives me an error. Here it is 7NN4YRA9NPKX. If someone snatches it out from under you, shoot me an email (profile)
        ctruman 14y ago
        nabbed it, awesome thanks! App works great. I admit the number of touches and simplicity of the UI makes this a nice standalone utility. Its a little hard to be specific with the UIPickerView, but thats not exactly anything easy to fix. It would be interesting to see if there was a better UI component for selecting the units.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

em00guy 14y ago

I love this kind of app. Take something that exists a million times over and take it to its natural conclusion. There are a lot of useful apps in the app store that I will not install because they are not as simple as the obviously should be. I have two recommendations: First, you should consider adding all the units to the picker so I dont have to change tabs to measure volume weight and time. You can detect what type of unit are in view and auto populate the second picker with appropriate conversions. Second, considering the simplicity of this app, I would consider using a UI template to polish the look. I dont know much about iOS templates but the link below looks acceptable. Hope this helps. Best of luck! http://www.appdesignvault.com/ http://www.appdesignvault.com/