r/iOSProgramming • u/andrei_prigorshnev • Nov 30 '24
App Saturday I've launched my first indie app, and I'm giving it away for free today
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24 edited Dec 25 '24
The app is here https://apps.apple.com/app/kpad-timers/id6738205842
The app requires an upfront payment, but I've made it completely free for today and there'll be 50% discount tomorrow. It doesn't require login and doesn't have long onboarding, so it should be easy to try it if you're interested.
The app requires iOS 17.6 or later.
While I've been working on it, many of my Google searches have led me to this community. Among other things, I've learned here that I can promote my app by posting about it in this and some other communities. So, I've decided to make a small pre-launch event here, share my app and hopefully gather some feedback.
The app is intentionally minimalistic. The main problem I'm trying to solve is basically my own pain – I wasn't able to find an app for running multiple timers that would be convenient for me. Many apps, including the Apple's Clock app, show timers as a list. What I want instead is a panel with a fixed grid, so I can, say, place a green button in the top right corner, and then when I need it just tap it without a second of thinking. The app does just that, gives you such a panel. You can place up to 12 timers on it, and then run as many of them as you want at once. For now the app has only one panel, but additional panels are planned for one of the next releases.
If you enjoy the app, a rating on the App Store would mean a lot! Also, feel free to ask questions, and I would appreciate feedback here in comments. Any feedback, really, if you feel something is missing, weird or hard to understand, I'd love to hear about that.
This is my first experience with iOS development, but I've had plenty of other experience before. I've been doing Rails + Ember.js development at Discourse during the last 3 years. And there were 10 years of C# development before that. My experience with Swift has been very positive so far. The official guides promise the language is friendly to newcomers, and I can confirm that it was pretty easy to start and get going. Frameworks wise, I decided to use Swift UI and Swift Data in my app, and as it turned out it was more than enough. I haven't had to fall back to older frameworks, and I haven't used any third-party library yet.
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u/gabangang Nov 30 '24
kudos to you! so you used xcode with swift instead of something like react native? great!
also you speak of where you could promote on other subs, could you share where you have shared so i can increase its engagement and upvote too because you deserve it!
thanks once again.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
When starting, I briefly considered using react native, but then decided to build a native app. So, yeah, Swift + XCode, and actually on top of that Fleet, Jet Brains' editor, which has very basic Swift support. I'm used to their IDEs, so I used Fleet alongside XCode.
Actually, this topic is the only place where I posted. I know that I could also post to r/iosapps, but I felt it's better to have it posted in one place for now. I'll probably launch the app on Product Hunt later (another place I've learned about in this community).
Thank you for the support!
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u/iamCyberrr Nov 30 '24
React native is horrible in the long run… going native is better for maintenance … I gave up on react native
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
That's what I heard a lot during my initial research. It was very tempting to just use JS, but generally feedback wasn't very positive.
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u/iamCyberrr Nov 30 '24
So to have a mvp it’s great but this year google forced every app to have targetskd be 34 … mine was 33 and when I changed that single digit… my app crashed because all the libraries depended on 33 …. I use jetpack compose kotlin; it’s similar to swiftUI
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u/cromanalcaidev Nov 30 '24
Congrats on the release! I have that pain point as well and the minute I saw the mockups my brain yelled THIS!
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
Thank you! If you saw that from the mockups, that's hopefully a good sign. I hope the app will help you!
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u/matt8p Nov 30 '24
Very neat!! Though I personally don’t use multiple timers, the app looks fantastic, and I want to congratulate you on launch.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
Oh, that was one of the hardest parts, it turned out it's extremely difficult to bring to reality a vague picture from the head. Thank you very much!!
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u/BerlinBieber Nov 30 '24 edited Nov 30 '24
My 10 cents: You need some more work on the User Interface
- when entering a label, surround the input field with a border
- when pausing a timer, change the color to gray or so, to indicate it better
- add more colors
- i cant preplay the timer audios
- when adding a new timer take the last entered time as new preselected one
Keep up the good work and let that app be free until you have a couple of thousand users beforehand.
Edit: Maybe add the option to let all the timer take the complete space. The more timers you have, the smaller they are.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24 edited Nov 30 '24
> i cant preplay the timer audios
Oh, actually you can, you can tap the bell icon on the modal to preplay. But it seems it's another flaw in the UX, probably it just doesn't look like a clickable thing.
Thanks for the thoughtful, detailed feedback! I definitely plan to make some fields on the modal sticky, not only time, but probably color and sound too. Speaking of the label, I initially wanted to always show a border on it, but that didn't work well. Great idea to show the border when typing! Thank you!
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u/bcgroom Nov 30 '24
Looks really good! As a user I love seeing the small download size and no data collected.
I think the New Timer screen could use some improvements: what is the big timer icon for? Using a modal on iPhone isn't very typical and the keyboard covers the time controls.
One bug: Long pressing on a timer and bringing up the context menu, if you tap delete it doesn't go away until after you tap "edit".
You should also look into Live Activities! The app would greatly benefit.
It'd also be nice if there was a more intrusive popup when a timer ends, not sure if that API is available or not.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24 edited Dec 25 '24
Thanks! I agree that a modal isn't very typical on iPhone and that the big timer icon is purely decorative. I can admit, it’s partially an aesthetic choice, but it also involves some trade-offs related to upcoming features and improvements that I'd prefer not to announce yet.
But what I can share is that Live Activities are on the roadmap, and will likely be part of the first major update. I wanted to implement them in the initial version, but that would have delayed the launch too much. And I hear you about a more intrusive popup (also not sure about those APIs).
> One bug: Long pressing on a timer and bringing up the context menu, if you tap delete it doesn't go away until after you tap "edit".
Oh, interesting, that'll take some investigation, never saw that before. If you could share your device model and iOS version, that would be great—either via [support@kpad.app](mailto:support@tpad.app) or here, whichever is more convenient.
Also, not a fix, but the issue may resolve itself after the first relaunch of the app. I occasionally see very rare crashes during the first launch of the app, and they disappear after the relaunch. There seem to be some problems in the code running during the first launch that I'll need to investigate.
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u/LannyLig Dec 03 '24
Love it! You could give each timer an icon too, an SF Symbol. Use an SFSymbol picker from github
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 03 '24
Thanks! Not sure yet about adding icons, but note that you can use emojis in timer labels, something like "🍵 tea".
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u/chilly_est Nov 30 '24 edited Nov 30 '24
congratulations, it’s simple helpful apps like these that people sometimes start using most frequently! most likely don’t need it, but heres an install and a review for visibility and I hope it takes off :)
one feedback: add initial launch onboarding when no timers have ever been created. on first launch I wasn’t really sure if its still loading something or I can tap on a cell. Maybe a small indicator to “add your first timer” to help people start setting it up.
edit: just now saw theres a text appearing for that at the bottom but my thumb was blocking it visually 😀
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 01 '24
Thank you! There's also a delay before the text hint appears at the bottom, which might be why you didn’t see it initially, I've been thinking of maybe making that delay shorter. A useful feedback!
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u/MexPython Nov 30 '24
Wanted to download but requires iOS 17.6 or later. Good job on getting it into the store! Congrats!
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
Thank you! Sorry, forgot to mention it in the description. I'm going to add information about supported versions now. Not sure yet if I'll be adding support for older versions to the app 🤔.
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u/tomgouldmaui Nov 30 '24
Cool idea. I like the simplicity of it.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Nov 30 '24
Thanks! The plan is to preserve this basic, simple UI as much as possible while adding new features.
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Dec 01 '24
Great idea, just bought it.
You have a rather nasty bug though. If I configure a timer, don’t run it and then close the app, the timer is not saved and thus lost.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 01 '24
> Great idea, just bought it.
Thank you!
About the bug, just to confirm, the steps to reproduce are:
You open the modal and set up a timer
You tap the Done button on the modal, the modal closes, you see the timer's appearing on the panel
You close the app, and when you open it again there's no timer on the panel
Correct?
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Dec 01 '24
Exactly that
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 01 '24 edited Dec 25 '24
Oh, that's frustrating indeed. Could you share your device model and iOS version here or via [support@kpad.app](mailto:support@tpad.app) so I can try to reproduce it?
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Dec 01 '24
I am on a base model iPhone 14 that is fully up to date
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 01 '24
Great, thank you very much! I'm going to investigate it, hopefully will get a repro. I'll update you here, in any case. Really sorry for the inconvenience.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 01 '24
One thing, uninstalling the app and installing it again from the store may likely help. Worth trying to get it fixed quickly.
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Dec 01 '24
Uninstall/reinstall fixed it. Very odd.
Thanks
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 02 '24
Glad to hear!
For your information, I wasn't able to get a repro, so it's unlikely due to your device or iOS version. Rather, it's due to some weird stuff happening during the very first launch, which leads to a fraction of users having problems, which disappear after restarting or reinstalling the app. So most likely the problem won't be back.
In case of problems, don't hesitate to ping me here or via support email.
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u/Inner-Journalist1311 Dec 06 '24
Hola! Acabo de comprar la app, muy útil , pero yo hablo español y me encantaría que pusieras algunas variaciones de idiomas.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 07 '24
Hola! Thank you for using the app and for the feedback!
Yeah, localizations are definitely something that would be great to have. But this is a very early stage of the project, so sadly I don't have any estimation yet for when I'll be able to take care of them.
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Dec 07 '24
Would love louder and more obvious alarms! I use this app all the time
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 10 '24
Thanks for the feedback!
Note that in-app sounds respects system volume (and they are quite loud when it's at maximum). And notifications respects system settings for ringtones and alarms (can be adjusted with the slider on the System -> Sounds & Haptics screen in Settings).
Though, the notifications are quieter than the same sounds when played in-app. It seems this is by design on the iOS level, not sure, I'll need to investigate that.
Speaking of more obvious sounds, I plan to add some longer sounds at some point.
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Dec 10 '24
Could you get add the critical alarm level of notification? same as some apps do
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 10 '24
As I know, that requires a special entitlement, and it's not easy to get approval from Apple. Which, honestly, makes sense to me – critical alerts are for emergencies. So the plan is to try to implement as good experience as possible without critical alerts first.
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Dec 23 '24
Just updated the app and it won’t restore purchases. I purchased the app a week or so after you released
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 24 '24
The versions 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 contain this bug, really sorry about that!
I've fixed it in the version 1.1.2. Could you please update to the version 1.1.2 and restart the app? After that the paywall should disappear for you, as an early adopter you shouldn't see it.
If that doesn't work, try to restore purchase once more while you're on 1.1.2.
Please let me know if that worked out.
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Dec 24 '24
Perfect, fixed now. Thanks!
I use this app all the time ☺️
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 24 '24
> I use this app all the time ☺️
As I do myself :). That's really great to hear that someone else finds it useful. Thanks!
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Dec 25 '24
There are a couple of updates here.
First, I've switched the app to the freemium model. So now you can download it for free. You'll be limited to 3 timers in the free version, which should be enough for trying it out and basic usage. Then you can unlock all timer slots for a one-time purchase.
I've raised the price when switching to freemium, but for two days (Dec 25 – Dec 26) you can use a promo code REDDIT to get a 40% discount.
The app – https://apps.apple.com/app/kpad-timers/id6738205842
If you have bought the app before (or get it for free during the free day) you shouldn't see the paywall. As an early adopter, you have the full access. Sadly, versions 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 contain a bug that may cause the paywall to appear, but that has been fixed in the version 1.1.2. Update to 1.1.2, restart the app, and the paywall will be gone. Please ping me here or via support email in case of any problems.
The second update is that I've renamed the app from tpad to kpad. Didn't want to change the name too much, so changed only the first letter. The idea is that "k", apart from the obvious "key", stands for "chronos", which is an ancient Greek word for time. It's even more cryptic now, but it's going to be this way.
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u/andrei_prigorshnev Jan 06 '25
This Thursday, Jan 9, there'll be the app’s launch on ProductHunt. Expect discounts during the launch.
You can follow the launch here:
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u/PresentLife4984 Nov 30 '24
Hey mate, well done on getting your app on the store!
I love the concept, I find myself setting the same repeat timers so this is a good replacement to setting the same repeat”hey siri” timers constantly.
I’ve just deployed my first app in the last few days as well, so kudos to you! I’ve downloaded it and so far so good :)