I copied an app from the App Store. Their business model was free desktop application but $20 for the iOS client and I really wanted it so I made a 'clean-room' implementation with CloudKit and charged $0.99 for a one-off cross platform sale.
Bit brazen, but the idea isn't entirely unique.
Edit: P.s email me at adam@adamfallon.com if you would like a promo code to get the app for free :).
Unfortunately can't take credit on iOS here - the same app is 1.4mb on iOS - I assume because it isn't statically linking some part of the CloudKit syncing framework on macOS whereas it does on iOS? Or maybe SwiftUI framework is dynamic on macOS due to Catalyst - not really sure.
I wonder if Google does anything to accurately reimburse something like ad-naseum* clicks. I imagine the probably take up a non-insignificant amount of spend at the $6m level
Google automatically refunds advertisers for fraudulent clicks each month. It's not a lot (maybe $1,000 refund on an account that spends $600k to 800k/month), but it's a line item on the invoice for sure. You have to trust them for what is a 'fraudulent' click though.
So far what i've send of the RCE i've seen so far has been a way of triggering pop-ups on the start screen - not to say its not more dangerous than that, but just thought i'd give some context.
Most RCE's aren't carte blanche to run arbitrary code on a users computer, but are some way of triggering a particular code path on a remote computer.
RCE by definition involves being able to run arbitrary code, for some reasonable definition of arbitrary. "Triggering a particular code path" doesn't get you anything: if you have a webpage you can trivially make your visitors' computers execute plenty of predictable code paths, like the one to render text to the screen or to send audio to the speakers.
I sort of always knew it was the job of VCs to hype up their portfolio, but i've never seen it as bare faced as when Benedict Evans was shilling Magic Leap saying things along the lines of "Magic Leap was the coolest thing I'd seen since the iPhone. It's now much cooler than that." and "I’ve had the Magic Leap demo. It was worth going to Florida for."
Supposedly the magic leap demo was actually cool and used different technology than the eventually crappy hardware they ended up sort of shipping.
I think they couldn’t get it to a place where it could be small enough to be useful?
Hopefully when Apple ships AR hardware for real it’ll be what it should be. Magic leap will be kind of like General Magic or the creative nomad jukebox - right idea but too early with hardware and not a great product.
Their constant advertising with no details for years really bothered me though so I probably have an unfairly negative perception of them.
Either build what you’re doing in public like Facebook/Oculus or do it in secret like Apple, but don’t loudly advertise in public when you don’t have anything to show for it.
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(I played with the magic leap hardware that shipped for an hour or so and found it disappointing, a lot less interesting than when I had played with VR hardware for the first time. I think AR as the next computing platform has huge potential, but the hardware isn’t there yet and it needs a strong platform/ecosystem behind it. I think Apple has been preparing this for years.)
I saw the magic leap demo in person at their Florida office. It was quite something.
Imagine minecraft, but in real life. They had blocks you could put on walls, dinosaurs roaming around on the ground, knights fighting the dinosaurs, and all of it was controllable.
It was in a small-ish room, roughly ... 15x15 feet? a few meters by a few meters.
It had couches in the room, and pictures on the walls. It didn't look special. But in retrospect the room may have been part of the demo in some way.
(I went through their interview process, and one of the benefits was getting to see the ML in action. Supposedly they also had an "AI assistant" demo or something like that – Cortana? – but it wasn't available on that day.)
If I were an investor, I would probably invest based on the strength of that demo. It was enough to make you question the reason we're all staring at laptop screens. The device was comfortable, and I could imagine myself sitting at a desk typing into thin air (because goggles) rather than typing into a computer screen.
Of course, it looks like I would have lost my money if I were an investor. But how could we know it would play out this way? All they had to do was build a strong developer ecosystem. The lame demo-style apps we see are a direct result of inconvenient APIs and SDKs.
In fact, they were actively hostile to developers. I remember getting a C&D just for publishing their SDK's manual on a personal website. No idea how they even found the link.
The premise is real – in the same way the Vive was in many ways superior to Oculus, I think the next "Magic Leap" will be superior and more affordable than what we see here. If you are looking for an investment opportunity, the AR scene is still a strong bet over the next decade or so.
(If that seems unlikely, think about how many major advances worked out after seeming so unlikely: deep learning in AI; consumer-grade VR; voice controlled devices; the list goes on and on.)
>But how could we know it would play out this way?
For anybody who hadn't seen the demo, the company always looked like typical SV smoke selling pitch. "This is the best thing ever", "It will change the world", "We have great stuff but we can't show them in public because reasons".
The whole "demo in a closed, secret room and then you can't tell anybody about it" reminds me too much of the carnival fair fortuneteller experience. You get shoved in a mystery room, get shown a bunch of smoke and mirrors, and then you're out before you can't think too much about what happened.
Not everyone. The potential is absolutely there, and even the devices that are available today would be groundbreaking, if only someone could figure out something to do with them.
As for that, the ecosystem is far too closed. ML and Microsoft seem to be approaching the technology Apple-style, with expensive hardware and by-the-numbers (if that) developer support, which would allow them to control the platform - and profits - once the we reach some sort of inflection point where either a unpredicted killer app emerges or the tech matures enough for the more obvious applications to be viable.
They're not going to get there, though; someone is going to (or perhaps already has) released a cheaper alternative with a low barrier-to-entry creation platform, and that will allow the number of people who have access to both a good-enough device and a good-enough skillset to reach a critical mass. They'll create for that device and platform and everyone else will be playing catch-up. It's the early PC and BASIC all over again.
Do you know what would be really interesting? If Sony's PS5 were to launch with an affordable VR headset and an updated version of Media Molecule's Dreams.
I think the thing you missed from the 'all they had to do' list, was make a product that a large audience could afford.
I think Zuckerberg said at the last FB conference their aim with the Quest was to get 10,000,000 sold because that's the tipping point to a self sustaining app ecosystem.
Software is worth making, so hardware is worth buying, so software is worth making... etc
They had zero chance of achieving this at their price point.
It's not just software though, the viewing hardware they eventually shipped is extremely similar to the hololens, but 2 years later and with a slightly larger viewport. And worse hand tracking, from my experience. Cheaper though.
What you and other early-people seem to describe appears to be something else entirely, in which case yea - original plan fell through completely and they pivoted to their current thing. But was it actually different?
Holy crap, the memories. I had the creative nomad jukebox and for years convinced myself if fit in the pockets of my jeans...it did...but it didn't. The folly of youth!?
Actually, back in those days I was wearing Jnco jeans and you could fit a laptop in the pockets if you wanted to. I made a throwaway username for this comment because I don’t want people to know I wore Jnco jeans.
I got to demo their consumer product and it really is pretty cool. Perfect? Far from it. But it's good enough that you put it on and say "wow" for the next 15 minutes.
In the demo I saw, you get immersed into a coral reef and walk around. It's very cool, but I'm not gonna buy a unit just for that. So you need lots of content before it makes sense to buy one of these things, and then you have a chicken and egg problem. Who is going to spend massive amounts of money to create content when there isn't already a big audience for it?
I'm not the person you're asking, but imagine looking through dark sunglasses through a little window at a faded image sitting on the table in front of you.
For me the illusion of it sitting on the table didn't even feel like it was really on the table because of how dark the glasses were and how faded the image was.
VR was like being in a different place with a real sense of perspective and your hands in VR felt like a part of you. Sure it was low resolution, moving was strange, and the sides were letter boxed a bit but it was an impressive thing.
I think Apple are shipping their AR hardware, mostly anyway. The iPhone and iPad are it, modulo enhancements like LIDAR. I really don’t see Apple bringing out a headset. I’m not even sure it’s a technology problem. People just don’t want to walk around with cameras and LIDAR and goofy goggles on their faces, not at Apple scale anyway, possibly ever. It’s a fundamentally flawed concept. Specialist applications sure. Mainstream, one in every home? I don’t see it.
No idea when it will be a viable product in a nice enough hardware package, they're working on the ecosystem and platform in the mean time via iOS/iPadOS, but AR via those devices is a lot less compelling.
Doing this in a real way would be big if the hardware is possible, but it may be a ways out.
Interesting link, thanks. It looks like all their acquisitions and hires, at least the ones linked there, are on the capture, interface and authoring tools side. The only actual mention of a headset were of glasses with a camera, presumably for environment scanning, but using a phone as the display. I really could be wrong, but every time I start writing something where I hedge my bets it just doesn’t feel right. My gut persistently says no, VR/AR headsets are niche tech.
The link up thread shows patents going back 10 years on headset ideas but still no product, they could work on it another 10 years and it still go nowhere. They look at all sorts of things and patented all sorts of crazy ideas for much longer that but also went absolutely nowhere.
The only real indication is Akonia, that is interesting, but they have 200 patents on display technology. Any of that stuff could be useful in other applications. So I’ll stick to my guns.
I'm not talking about their fake demo ads they put everywhere, I think they actually had an impressive in person demo using some different technology they couldn't miniaturize.
They had a few-hundred-pound cart-bound prototype called The Beast that was supposedly mind blowing to use, and that's what convinced a lot of engineers to drop everything and move to Florida to work on it. I agree pushing that technical narrative would have sounded much better.
I'm not a marketing person, but constantly alluding to something amazing without revealing details is a hack that stirs up a lot of curiosity and people discussing what it could be.
If you reveal the thing then that dies down (or worse knowledgeable people know that what you're dong isn't possible), but if you keep it secret while giving content-free little hints about it you can keep it going longer (and maybe raise more money by letting people in on the secret?).
I have a strong dislike for this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean it's not effective.
As funny as this sounds I must agree. If they had something cool & innovative they could have shown the world and been upfront about the challenges to make it smaller. That could in turn bring new talent to help them. Instead we now see a drowning company.
What's really crazy about that video--while it's technically possible to make something mostly like that with current hardware[0]-- is that, if you have any experience with AR at all, you know that most of those UIs would be terrible to use.
[0] The FOV is accurate, given we're looking through a narrow camera lens, but gives the wrong impression that it fills what the user could see because it fills the video frame. The graphics wouldn't be "solid", they'd be transparent, but a pre-setup room can definitely do occlusion effects with foreground furniture. The physical gun controllers could be done, though nobody would fork out the money for it. And all the hand gestures and UI pinning stuff could be done, though the software support on Magic Leap does not help you in the least.
Basically a meta-layer for the real world that you can interact with outside of a screen. This would let you do things like interact with a lightswitch from across the room by looking at it, get metadata about most object states by looking at it, anchor big displays to white walls, etc.
I think there's huge potential for this kind of interface, but I suspect the hardware isn't possible yet.
The hardware can do this, it's just that you can't get any funding for anything interesting. You're basically stuck with hobby apps and marketing demos developed via consultoware. The hobbiests can't afford the tech or the lack of reach and the consultoware shops have exactly zero imagination (I know, I worked at one).
I personally define VR vs AR as "who provides the context in which we are working? The app (VR), or the user (AR)". A lot of extant "AR" apps don't do anything particularly interesting with your surrounding environment.
If your AR app needs me to clear out a space in my livingroom to give you room to drop some 3D models that maybe bounce off my walls, you've not actually made an AR app, you've just made a crappy VR app instead. Facebook could release an update to the Quest any day now that auto-scans your room to set the boundary and then you'd have exactly the same experience in an occluded headset, but with twice the FOV and better input.
This is the thing that gets me. There are plenty of people who would be willing to design around existing constraints, just because they think the tech is cool and they want to see what they can do with it.
But the cost of entry is mid-4-figures, between the hardware itself and the required development equipment. It's obvious that the people making the hardware and platform aren't a wide-enough cross-section of the public to create what business interests or consumers don't know that they want yet. They're shooting themselves in the foot, trying to maintain control over the platform.
My guess at the killer app for AR is airplane maintenance.
Imagine a physical checklist where areas get highlighted, arrows to direct you to the next step, and a little red icon that goes green when you're done.
I think this could shave real time (maybe a third?) off airframe downtime while keeping the very high accuracy requirement. That would save actual money.
That was the concept video which was different from the demo, but you are correct and they did a horrible job conveying that that was a concept and not the actual product.
Did they? They raised a billions of dollars to try to basically try to drag reality to this demo. It feels like a bigger version of a regular venture story.
"Gimme a ton of money to run this experiment. If I'm right you'll be rich"
That's not even a demo of the actual physical product though, that was just a video that was posted online that purported to show what the experience would look like (but actually was not). It's not like you would've seen that had you actually been looking through the glasses.
> than when I had played with VR hardware for the first time
AR is 1-2 orders of magnitude more demanding than VR, so if we get to acceptable screen-door-effect-less VR on 30TFlops hardware, we might need like 1 Petaflop for the same with AR. That won't fit into a pocket anytime soon, but we can build such experiences on beefy demo rigs.
I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport.
The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize things twice, in the 1950s and a decade ago. Over and over, this stuff is absolutely amazing for a hot minute and then nobody cares.
Of course, Evans is sold as a brilliant pundit and now VC genius, so if anybody should understand that novelty doesn't equal a business model, it's him. But as you suggest, Upton Sinclair's quote applies here: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
To be fair to the Segway, there's a remarkable number of self-balancing one wheel scooters on the street in SF these days (well, a few months ago). And I think you can trace all of those back to Segway. Sometimes v1 doesn't quite do it.
They're toys that a lot of people use as their primary methods of transport, along with other micro mobility solutions like electric scooters amd good old fashioned bikes. In a way, the future took the path of least resistance and redesigned micromobility around cities instead. And we might still end up redesigning cities around some of those options
The segways itself doesnt make much sense to me though. I dont remember too much about the hype when it was released, but like, I'm still unclear about what it was supposed to be able to do that an electrified scooter or bike couldn't.
I'm still unclear about what it was supposed to be able to do that an electrified scooter or bike couldn't.
When the Segway was released? It could do this one cool trick: actually exist. Electric bikes and scooters (at least at any sort of scale) were at least ten years off.
There were other factors. Ungodly expensive for what it was, and poor enough range that I questioned whether it could get the six-ish miles from the house to Microsoft's main campus with that WA-520 hill to contend with. Now my Boosted Rev scooter can almost do the 7.5 mile round trip to work, with that same WA-520 hill, and for 1/3rd the price the original Segway was going for.
EDIT: oh, wait a minute, the max speed on the original Segway was like 20kph/12mph, right? Yeah, the Rev would easily make the 15 mile round trip if I were riding it that slowly.
> I'm still unclear about what it was supposed to be able to do that an electrified scooter or bike couldn't.
Segways have much better low-speed handling characteristics than bicycles, which makes them safer to intermix with pedestrians: Travelling at a slow amble speed in a crowded environment is extremely difficult on a bicycle, but no big deal for a Segway (or similar)
The primary fault that causes bikes to mix poorly with pedestrians occurs between the handlebars and the helmet. Bikes are, in fact, super easy to operate in close proximity to and at the same speed as people who are on foot. The trick is to not have it between your legs.
I know the market is small but the Segway was a fantastic upgrade for some people with limited mobility. A classmate of mine in college (2007 or so) who has cerebral palsy got one and it totally changed her ability to get between classes. More maneuverable than a wheelchair, faster than walking with crutches.
I finally got to try one around 2002, and I have to say it completely changed my opinion. The price didn't matter, the wacky overhyped introduction didn't matter, self-balancing was such a revolutionary technology that I immediately saw where it was going.
Your comment raised the hair on back. I was a naive student in those days. Kamen's build up to the announcement and some of the posts of people who had tried "it" - they broke my heart and took away some of my innocence. You reminded me of all the hype pre-announcement. I couldn't sleep because of it.
I still respect Kamen but take every pre-announcement I hear with a strong degree of skepticism.
Perhaps they're big in SF, but they exist basically nowhere else in numbers that matter in any way (aside from those super weird Segway tours in like D.C.). Sometimes the tech itself just isn't that good, and sometimes it's a bad idea.
Unlike Magic Leap, wasn’t Segway the first personal transporter with self balancing technology? Ie. Setting a new bar. Hence others followed from that new standard.
I’m not aware of Magic Leap setting any new bars.
While I agree with your point, did anyone except the inventor and the marketing team think Segway was going to revolutionize anything? I seem to remember all the revolution talk coming from Segway people before they had even unveiled the thing. It was just a big hyped secret that would "revolutionize" the world.
I remember being extremely underwhelmed when they unveiled it. It seemed like one of those things that had never been invented before, because why would you invent that.
Definitely not Jobs and Bezos. Jobs said what you say from a different angle—if this thing is revolutionary, why does it look so banal? Bezos pointed out the basic flaw that bedevils personal transportation to this day—will you be allowed to ride it? Guess that's what they mean by 'revolutionary'—you'd have to throw a bunch of established systems out the window to take over.
Many people did think it was revolutionary. "Venture capitalist John Doerr predicted it would reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history, and that it could be bigger than the Internet." https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway-technol...
And it wasn't totally insane, for the same basic reasons people think scooters, etc, could revolutionize cities.
People who think scooters are going to revolutionize cities are equally insane. Reason being, scooters are ubiquitously available at a reasonable price point and have been for a long time.
The fact that you can rent one by the minute is going to make marginal differences to most people. If people wanted to use electric scooters to get around the city, everyone would own one already.
Yes, and there are also plenty of solid niche applications of 3d displays. The point is that both the Segway and the MagicLeap were pitched as being the next mobile phone or automobile (something everyone has at all times).
Of course personal electric vehicles seem to be having a renaissance at the moment (scooters) but the buzz:use ratio of modern scooters is much-much lower than the original segway era from 20 years back.
As far as I've seen, Magic Leap doesn't even have a niche. I can think of plausible niches for some hypothetical future AR tech, but none for what Magic Leap has managed to create.
Oh, sure! But those who didn't live through the hype may not know that it was expected to revolutionize transportation. "Venture capitalist John Doerr predicted it would reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history, and that it could be bigger than the Internet." [1]
Presaged in the sense that there was also a lot of VC-driven hype that didn't work out, sure. I'll admit there's a slightly higher chance that scooter rental still might turn into a real business. But it's definitely not a given.
Anyone that follows him closely on Twitter Should know this. He's the type of person that just throws predictions everywhere so he can say "I told you so", but never owns up the ones that don't crystallize.
It seems a bit like the home console version of the Neo Geo to me. Once upon a time, I'd gladly shove large numbers of quarters into Neo Geo arcade cabinets. But when they stuck the hardware into a consumer model, with its huge price tag, my thought was, "If a rich friend bought one, I would enjoy playing with it at their house."
I suspect that the big difference here is, this being 1990, SNK didn't have nearly as much access to investment money from rich people who don't understand the what entertainment budgets look like for the other 99.99% of people. So it was never hyped as anything but a luxury product.
Yeah, I wonder if Magic Leap had started small and luxury, installing that Beast contraption with the undiluted experience to rich people, it could've grown more like Tesla. Of course, the Roadster ran on all the same roads, while whole new experiences have to be created for AR, but make a few great ones and it'll be like having a bowling lane in your house—you don't play with it except to show off to visitors. (Oh, League Bowling was the one game I remember playing on my friend's Neo Geo. He wasn't bowling-lane rich.)
Or Magic Leap could've licensed some Virtual Boy games.
Have you seen pictures of The Beast? The ergonomics and range of motion you get are about the same as what you have when using a phoropter. IIRC, it even has some of the same "positioning your head in the right place" hardware as is used by some piece of optometrist's equipment or other.
I tried out a HoloLens at a rich friend's house and had a similar experience, despite it also having a small FOV. It blew my mind and instantly registered as a really big deal. But as another commenter here pointed out, the hardware isn't there yet, and when it arrives it will require a vibrant software ecosystem. The difference is that Microsoft seems to understand that.
Counterpoint: I thought it was really, really cool when I tried it for a couple hours. I have no affiliation with Magic Leap. The Magic Leap unit I tried was a friend's (so it wasn't as though Magic Leap sent me a free unit to try out and therefore could have biased me).
I tried it a couple years ago at PAX Unplugged, and that was exactly my reaction. I felt like I was putting a lot of attention into shifting around my direction to frame the AR, and searching for content, because I was looking through a pipe.
They don't use gyroscopes so I'm not sure I'd say they superseded segweys technologically.
I also would hesitate to say they solve a common problem because the current market glut seems to be trailing a recent hype bubble of electric scooter startups.
Humans already have two "gyroscopes" in our ears, which for most people work well. It's really no surprise that bicycles are more popular than segways.
Have you actually played any VR games? It's not perfect yet but it's good enough. They're quite fun. They're still niche because they require hardware and space.
Many people, like you, don't get it until they try it.
Maybe. VR is more chicken-egg, like the Windows phone with apps. The more people with VR headsets, the more VR games get developed, but more people won't get VR headsets until there are more games developed.
Just to check things out, I rented a Quest over the winter holidays. There was very little content that was a) VR-specific, and b) so much better on VR that it was worth the hassle. After we sent it back, the kids never even mentioned it again; they're happy with their Switches and the PS4.
Game designer Jesse Schell said "If Oculus Quest can’t succeed we should just hang it up" [1] and I think he's right. The obvious technical problems have been fixed. It's technically very impressive, and it has a strong novelty rush at first. But if the current market isn't enough to drive the creation of must-have games, I expect it's a descending spiral from here.
Sometimes frontier technology doesn't turn out as planned. Welcome to the tech industry - you will encounter more of this as your career continues ;)
So:
Magic Leap built a technology demonstrator, on a rig that was bolted to a table (as everyone has said). That demo was great. It was also, yes, bolted to a table. They have not turned that into a shipping mass-market consumer product.
Somehow, a bunch of people on the internets decided that because they, personally, hadn't seen the demo, anyone who had must be lying (or on acid?). This was, well, 'a bit silly', for lots of reasons, and it also missed the real challenges. The question was never 'does the tech demo exist?' Rather:
Can they turn the optics on the table into something you can wear (that also has even better optics, with acceptable FOV, occlusion etc)?
Can they go from a display technology to an actual platform?
Presume for the sake of argument that they solved all the optics etc questions - then they would be in the position of a company that had invented multitouch. That doesn't give you an iPhone. You still have to make an actual smartphone, work out the software and the UI, build an ecosystem, create an app store, get to scaled mass production, and that's really expensive. Or, someone had to - you could licence it out in some way (which is what Qualcomm did with CDMA - Qualcomm doesn't make phones or build cellular networks)
So: imagine back in 2006, you'd seen Jeff Han's multitouch demo. It was three feet across, came in several packing cases, and it was very very cool. But it wasn't an iPhone.
It's not silly to try some promising technology that ultimately doesn't work out for business. It's easy to be nasty in hindsight, from the comfort of your home, isn't it? Not so easy to try making it work in the first place.
What a vacuous comment. Granted in the early days you could give the benefit of the doubt that sure Magic Leap are trying to build some revolutionary AR - you could construe my comment as ill-natured.
But go to Magic Leaps website now. Look at the promotional video that is being shown there. Now go and look at actual footage of the Magic Leap unit in action.
The company are being entirely misrepresentative of what their product actually is. They are using that amazing video footage to sell a product TODAY that is nothing close to the quality shown there. Look at what the unit is capable of and compare it to that.
Now sure, you can be given creative freedom to express the ideas of things that the Magic Leap lets you do. But then you remember the Whale video. They've been misrepresenting their product and trying to sell it using that misrepresentation for years at this point.
When TechCrunch first released video of the little floating robot game I remember people being astounded at how asinine it was. This is what VCs have been raving about and pouring money into?
So what are they trying to make work? Their promotional videos, ability to dupe VCs and probably their rock solid sales team - how long can should you give that benefit of the doubt for? They are 9 years old at this point!
Thank you! I'm a bit wary of giving big hints to how the filters work, but I was inspired by:
- npm packages like redact-pii, bad-words (and numerous other "bad word" lists)
- askismet's open source spam code
- regex unicode categories
I also wrote a variety of checks for word counts, combinations of words, known "bad patterns", etc. You may not realize it, but the text input forms block a lot of potential inputs.
It's not perfect, but that's why I'm manually handling things that surface. Happy to answer any follow-ups.
I absolutely hate to be that guy who links his own work, but I have seen my sales flatline in the past week and it's lead to me driving the price down of my app to the point where i'm thinking of just making it free for the exposure.
Please, if you could download, share & rate my app - If you'd like to try the app without paying, email me at adam@adamfallon.com and I will send you a promo code!
My app is a clever spin on a note taking app that gives you 7 workspaces, and your notes sync over iCloud to macOS, iPadOS & iOS. Think of it as Post-It notes for your Apple devices.
Edit: An update with search and keyboard Shortcuts for iPad & macOS is currently in review with Apple. In the meantime if you've any feature requests you can send them through the app :)
I had a look at your app and maybe I'm missing it, but I can't really see what it offers over using just notes? Notes is a distraction-free editor, it syncs out of the box and it comes preinstalled on all devices. You don't have to use folders but when you need to, you can, you can use sync from different services (iCloud, Google, Exchange, etc), you can draw in notes, add pictures, and I'm sure there's more. All of this is not to put down your application, I think it looks neat — the point is more so that at the moment I can't see what it offers over what's already available by default. If you want to reach more buyers, it might be a good idea to make your value proposition clearer.
1. Screenshots don't show much worth the price. Yes, I know this is unfair, but screenshots which show the true value proposition really matter. I don't get this here.
2. I can already do this with Notes.app.
3. With editing features that make Notes more of a datastore than just plain ol' text, the app could be interesting .. like, a JSON or XML editor overlay, maybe .. hmm ..
> "With editing features that make Notes more of a datastore than just plain ol' text, the app could be interesting .. like, a JSON or XML editor overlay, maybe .. hmm .."
Could you expand on that a little? Do you mean keyboard buttons to insert patterns common when writing in those languages?
Well, you've already got a macro interface, so yeah - some kind of inline editor for JSON records I paste to my Notes could be quite useful .. and would help differentiate in a way that isn't "Just more Notes" functionality ..
I think what the GP means is exporting the data to various formats. Maybe saving your content to iCloud Docs could be an easy win? I do something similar with an app of mine.
I'd start by saying that I am no way positioning this as an alternative to notes - we are aiming for two different things.
This app is aiming to be the scrap of paper beside your computer you scribble on during the day. Notes is the A4 Binder that can hold everything, but you need to dig to get at it.
The navigational simplicity replicates that - I can fly taking notes with this.
That said, I think if you use notes the way I did, to jot stuff in during the day i'll compare;
So the main frustration I have with using notes across devices is the inconsistent (and especially on iOS) the tap-tap-tap style of navigation to drill down from Folders > Sub Folder > Note.
I hated not having search to hand in Notes on iOS either - with my pending update (in review with Apple) you swipe from top to bottom (or hit Cmd + Shift + F on keyboard) and you get full text search over your 7 dots.
Hopefully some of that gets at your questions RE: Value prop.
One thing i'll note here as to a potential reason why they do this
I just recently attempted to set up Facebook adverts for an app I developed. When it came time for me to set the metric up I obviously chose "App Installs" as my metric to track.
To do this, Facebook told me I needed to install the Facebook SDK in my app to attribute an adverts conversion.
I didn't end up running the ad, but I can see why companies potentially have the SDK embedded in their apps to track ad-spend, hence the phoning-home to Facebook.
Not sure why Vice called out the omission from the privacy policy – I’ve never seen one that actually lists all companies out by name. The GDPR mandates a list of subprocessors, though!
GitHub’s privacy policy is exceptional. Particularly the section on sub-processors[1] where they list out every company, don’t have any sort of CYA language that covers others that might not be listed, and make a commitment to update that page every time the sub-processors or the sub-processor’s function changes.
Their privacy policy even explicitly calls that out:
> Zoom, our third-party service providers, and advertising partners (e.g., Google Ads and Google Analytics) automatically collect some information about you when you use our Products, using methods such as cookies and tracking technologies (further described below).
It is their right to run their business as they see fit, and it is our right to not use them. It is the deception we do not allow (any more) with GDPR.
Most present societies and thus governments do not believe that people should get to run their businesses however they see fit.
There are a thousand different ways in which companies are not presently allowed to be operated, even if the owner sees fit to do so: worker safety, discrimination, collusion, et c.
I’m not saying these things are good or bad, or that there should be more or less of them. I’m saying that Zoom’s (and Facebook’s) spying is a problem, remains a problem, and is not solved by them putting some text on their webpage.
> It is their right to run their business as they see fit
It absolutely isn't. We want to use services but we do not want to be subjected to surveillance capitalism. Privacy is more important than some business and if it can't operate without being invasive it should fail. If they insist on being hostile and tracking people despite their wishes, people will use the product anyway and they will find a way to break the tracking. They will delete the surveillance code, use network filters, send fake data, whatever it takes to stop the surveillance.
> It is the deception we do not allow (any more) with GDPR.
That law also says users have the right to object to what the service is doing with their data and that they must stop doing it if the objection is valid. Almost all data collection taking place today is objectionable, especially those related to marketing and advertisements.
Collecting data on people is not a god-given right. It is a privilege and it can be revoked. People trusted companies with that power because they thought companies would act in their best interests but they were exploited instead. Now it's time to take it away.
> We want to use services but we do not want to be subjected to surveillance capitalism.
Who is the “we” you are referring to? I think most people care so little about this that they don’t even bother to skim the TOS before using a service.
To add to your point (which I fully agree) (and I am surprised of the downvotes - I don't care for the karma but it looks that I didn't write it clear enough and/or people misunderstood my comment 2-3 levels up).
I am not touching the "add value" bit, I will stick to the ethics. Some businesses are (imho) scum (Facebook, Google, Zoom, every tracker, every data aggregator, etc.)
They may uphold the law or they may ignore the law. Since we should not burn their buildings down in retribution, we can sue them (or whatever the local privacy laws state), we can stop giving them money (our free/paid information). But it is up to us. Zoom clearly needs a (sic) phat penalty by EU to get their stuff straight. Then every EU user should bombard both Zoom and FB with questions on their data practices and "right to be forgotten". Then we should burry them in the sand and move to other service providers.
I am adamant on the issue of privacy and the reason for that is that these scum KNOW they are violating our rights, and the voice in their minds tells them "screw them, £€¥$ goes first".
Caring about this shouldn't be necessary. When people sign up for a service, they shouldn't have to stop everything and wonder about the many, many ways their personal information could be abused. Nor should they have to scrutinize the terms of every single service out there just to know exactly how they're being exploited without being able to do anything about it. This constant paranoia about everything is not a good way to live.
Actually, it's especially good timing to be starting a business during a financial crisis. I know, I've lived through 1987, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2008 and now c-19.
During these times when people are getting RIF'd (Reduction in Force), they're understandably panicked, nervous, in shock, etc. Most employees are not thinking of what service or product they can cobble together and bring to market, but how to swiftly rejoin the job market.
This leads to a shortage of new startups spinning up as well, because the economy has gone to the dumpster. Good times, bull markets and strong economies make everyone feel more confident. Who wants to gamble when the world is going to hades in a handbasket? Not a lot of people.
Then there's the cost factor. My experience during past financial implosions, demand for everything plummets. I get the idea we're living in more of a robber-baron era than even just 5 years ago, but still, you'll be able to negotiate everything from office rents to infrastructure, salaries of new hires, hotels and airfares for business travel.
Obviously, I am going to throw my hat into this ring for these very reasons. Good luck and good day!
Bit brazen, but the idea isn't entirely unique.
Edit: P.s email me at adam@adamfallon.com if you would like a promo code to get the app for free :).
* https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nitronotes/id1502080216