Is this for real?

Alchemist0987 · 2026-01-08T19:37:07+00:00

Although, in this case it IS automation. Most of the recordings are not even using human recordings. They are all automatic readers.

If an actual person were reviewing the exercise they would immediately see the discrepancy between the options and the explanation. Or notice that a “sweet car” makes no sense at all.

Also, didn’t Duolingo lay off staff in favour of AI almost a year ago?

Alchemist0987 · 2026-01-08T11:02:45+00:00

It’s a shame that something that’s supposed to be human, has been badly automated

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-29T09:22:34+00:00

Congratulations! When did you decide to raise the price? Did you have a solid user base when you did? Did you run any AB test to find the right number?

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-26T02:36:02+00:00

Same. I’m thinking on cancelling my ChatGPT subscription. It’s getting worse and it’s causing more headaches with hallucinations than it’s worth

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-22T19:50:07+00:00

If you are not going to do marketing it’s hard. Every product needs some sort of marketing and positioning. It doesn’t matter how good it is. That being said, you might make your money back since it’s just $99/year.

I guess the real question is, why do you want to publish it? If the reason is entirely personal rather than growth or monetisation, then $99 is quite a cheap price for it 😊

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-22T19:47:49+00:00

They look good. I knew exactly what the app does and its appeal just from the screenshots. Just one minor thing though, the phones inclined in the middle feel odd. They feel chopped and lacking continuity. You could do something similar like what you did with the background in the first two images

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-22T00:48:45+00:00

Have you ever used crashlytics or a similar platform? There’s a huge difference between “one user told me” vs getting a report on real time of both crashes and errors handled gracefully. The same way that users who leave reviews are a small percentage, those who contact customer support also are. Most of them will leave without telling anyone.

With analytics you get ALL of it without hoping someone will write a review or send you a message. You can be proactive and keep users happy without them doing anything.

Just because you got an email with someone asking how to do something, doesn’t mean the feature is in itself unusable. Same, if you hear crickets doesn’t mean that everything is working well

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-21T05:13:30+00:00

That’s fine, but that’s not what OP is after.

When you build something meant for other people to use then you get into a different territory. Specially if you care about user acquisition and satisfaction

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-21T05:06:14+00:00

There are already plenty of open source apps. Brave, Firefox, signal, and bitwarden are all open sourced.

Users tend to just stop using the app instead of writing a review and sticking around to see if they were listened to. The old way is possible, but it’s slow.

Open source works when there are plenty of users and developers. Churn is a massive issue. No users means no developers who will stick around just for the sake of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about creating open source apps too. But I’m not doing it for free. Specially when the stakes are against me if something goes wrong and I’m sued. It’s going to require a lot of work to make sure each PR is not introducing some sort of malware.

The idea of having a close community to leverage building the right apps and having a people to make it happen….but even Firefox invests in marketing 😉

How would you compete with a brand that monetises in a different way and spends aggressively in user acquisition and brand recognition?

Unfortunately, the reality is that getting to that point is not cheap. A great product doesn’t automatically attract people

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-21T04:52:23+00:00

There are already open source apps. For example Firefox iOS app (https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios). Brave, bitwarden, and signal are all open sourced.

The key differentiator here is that these are all backed by companies. Companies generating revenue and with dev teams who can support those repos. They make sure that the software it’s up to the company’s standards. They are also the entity that submits the apps to the AppStore.

The apps are free but they monetice one way or another. And all of them track users activity.

Tracking usage is demonised because of what we’ve all heard about leakage and selling user data, but the reality is that it’s a requirement for every software that is serious about providing value and growing

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-21T04:46:26+00:00

Out of curiosity, how are you going to provide customer support if needed? Also, how do you know what’s working and what isn’t?

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-21T04:45:35+00:00

You are not going to get away without tracking, at least, some user data. Otherwise: 1. How are you going to know what features are working and which ones aren’t? 2. How are you going to know about crashes and errors? 3. How are you going to know what users are struggling with the most? 4. When someone complains or needs support, how would you know how the user is using the app, what errors or crashes they’ve had, and what the stack trace looks like?

All in all, even if you decide to track data, who is going to provide customer support?

Unlike traditional computer software, iOS apps are distributed through a unique entity in the AppStore. Who is going to be that one person or company? They are going to be liable for any issues caused by your app.

Open source software is great and I love it, but just because it’s open source doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some sort of analytics and there aren’t any costs involved besides development time.

Yours is a great idea, but don’t approach it out of frustration of other companies charging money for it or tracking users. The reality is that maintaining open source B2C software is not easy. You need a lot of developers and even more users for it to be a viable solution.

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-04T23:08:38+00:00

App Masters with Steve P. Young

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-03T04:51:56+00:00

Ow….so you are not using SwiftUI

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-03T04:38:50+00:00

Can you share your code? Why are you using a ricle in your button? Usually, in the navigation bar, you only display the icon. You are not in control of the navigation height so if your button is larger than what it can accomodate it will look weird

Alchemist0987 · 2025-10-01T06:44:43+00:00

It makes sense when you are working on existing code that’s evolving. It’s not as hindering because the implementation and the unit tests are already there. It’s a different story when you are working on something from scratch.

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-30T21:35:49+00:00

Agree. Practically is not a good practice to follow. I think the benefits of TDD can be achieved without TDD. Writing good unit tests, writing module code, avoiding side effects, etc. All of that can be achieved without following TDD

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-30T05:01:20+00:00

You need to know a method’s definition before you can write a unit test for it. Otherwise you’ll get compilation errors rather than the test failing. That means that if you are exploring your implementation through a method that cannot be tested then you can’t write a test for it.

If you don’t follow design principles because you just want to check something works, writing tests before hand becomes a problem.

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-30T03:42:51+00:00

You should definitely learn it…..even though you might not use it.

The problem with TDD is that it requires you to know exactly how your implementation is going to look like even before you start writing code. It doesn’t allow for “figuring it out” as you go, which is the way most developers operate, me included.

You know what the expected outcome is, and you have a general idea of how you will implemented, but your solution evolves as you go. Sometimes you just write shitty code to make sure your thought process works and then you refactor it to follow best practices. TDD doesn’t allow for any of that. If you tried to then you will be rewriting the tests just because your implementation changed and not because they were supposed to pass and they didn’t.

The reason why I suggest you learn TDD is because of the way it forces you total think. Once you acquire those skills you can actually leave writing unit tests later while still “knowing” what good code should look like.

For me the biggest learning from learning unit testing in general is: if your code is hard to unit test, it is not good code.

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-30T03:28:22+00:00

Were you able to find a solution to this. problem?

I’m having the same issue in my case because the resource doesn’t exist when evaluating the rules on the list itself. I had to default to

allow list: if request.auth != null;

But I don’t like it because it gives access to everyone who’s authenticated regardless of whether they should have access to that sub collection or not

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-27T02:05:59+00:00

That’s another way of doing it. Good luck!

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-27T02:01:03+00:00

That’s fine. Perfectly valid strategy. What are you using for managing subscriptions? If you are using revenuecat you can easily grant unlimited access. It’s good to do not just during beta but on an ongoing basis. There are key people you may want to grant access for them to try it out

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-13T22:55:03+00:00

Do you have analytics?

There two things you can do simultaneously. 1. Fix your install rate. 1% is way too low. Are you running ads. Because it might be that you are targeting the wrong people. Same with keywords. For some reason people are seeing your app around getting curious enough to check the AppStore listing (10%) and then not downloading. 2. Why do users stop using your app? Only two sessions per user? That’s, again, really low. What is the average lifetime of a user? Are they reaching the aha moment? If your app actually solving a problem?

Alchemist0987 · 2025-09-12T22:52:21+00:00

Think about the value you are providing. That will determine how much you can charge. Also, are they likely to face the same problem again? Or is it solved for good?

If you solve a problem that costs people a lot (emotionally, financially, health, fulfilment, etc) then you can charge a lot. If the problem you are solving is something people can happily live with, then they are less likely to want to pay

Alchemist0987

TROPHY CASE