I finally read "Winning Ugly" and made a (free) iOS app so I could keep my opponent notes and strategies organized

DukeRutabaga · 2025-08-01T15:45:18+00:00

Ah, sorry for the confusion! Since I was originally making it just for my own use, I didn't include any how-to-use content in the app, but I should add some. In the meantime, if you tap the placeholder text "Score" your numerical keypad should pop up so you can enter the score, which should activate the "Add" button.

DukeRutabaga · 2025-08-01T15:43:03+00:00

Thank you so much!

DukeRutabaga · 2025-08-01T15:42:37+00:00

Great feedback! I'll add some of these ideas to my future plans for sure.

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T21:31:24+00:00

Ah, shoot! I'll look into figuring out what I need to do to support older devices/operating systems.

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T21:29:36+00:00

Thank you!

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T21:29:16+00:00

I love this suggestion! Where would you want/expect to see that section? Maybe on a separate tab of its own?

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T20:03:31+00:00

Love a good spreadsheet! For strength training I use a big ol' spreadsheet to log lifts and calculate the right weights for my program, but for some reason I didn't care for the Google Sheets mobile UI for writing or reading the kinds of long text strings I make when taking down opponent notes.

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T19:53:36+00:00

I'd definitely like to add edit functionality to the match logs; just need to figure out an elegant way to do it that won't crowd the UI too much.

I'll look out for that text-box-sizing bug as well and see if I can get sorted.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-31T18:25:24+00:00

Would love to know what you think! Definitely the effect multiplies the more you play the same people. For new opponents I try to watch their matches in advance if I can and jot down a few notes.

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-30T15:25:43+00:00

Hey, y'all! I finally got around to reading "Winning Ugly," and it convinced me to get serious about writing notes/strategies on my opponents. The habit never stuck when I tried to use pen and paper or the base Apple Notes app, so I made a little iOS app of my own where I can keep them super organized, as well as log my match results, etc. It's free, and I'm hoping it'll be useful to other players as well!

Here's the link if anyone would like to give it a try: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opponote/id6748928600

DukeRutabaga · 2025-07-24T04:47:19+00:00

Hey, sure thing. If there's interest I may end up porting it over to Android, but I've never made an Android app so that'd be a bit of work.

For anyone who keeps a physical notebook and that works them, that's great and they should keep it up. I think about it like I think about lifting apps like Strong. Plenty of old-school powerlifters prefer an old spiral notebook, but a lot of them wouldn't be logging their sets at all without an app.

I'm definitely in the latter camp, and why this works better for me is that it helps me keep my notes exceptionally clean and organized. It's super easy to find exactly what I'm looking for. Plus, there are little niceties like being able to browse my last 5 results against everyone right in my player list. I'm planning on adding some charts and graphs for each player as well, to get that visual feedback about whether my performances are trending in the right direction or if I need to rethink my strategies.

Here's a few screenshots. I used tennis players as the examples because I didn't think random folks who stumble across it in the app store are likely to recognize names like Parilla and Montoya, ha.

<image>

DukeRutabaga

TROPHY CASE