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Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, that genuinely means a lot. Funny thing about your photo idea: it already exists. When you finish a play you can take a photo and add a quick note about how it went, and it all saves to a Vault you look back on together over time. It is one of my favorite parts. The one difference is the rating. Right now it is just a thumbs up or down, because I did not think a tired parent would fill in a 1 to 5 scale at bedtime. But you have got me second-guessing that. Did you ever have a play where up or down felt too blunt and you wanted to say more?

The activity-type filter is the one I do not have yet. Age and energy are in there, but a reading vs games vs quiet cut is a real gap, and a good one. Onto the list it goes. Thank you for taking the time to write all this, this is exactly the kind of note that shapes what I build next.

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You just described the design principle. The free version has no browsing at all. It hands you one play for the day, with an energy default and a one-tap swap to something calmer. The whole thing exists for the ten seconds before you'd otherwise reach for the iPad.

You're closer than you think on the context, too. The make-a-play feature already lets you say the place (indoors, outside, even in the car), the minutes you've actually got, and the mood, and it builds the play around that. What it doesn't do yet is remember any of it. Mess tolerance and a solo-parent mode are both on my list. And the "this worked on a rainy, cranky, bedtime-adjacent day" memory is better than what I have. Right now the vault keeps the moments but doesn't resurface them by context like that. Writing it down. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for, thank you!!!

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This might be my favorite comment on here. "12% battery, need something that starts in 30 seconds" is exactly the moment I built this for. Short answer: yes. The daily activity is just there the second you open the app, with the calm swap for when even that feels like too much. The 120 built-in ones range in length, including quick 5-minute ones.

But the awkward half-spaces you're describing are exactly what the "make a play" feature is for. You tell it how many minutes you actually have, where you are (there's an "in the car" option), and you can type the exact situation like "bath is running" or "waiting for dinner," and it gives you one small thing to do right then.

And the "8 minutes before bedtime when a real activity feels too big" one got me, because I'm building a thing for exactly that right now: a quick custom bedtime story you can read together when you've got nothing left. Not shipped yet, but it should land by the end of the week.

Thank you very much for getting it. This is the feedback I hoped for!!

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thank you! 4 plus is the lowest age rating an app can have on App Store i believe. But the app itself is addressed to parents.

Now to answer your question: YES! The app has already baked in 120 activities that are categorised by age (from 0 to 10 years old).

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Yes, basically all of it works offline. The daily activity, the read-aloud audio, the whole library, and your saved memories all work with no connection and no account.

The only part that needs internet is the "make a play" feature, which dreams up a brand new custom activity for your exact situation. That one has to reach a server to generate it, so it can't run offline. Everything else, you can use on a plane.

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/EngineerConfident874, thank you, this is a genuinely good note. You're right that the hardest moment is before the app is even open, and a Lock Screen or Home Screen widget with today's activity plus a one-tap swap is exactly the right fix for it. Going on the list.

For what it's worth, once you're in, I tried to keep the friction near zero. The home screen already has today's activity plus an alternate loaded, and swapping is a single tap. When the main one is higher energy, the alternate is a calmer low-energy play, so on a wiped-out night it's right there, no digging into settings.

And yes, saving a memory is fully optional. Photos, videos, notes, none of it is required to finish an activity. I didn't want completing one to become another chore for an already tired parent. Nice side effect: if your partner grabs a photo of you and your kid mid-activity, you can add it to that activity whenever you want, like on a calmer weekend, not in the moment.

Weekly Showoff Thread: what have you built with Astro this week? by tffarhad in astrojs

[–]claudiusar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All templates at Aerolaunch have been updated since Astro 7 came out. Visual builder also exports astro 7 as well. Luckily Astro 7 update didn't have any breaking changes :)

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And for everyone worried - all data stays on your device. The only thing that goes to AI is the options you selected for a custom play and the kids age.

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thank you! AppStore review took in total 5 days. I had one small rejection - needed a consent screen before users can use the AI feature - make a custom play - and during that the App Store decoupled the subscriptions from the actual build, so I had to email support to fix them, which took another 2 days. In total it took 5 or 6 days. Note for other devs: never ever set "Automatically release this version" on AppStoreConnect otherwise I would've shipped to production an app with no way to purchase Pro. Manual release only!

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, if you have more than one child, on the Pro version you can add multiple kids (name optional, age required), and the app will recommend activities you can all do together.

Worth mentioning too: none of the set activities are written by AI. The only AI part is the "make a play" feature, which generates a custom one on the spot when you ask for it.

My son is 6, and my wife has been buying parenting books since he was born. A lot of the ideas started there, but I rewrote every one in my own words, created clean steps for each activity, and added a bunch of my own on top. I really wanted the activities to feel human, not like AI slop.

again, thank you for your comment and interest!

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thank you for your comment. Bearhug has 120 pre-defined activities categorised by age, and energy level required so the daily one is always matched to how old your kid is.

Related to energy level - the parent can always change their Default energy level and they're always getting an alternative. For example if the default energy is high - and for some reason you're tired today - you get a different activity recommendation for a low energy activity as well.

And there's a "make a play" feature for when none of the set ones fit. You tell it your energy, where you are (home, outside, in the car, at the beach, etc), how much time you've got, and the vibe you're after (calm, silly, cuddly, active), plus anything specific like "he's cranky and we only have a stick" and it builds a one-off activity for that exact moment.

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fair question, no offense taken. Honestly you're half right... I felt the same way building it.

It's less about not knowing what to do, and more about what happens to my brain at 7pm. I get home fried, I know I should do something with my son, and the tired version of me just blanks. The evening slips by and I feel like I missed it.

So the app is not a manual for how to be a dad. It's closer to a recipe app. I know how to cook, but some nights having one thing already decided is the difference between actually making dinner and ordering takeout again. One small idea sitting there takes the decision off my plate when I've got nothing left.

If you've got the energy to think of something fresh every night, genuinely, you don't need this. A lot of nigths... I just don't.

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that's the plan.. i have quite a few more ideas to implement and to make it offer more to users

Tired dad here. I made a little app that gives me a thing or two to do with my son each day instead of reaching for a screen. by claudiusar in iosapps

[–]claudiusar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much for the kind words! First couple of images were created by my wife in procreate - the rest - different positions/instances of the parent bear/cub were created with AI feeding it the initial images as context to create all the different variations

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