Great to hear you have been using it for that time! I’m actively working on this. If you would like to try out some changes you can contact me through the app (settings) and I can send you a beta
It's one of my "North Star" goals but there is a lot of work between now and then. A middle stage may be the ability to record songs on the app which can be saved for later.
The original version only took a few days but it was really basic. I don’t really know how to measure how long this took because it was such a slow process over the years. It’s gotta be many hundreds of hours or even more at this point. I’ve refactored major systems a couple of times over the years. If I lost my code and had to rewrite the same app it would take a couple months I assume.
I'd say the best thing to do would be to get a keyboard you enjoyed and make sure it was compatible with iOS. The quality of instrument will hopefully keep you interested for all of the learning/playing.
I hear you on the other instruments and guitar request. I tried making a violin app years ago and it was a tiny fraction of the traffic of the piano version which I'm guessing is common theme amongst other developers. That's not an excuse but just the reason I didn't focus on other instruments in the past. Now technically I did slightly support guitar in my app in that you can offset the input of notes in settings which would mean you could use the mic as input and play the guitar as you'd expect while sight reading but the onscreen is still piano. Maybe sometime soon
This is all really great feedback and it's great to hear you've used my app! A couple of things:
1. I'm currently testing a new way of generating practices with some patterns and elements that make it feel more musical. I'd love to have you test the beta if you're interested. You can just email me in the settings screen.
2. I updated the lessons visual aids by only showing the hint on the staff itself for what was new to that lesson. It was previously overkill to do all notes if it was just adding a couple to the range. The visual aid of notes on the keyboard may also be too far but I think it's helpful or maybe I can fade them out eventually.
3. I hear this and something I should address. Years ago I originally made extremely long lessons but I'd get feedback asking me to make lessons that had an end. I could very easily make the lesson length configurable.
4. I really appreciate the coffee subscription idea. Maybe I can consider adding that and be explicit that it doesn't provide anything other than support of me.
It's great to hear the app practice has helped with your eye. Maybe it's the repetitive back and forth of the reading?
Honestly I've always felt it wasn't done enough. It still isn't done enough against what I'd want but obviously I was years late on when I should have shown it haha
Great feedback. I’m working on a new way to generate lessons. It’s better but even when it’s out it’ll mostly just be a structure I’ll be able to build on.
I agree on the metronome and it’s high on my list of TODO’s. I think it would be very helpful.
Yeah these are things I'm working on. The lack of dotted notes and rests are a weakness in doing any real songs which is why that section is a little lacking. I'm testing a new way to build lessons altogether which will be a big improvement over random. Anyway thanks for the feedback. I know there is a lot to go
I completely agree I'm being too timid. With that said it was 100% free for many years and I always had in my mind that I would get it to a certain level before being more aggressive. Because I never really had as much time on this project as I would have liked I also never felt it was ready to try to ramp up monetization. Also I've really enjoyed providing a high value resource to music students and I'll always keep more of it free than is common. I've also always avoided any form of popup or banner advertisement mostly because I don't like them.