Also not to be a downer, but there are tons of time tracking apps in the market.
It's saturated, and honestly not a big pain point to solve for most people.
Customer profile that make sense and might retain: freelancer, agency that employ freelancer.
General public will find time tracking cool, but they majority won't use it day to day because it doesn't solve a problem.
Or it solve a problem, but resolved in a short period of time.
You can use app.sensortower.com (pretty accurate with some margin of error) to benchmark revenue for similar apps—at least those that released on App Store.
I've been using SwiftUI for macOS and iOS fully to make stayinsession.com
It's my first app while I'm learning Swift. Coming from React, the transition is relatively easy. I did learn some UIKit and AppKit and find it extremely verbose.
The thing is SwiftUI is not really ready for prime time. There's a lot of bug and inconsistencies here and there. Things that work on iOS doesn't work on MacOS. Vice versa.
Keyboard navigation and input focus sucks.
Minor update (like from iOS 13.1 to 13.2) could break some part of the app.
Also performance is not optimized. I have a slideshow that took at least 10% CPU on Mac all the time. That limitation makes me decides to use animation sparingly across the app.
But again, the productivity is no brainer.
Basically my iOS and macOS app lives in monorepo because there's ~95% code sharing.
Based on Apple analytics, macOS version is significantly has less churn rate compared to iOS version.
Based on talking to user I also find that people tend to avoid using their phone while working. So the iOS version might be perfect for reviewing analytics, and one of timer (like schedule time for thinking, research, etc)
Long story short, I tried to apply for apple developer account for the past 3 months with 30 different credit cards (from Twitter friends all over the world).
All failed.
Apple seems to have enrollment problem that affect developers outside US and EU. It's frustrating. I lost more time handling this issue, calling support, etc compared to developing the product.
As a compromise, I ended up borrowed friend's account to upload the app for the time being.
May I know what device are you using it on? I used to not using Pomodoro everyday too—just like you, I only used it when I was overwhelmed with my situation. Maybe I'm biased, but after using Session for the past 5 months, the analytics makes me more honest to myself. The days when I thought I was working hard, The data said I only spent 1 hours with many distractions in between. With that data, I can reflect back what went wrong and plan how to fix it.
When you said using a timer of Apple watch, it gave me an idea. Maybe Siri integration like "Start a Session 'working on X project'" (if it's possible) would make it easier for people to start a task.
Maybe you can try making an account and see if Session might be the right fit for you? It gave you 7 days of pro feature for free—no question asked.
Anyway, if you're still overwhelmed in some point of your life, feel free to still use Session. It'll always be free for the basic timer. :)
Hmmm. Interesting. I'll think about it. Pricing is hard—I'm still looking at the market right now and will adjust as needed. In fact I've dropped it from $5/m and $40/y to $4/m and $30/y before posting to HN.
The reason I made Session is for the analytics and syncing between devices. I want to start and review my progress on any devices I currently on.
If what you need is only changing the time chunk—I think Session is not for you. There's a lot of excellent product on the market that's cheaper or even free for that functionality.
My question: have you tried Session? If so, what do you like about it?
As context, I dislike subscription and prefer one time purchase as any of us. But that business model is proven to be not sustainable—lots of great products that I use died in matter of years because of lack of update. iOS update means breaking change to the API and could introduce new bug. Ideally I would love to sell the product as one time payment with free update for a year. But that's currently not possible on iOS...
* Can you elaborate more on notification snooze? Are you referring to automatically enabling DnD when focus started, and release it when focus has ended?
* And what do you mean by focus assist activation / deactivation?
Hi codethief! Sorry I'm hijacking your reply. I can't seem to reach you out from your bio. About 3 months ago I posted that I'm working on a pomodoro timer app with analytics—Session. You replied and wanted to know when I released it.
Hello HN! It's been a while and I'm excited to release Session—a pomodoro timer app (work in 25-minutes chunk) with analytics.
Here's my thought process on why I made Session:
* I used pomodoro technique for over the past 5 years
* the offerings on the market are solid, but missing one thing: a way for me to reflect back and analyze where my time went by
Based on that, I decided to made Session. Here are some "features" that I decided to implement:
* Every session has to have an intent. User have to write what they're working on before timer could start.
* Before timer starts, user will be prompted to breathe in and out once.
* Timer starts. Time to focus!
* Timer ends. Session will ask you what you have learned on this Session and whether you're distracted. It's optional. User can skip it.
* Later at the end of the day, you can analyze your progress.
Here's some benefit that I found while using Session:
* With providing intent, I worked with less distraction.
* If I ended up distracted, the reflection prompt at the end of Session gives me time to reflect. Instead of wasting hours meandering around, it'll be limited to 25 minutes max.
* I realize I didn't work as much as I expected to be. About 2-3 hours in, I'm exhausted. With that knowledge, I plan a long break after about 2 hours to re-energize my work Session later.
The app works fully on freemium. Pro features are sync between devices, dark mode, custom interval, and full analytics access.
It syncs between iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Creating an account for now gives you 7 days free of Pro feature. Would love to know your honest thoughts!
I'm working on a pomodoro app. It's called Session. I've been beta testing it for a month to 30 people. Daily active user for the past month is 25% (8 person), so I'm happy with it!
Session focuses on these points: - beautiful design. - analytics: what you worked on and for how long. - introspective: after each session, it'll ask you whether you got distracted. If so, why? - meditative: breathing in and out once at every session.