Ask HN: are any of you intersted in trying my beta iPhone app?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=729142

by lefstathiou • 17 years ago

4 2 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

A buddy and I are about to release an iPhone app. It's a social networking application and we are looking to have people beta test it before it goes live.

About the App:

Groupie is a group messaging utility that allows users to create, join, and manage social groups on their iPhone. It's purpose is to greatly enhance group interaction. In moments you can create a group of your own or join an existing one. Every group has a message board, live chat room, GPS-enabled map, and member directory. From your dashboard, you’ll always be just two clicks away from communicating with a group of three people or three hundred.

=== If you're interested, shoot me an email at lefstathiou@gmail.com. In order to get the build on your iphone you need to download "ad hoc helper" and send me your UDID. It's apple bullshit designed to prevent apps from going viral outside of itunes.

Thanks in advance. I doubt any of you read my profile, but i'd like to make it clear that if there is anything i can do for any of you(especially if you're working on a project and need feedback/ideas/criticism/advice/etc), i am 100% available to you. i live for this stuff...

I made a flickr album with some screenshots so you can get an idea of how it looks. Only 6 photos though. http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/?saved=1

Zev• 17 years ago

I've got an iPod Touch, so I don't really think I'm in your target audience here, but here's some random thoughts that popped into my head, based on your Flickr screenshots:

  For all views:

* Are you sure you don't want default statusbar instead of black one? Either the blue for the nav bar or the status bar feels somewhat out of place. Maybe using a darker blue instead?

  For http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/3765806150/ (Members)

* Are the phone/message/chat icons on the right side big enough to tap on without accidentally hitting the wrong one? And how does it work if you have two contacts in the same group? Might get a bit cluttered. If it works out, awesome. I do like how it looks and having the options available right away.

* Is anything going to be placed underneath the person's name? Right now it's just white space; Maybe place the person's last status update or location down there?

* Would tapping on a member bring up their profile?

  For http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/3765010947/ (Live Map)

* I know you say what the arrows do, but its not immediately obvious by looking at them. And what's the member info do?

* Does this only show one member at a time? Or if there are multiple people from your group in the same location, would it show them as well (with a blue pin?)?

  For http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/3765010909/ (Chat)

* Does the tabbar show the number of unread messages you have? Can you be in multiple rooms or private chats with people?

* The curve around the input field feels wrong.

* How does it look with multiple people when the window is filled? Might get or feel cluttered.

  For http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/3765805994/ (Msg Board)

* Again, the curve feels slightly off here.

* Can you use / instead of .'s between dates? It might be ISO 8601 compliant (I don't know if it is or not), but it looks weird.

* Can you post videos?

* What distinguishes this from Chat? Why not merge the two and keep some sort of history recorded? Yes, one's live and one's a record, but they serve an almost identical purpose.

  For http://www.flickr.com/photos/39014474@N04/3765010849/ (Home)

* Whats the difference between the slightly faded group and the non-faded groups?

* I like the indicator for how many messages you have waiting to be read and how many people are in the app and active, but it might be a bit small. And how does it work with long group descriptions? (ie: Another word added to Siamese Cat Lovers group description)

lefstathiou• 17 years ago

Wow Zev thanks so much for taking such a serious look. If you want to lay with the beta send me your info anyway even though you arent in the "target audience."

* Are you sure you don't want default statusbar instead of black one? Either the blue for the nav bar or the status bar feels somewhat out of place. Maybe using a darker blue instead?

By this i assume you mean the top part that shows signal strength. We thought black looked nicer, i will take a look at default status bar though.

Members

Actually if you click on a user you go to their profile. From there you have buttons that are easy to press in order to contact them. i didnt include that initially in screenshots because i didnt want to bombard ppl with them. I added it now for you to take a look. At some point we may allow users to import their facebook profiles.

* Is anything going to be placed underneath the person's name? Right now it's just white space; Maybe place the person's last status update or location down there?

Yes. If that person is a group admin, it would have said it underneath their name. We also have some ideas of ways people could use it down the road (such as title, etc) so we kept the space there.

* Would tapping on a member bring up their profile?

Yes.

Live MAP

* I know you say what the arrows do, but its not immediately obvious by looking at them. And what's the member info do?

Member info button simply zeros in on your location. I will see if we an find a more intuitive work around to make it clear what arrows do. With this im afraid our only option is to let it be as is and users will just have to try it to figure out what it does.

* Does this only show one member at a time? Or if there are multiple people from your group in the same location, would it show them as well (with a blue pin?)?

Yes this shows the location of multiple people at once. I cant believe this didnt dawn on me until you mentioned it (that's what happens when you spend so much time in a box working on something, you miss obvious details). As of now we have three colors: red to indicate you, gray to show the location of someone who signed on over an hour ago (under the name it will say when they last signed on), and green to indicate more recent locations. However, if people are next to eachother, we have no way of showing which person is the active pin (these pins are a bit different than how they appear in this screenshot now). Thanks a lot for this...

Live Chat

* Does the tabbar show the number of unread messages you have? Can you be in multiple rooms or private chats with people?

The tab bar does not show you the number of unread messages in the chatroom, only in the message board. we dont cache messages in chat rooms. Unfortunately you cannot be in multiple rooms at once, you have to leave the group (via the home button at top, go to home screen, click on other group then click on chat room). I will rethink the flow of this to see if there is a better way to handle in our next update

* The curve around the input field feels wrong.

Dually noted. Let me take a look again. Perhaps perpendicular angles are better.

* How does it look with multiple people when the window is filled? Might get or feel cluttered.

It works like a chatroom, messages will just stream down. In order to see other users who are logged into chat you can click the person icon. I imagine they will get rather cluttered since we only have two colors: blue for you and red for everyone else. Perhaps we should assign a different color to different users but i worried that would be an eye sore. What do you think?

* Again, the curve feels slightly off here.

Ahhh i now get what you mean. You know what, i think you're right... Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!

* Can you use / instead of .'s between dates? It might be ISO 8601 compliant (I don't know if it is or not), but it looks weird.

Yea that shouldnt be hard.

* Can you post videos?

Nope. We could post thumbnails to videos though i imagine.

* What distinguishes this from Chat? Why not merge the two and keep some sort of history recorded? Yes, one's live and one's a record, but they serve an almost identical purpose.

We thought functionally there was a major difference between the two. In our next update we will probably switch to threads, that way you can see all the replies to a specific post underneath them. Also there is sort of a long term strategy here where we will offer the ability for people to swap out any of hte core features (ie replace chat with a short list of songs for people to stream or a "flyer")

* Whats the difference between the slightly faded group and the non-faded groups?

Ah, i didnt explain this but that is done when you join a closed group. Groups can be public or private, open or closed. For closed groups, users request admission into the group which must then be approved. Those groups appear in your dash board but clicking them initiates a popup that says youc ant join until an admin approves the request.

Subdescriptions can only be two lines long and titles can only be one line long (however, if titles exceed one widths worth of space a ... is inserted. Groups have a group profile with a long description where users are free to go into much more detail. So in other words, nothing can encrouch on that space.

You may be right about that spacing here. We'll take a close look at that. To be honest on my phone it looks fine but i am a healthy 20 year old. I dont know if my dad would agree (then again i dont know if he would use the app). The beta is intended to bring out stuff like this.

---------------------

Zev, I cant tell you how much i appreciate you taking the time to take such a close look at our screenshots. If there is anything i can do for you, please dont hesitate to ask. If you're interested in playing with the app, download "ad hoc helper" and i'll get it on your itouch (you'll need wifi of course).

You can contact me any time: lefstathiou@gmail.com

Best,

Leo

Ask HN: are any of you intersted in trying my beta iPhone app?

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