Show HN: Accounts, a simple address book for iOS

by benguild • 12 years ago

29 25 12 years ago

jdiez172• 12 years ago

How is it futuristic? What innovations does it include? From the frontpage, I can only see a meh-looking address book with features that have been in most for a while.

benguild5• 12 years ago

Everyone updates their own cards, and it focuses on social networks and usernames of the future versus traditional email and telephone.

With that said, it also notifies you when your contacts' email and telephone numbers change... which is great.

nijiko2• 12 years ago

Uhm... my contact list supports social networks, even integrates with snapchat, twitter, instagram, etc...

Maybe it's apple that is lacking in this notion, but it's something android has been doing for years?

jdiez172• 12 years ago

I don't want to be notified when my contacts change their telephone number, I just want it to be up to date. And my phone does that already. Also, you don't go into a lot of detail on what a "card" is... I assume it's like a profile on your service? Who updates this?

king_magic• 12 years ago

-Be notified when someone updates their information.

... then ...

-Don't feel obliged to post updates, or worry about privacy.

Does not compute? Maybe there is just too much missing info - definitely isn't clear what this is, how it works, and what information is "out there".

davidcollantes2• 12 years ago

Ugly and unnecessary. But good luck!

aaronbrethorst2• 12 years ago

I downvoted you. If you're going to give uniformly negative feedback on something like this, I highly recommend taking another minute or two to make it constructive for the OP.

Regardless of the utility or lack thereof (perceived or otherwise), someone or some group of people spent a good deal of time building this product. Dismissing their efforts doesn't offer them anything, and makes them less likely to share their future creations.

a couple notes:

* I have no connection to the authors.

* The app looks really complicated (i.e. overwhelming).

* The value prop isn't clear to me.

* What's a suggested service addition? The language I see in the screenshots uses a lot of jargon.

* It concerns me, likely to the point that I'll never download it, that the app is free. Clearly, selling it will prevent it from ever getting traction. However, giving it away suggests that I (and my friends) are the product.

davidcollantes2• 12 years ago

I see it as unattractive and, as I like the vanilla iOS address book as it is, unnecessary. There is no much else to say.

I am not dismissing anyone's efforts. I simply stated how I feel(about)/perceive the app.

neil_s2• 12 years ago

I have thought about this solution previously too. The main issue is, how do you solve the chicken and egg problem of getting critical mass for it to be useful?

Sidenote: Why did you pick the .ms sub-domain? It made me think of Microsoft, which obviously doesn't go with an iOS app.

benguild5• 12 years ago

It was the only one available that Google doesn't penalize or geotarget. I agree the Microsoft connotation is odd but if the project is a success we'll be able to acquire another domain.

notreallol• 12 years ago

Death 2 clean; death 2 flat.

packetslave• 12 years ago

Death TO not writing like an adult

twodayslate• 12 years ago

How or why did this get on the front page?

samirmenon• 12 years ago

I noticed a "Pat. pend." on your page... care to explain what part of this you are patenting?

ArikBe• 12 years ago

OP has provided a link where he explains what this app actually does: http://benguild.com/2014/05/18/announcing-accounts/

Calling it futuristic isn't very descriptive of what it does.

In short (but not the tl;dr) this application attempts to act as a "contacts backbone"* for all possible "social applications". Basically it's a contacts list that shows you what services your contacts are subscribed to and what services you are subscribed to. The value proposition towards the individual is that you don't have to figure out what apps they are using, instead "it's just there"™. OP also claims that this will improve efficiency and reduce social network lock in (SNLI).

However, the problem of SNLI is not a search problem. Figuring out which apps your contacts use, especially the ones…ya know…you care about (like 10% of your contacts list) is not that difficult. The problem is getting enough people from your social network to switch to the new platform and abandon an old and familiar platform. The only time this works is if the new platform is somehow better than the old one. That is to say, the problem is with the social network application itself. And that problem is not addressed by this application.

Instead this application attempts to solve a problem that has largely been solved through concepts such as "notification center" which efficiently display notifications from your friends from whatever app it is you have installed.

Apps need to be experienced for people to start using them, a simple list of all the applications that your contacts have is not enough.

* quoted from the blog post

benguild5• 12 years ago

The App does somewhat offer a solution to getting users to switch to new platforms through notifying you when your contacts are engaging in a new service, ie. "Joe, Matt, and 4 others just added Yo to their profile."

That sort of notification AFAIK is not offered by anything else at this time. Accounts actively markets new services you may have heard of by notifying you when your friends actually start using them

lukencode• 12 years ago

Reminds me of how the windows phone people hub works (which I think is a good thing).

pandatigox• 12 years ago

Doesn't Android have something similar, where various accounts can be added, and the contacts will appear accordingly in Contacts? Nevertheless, the design looks quite interesting and I'm looking forward to further updates

dang• 12 years ago

We took the word "futuristic" out of the title since some of the thread was about that word rather than the product.

D4AHNGM• 12 years ago

This looks pretty interesting. I've never been contented with the iOS default contacts but haven't really found a way to replace that.

I think I'll download the beta and play around with it for a while. I do like the Android way of handling contacts.

I'd be more reassured by seeing a fuller privacy policy rather than a vague promise not to violate privacy, but perhaps that'll come in time.

Show HN: Accounts, a simple address book for iOS

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