rooster8

my 8yo daughter caught me playing and now she's hooked!

Thank you! TIL that I never initiate calls with the most important people in my life.

Been using since it came out over a month ago. The biggest annoyances are:

1. You cannot tap on any links in iMessage. You have to hold your thumb down on the link, copy it to clipboard, switch to Safari, paste

2. If someone posts a gif in an iMessage thread, it doesn't show up

3. All inbound requests for FaceTime calls seem to be automatically blocked, even when they are coming from people who are favorites in my contacts. I haven't looked into why yet. Maybe it's because I don't have their phone number saved with a `+1` prefix in my contacts?

Other than that it's hardly noticeable, and I think it's fantastic that we now have this option.

I've found this developer to be trustworthy, has a good track record with his git app. I'd be surprised if he would make this claim if it were untrue... it could easily be proven wrong by anyone using Charles proxy.

I hope you enjoy it!

Great point.

Though I do wonder why many of the other apps that came up as a search result for "weight loss tracker" continue to do so, and mine was singled out. It's an important search term, because predictive text will suggest "weight loss tracker" when you start typing "weight." If tracker were being penalized as noise, then adjusting the predictive text would be a great way to handle the transition.

Thank you! Your framing is something I wish I had included in the article: users are legitimately searching for a weight loss tracker. Surely this app should be somewhere among the top 400 results, right? I’ve got years of built up reputation as a developer who’s trying to make a good app for users.

I assure you, I won’t be pulling this app anytime soon. I didn’t intend to communicate that. It’s just that I have three small kids at home, so I don’t get much nights and weekends time for the app anymore. If I have to go back to full time work because of this, I’ll just shift into maintenance mode for the app (like making sure it’s compatible with new versions of iOS).

Thank you!

I do have "monitor" as a keyword, too. The thing about "tracker" that makes it so valuable is that it comes up as predictive text. If you type "weight loss" in the search bar, "weight loss tracker" is suggested, and "weight loss monitor" is not. PS: Thank you for proffering a helpful suggestion!

Thank you! I will surely post an update if anything changes. I'm sure that no matter how this turns out, my family and I will all be fine.

First off, yours is a great message to send out to anyone reading this. You can mitigate risks like this by having a more direct relationship to your users, and this was a wake-up call to me.

That said, a few counterpoints:

1. Something like 70% of all installs, for all apps, come from App Store search. It's the most popular way for users to find what they're looking for.

2. My business had to come alive before it could grow to be robust. I built this app from scratch. I didn't have an audience. I just built it, and App Store search connected me to people who were looking for an app like this, and it grew to the point where I could do it full-time.

Has the time come for me to take steps to make my business more robust? Yes. And your advice is great in that regard.

But a fledgling business must first survive before it can grow to be robust. This is a tale of me hitting an inflection point. I hope to learn from it, and grow.

Thanks for sharing that! Really nice to hear from a satisfied user amidst all of this.

Thanks for your support! Yes, it specifically seems like anything with the word "tracker" in it got axed. Maybe it's just a glitch?

I'm guessing they're facing conflicts of interest that they would not have to deal with if they were not beholden to advertisers.

The terrified feeling... yes. We have three under two (twins and a singleton), and I felt that way both times. Especially right before the birth. Both times I was relieved to realize that things became more predictable and manageable than the worst-case scenario I had in my head. Every situation is different, but I sincerely hope yours is similarly manageable.

If you struggle, keep your mind open to looking for and experimenting with small tweaks. I've discovered that details such as how tightly a nipple is on a bottle (keep it somewhat loose so air can exchange), or looking for signals like thrashing legs (gas? need to poop?) can make a huge difference. Treat it like debugging code, if that's a domain you are comfortable in.

And may you feel no shame in reaching out for help. I've never understood humility in the way I do now, and I'm grateful that I do.

I wish you the best!

Excellent work!

If they raised the minimum wage 10% (not double, let's be realistic), it would raise McDonalds' incentive to eliminate a small percentage of staff.

Look at how supermarkets now have self-checkout. 4 self-checkout stations going with one employee monitoring, and customers don't mind using them. In fact many customers prefer them because they help them get out of the store more quickly. There's no reason to think that McDonalds won't eventually try to eliminate some of the staff that takes orders. It's just a question of when they'll be incentivized enough to try it.

Some smart people carry the scars of having accidentally hurt someone's feelings in conversation by inadvertently making them feel dumb.

Consequently, some smart people choose to play down their intelligence during conversation because it's disarming to do so, and they want to help people feel at ease.

Nothing against Android! It's just a huge investment to port it.

The simple answer is an exponential moving average, but there's some additional stuff to compensate for the lag associated with using a moving average on a downward-trending or upward-trending dataset.

Thanks! It's always a balance between keeping it simple and giving users control. I'm glad to hear from the segment that appreciates that control.

Exactly. I changed this copy in the last build when I added HealthKit, so I'm hoping this slip up is at least limited in how long it's been there.

So you liked that you could customize it to be more responsive to recent weight changes... interesting.

I do also have an advanced settings section for the forecast calculation, but it's good to know there's interest in controlling the MV factors too. Thanks for the feedback!

I actually really like the Withings UI, so I take that as high praise.

Yes, Body Fat % is a pretty important thing on my list. I don't have it scheduled for the next release, but I do hope to get it into one of the next couple of releases.

I've never used this app first-hand, but it's the one I recommend to users when they ask about an Android version. I didn't know they let you customize the moving average, so I'll have to check that out.

If you wouldn't mind sharing, how do they let you customize it, and what do you enjoy about that?

Thanks for letting me know! If you'd like me to let you know when it's fixed, email me at support@happyscale.com.

Thanks for the feedback Kevin!

Oh man, can't believe that copy issue (triple-line instead of plus) has been in the first run experience for over a month and I didn't realize it... thanks for pointing it out!

Great insight about not hiding the feature list behind that button... hadn't thought about that since as a dev I know that button can never charge me w/out another prompt from Apple. Dev blindness.

Also, what an interesting (and new to me) idea about trying a conversion during onboarding. Apple would indeed allow it. Great opportunity for an A/B test.

Yes, defaulting to actual weights is something I've wrestled with. The fact is, while I knew I could play up the moving average angle with this audience, many of my customers got confused about how moving averages worked and why they were seeing weights they didn't type in on their second day of usage. Also, moving average predictions are pretty inaccurate until there's a week's worth of data, so it's really hard to have a great day 2 experience using just the moving averages. In my experience, defaulting to simple weight tracking for the numbers I display and letting power users switch to moving averages seems to have worked best.

Kevin- This is some of the most thought-provoking feedback I've gotten. You clearly put a good amount of your time into the review and the feedback, and I really appreciate how you gave actionable advice. Thanks for your help!

I'd love to, but I haven't had the time to port it. I've been putting all my energy into improvements on the iOS side.

Yup, that's where I got the inspiration. And I agree... it's amazing that more apps don't do it.

Hi HN!

Happy Scale helps people who are losing weight to redefine their relationship with the scale. By using their daily weigh-in as a single data point in a moving average instead of a source of truth, you can see daily weight loss progress in the app even when your scale weight plateaus for a few days. Over time, you become desensitized to the horror of a bad weigh-in and can avoid discouragement during the tender moments of building your new lifestyle habits.

I created this iOS app because I would be devastated in the first few days of a diet when I hopped on the scale and saw a number that was higher than my starting weight. I went on to learn that there are many factors that can cause fluctuations of a few pounds in our weight from day to day (glycogen stores, water retention, food in the belly, etc.), and using a moving average is a convenient way to neutralize these factors.

I've been working on this as a nights and weekends project for a bit over 4 years. I have some big ideas for where I'd like to take it in the future, but I'd love to get your feedback on where it is today!