[HN Gopher] Show HN: I'm an introvert - made an app to help main...
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Show HN: I'm an introvert - made an app to help maintain
connections with people
Author : binkHN
Score : 92 points
Date : 2021-06-26 16:01 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cq.mtc.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (cq.mtc.dev)
| bdcp wrote:
| Neat. But where in the world do you live that you only need SMS?
| I'd give it a go if it works with WhatsApp
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same here. I'd be more interested in the reminder aspect of it
| without integration with any specific chat app.
| binkHN wrote:
| As a first stab I went with SMS text messages because the
| functionality is built into the device and the app can easily
| access the SMS messaging history on the device to make better
| decisions. I plan to review support for WhatsApp, Facebook
| Messenger and friends in the future.
| evrenesat wrote:
| Something related; I wish "Let's chat, call me when you are
| available" button for Whatsapp,Telegram etc. Or even better,
| ability to suggest a few time slots to the callee. That might
| help with not being able to write "hey my friend, I miss you.
| Let's chat sometime" messages and unable to decide on that
| "sometime".
|
| An app with SMS/phone calls wouldn't work well for me as most of
| my friends are in another country so it needs to be VoIP.
| amelius wrote:
| You should change:
|
| > email that'll help you stay in touch with those that mean the
| most to you
|
| into:
|
| > email that'll help you stay in touch with those _who_ mean the
| most to you
| binkHN wrote:
| I appreciate the copywrite feedback! Will do!
| szundi wrote:
| The moment someone realizes you are using this, you may be seen
| as someone fake. Never let it happen.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I never remember people's birthdays, so I have added them to my
| calendar, and I make sure to message people to wish them a
| happy birthday when I get the calendar notification. Does this
| make my happy birthday wishes fake? Should I never let anyone
| realize I use a calendar?
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| You may care about someone but forget their birthday exact
| date one day ahead.
|
| But you care someone and forget to send a message any day
| during the month? That's not possible, that means you don't
| really care.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Disclaimer: I haven't installed the app.
|
| Reading the description and seeing the screendumps I get the
| impression that the app actually does the messaging for you. For
| me it would be much more valuable to get a reminder to contact
| people I love and care about. Time runs so fast, I forget it's
| been a week or two since I last said hello to that person. With a
| reminder I would be able to keep in touch with people, yet be the
| one who actually composes and sends the message.
|
| If I have misunderstood the purpose of the app, please forget
| this comment.
| binkHN wrote:
| By default, the app will not take any action and largely act as
| a helpful reminder, and I highly recommend this type of use.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Thanks!
| dennisy wrote:
| I am sorry but I really think this is a place where we just don't
| need "an app for that".
|
| This of course if just my view, but if someone uses this to call
| me the value of that will be super low.
| tolbish wrote:
| Stay in touch with those that mean the most to you...by
| automating your interactions with them with AI!
|
| This is straight out of Silicon Valley.
| sodality2 wrote:
| >automating your interactions with them with AI
|
| It does not do this- it either notifies you to talk to them
| if you haven't in a while, or it automatically sends a single
| message to start a conversation.
|
| Note that I don't necessarily agree with this. I simply have
| a mental list of friends who I currently am keeping in touch
| with and every once in a while check up on the ones I haven't
| spoken to in a few days.
| snet0 wrote:
| Definitely. I struggle to say this is "peak HN", since HN
| doesn't like social media in general, but it's definitely
| something that evolved out of the particular kind of software
| engineer "optimisation" for productivity that seemingly
| involves automating the entirety of human existence. I
| guarantee this idea has been used as a punchline in a TV
| show.
| kaioelfke wrote:
| Many people have an entry in their calendar to call their
| parents and grandparents. It's also about making time for
| people you care about instead of work and other things taking
| over.
| neither_color wrote:
| This is a cool idea. I constantly come across as a dick because a
| friend will message me, and I'll think about what to respond
| with, hesitate because I want to come up with the BEST response,
| then get distracted by another task, forget to text them back
| until the next day, etc. There are also people I only see every
| few months and have a blast with, then completely radio silence
| them for months until I see them again. I really have no idea how
| to keep up with people.
| neckardt wrote:
| > I constantly come across as a dick because a friend will
| message me, and I'll think about what to respond with, hesitate
| because I want to come up with the BEST response, then get
| distracted by another task, forget to text them back until the
| next day, etc.
|
| There are two paradigms I see people use to solve this:
|
| 1. Text back as soon as you see the message and be okay with
| your response not being optimal. This is what I do the most.
|
| 2. Don't open the app to read the message until you have time
| to respond, then commit to responding. This way you'll have the
| message notification reminding you to respond and you don't
| leave your friend on read.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I was going to question whether this is really an "AI"
| application but, given its function - mimicking a human - it
| literally is artificial intelligence.
| ShaneMcGowan wrote:
| I can't decided if automated "love you" messages is dystopian af
| or cute
| brutal_chaos_ wrote:
| Intent is the distinguishing factor, IMHO. If I'm using this
| because I really do wish to reach out more, I see no harm. It's
| like riding a bike to get somewhere, it helps you get where you
| want to be, just a little faster. If apps start to doing this
| on their own, because AI, then we've got a problem...
| ShaneMcGowan wrote:
| Relationship as a Service
| impreciouschild wrote:
| I think the consequences of being introverted, asocial, hesitant,
| distracted etc are part of regular interaction. Just because we
| can be connected with 10k people doesn't mean we should be. We
| also don't currently have the capacity for broadband bidrectional
| intimacy. The way parasocial relationships have bloomed is owed
| to infinite friend lists.
|
| Also, people gravitate towards what is meaningful for them. I
| think that some people find it meaningful to feel that they're
| disconnected. I think that loss and disconnection is a part of
| life, and while I admire efforts to connect, we have limits. I
| think it's important for those (and this includes myself) who are
| asocial to acknowledge this aspect of themselves and accept the
| consequences of their persona.
|
| Last, I think that scripted or automated interactions inherently
| devalue interactions. A huge part of having relationships lies in
| the effort to connect. This is why "Welcome to Costco, I love
| you" is a joke. It also neatly defines the flawed scope of this
| app. Because of that, I declare that this is a CRM app, not a
| real life relationship app.
| binkHN wrote:
| Hello hackers. I wrote the app and I hope it can help others like
| me.
|
| I'm not very good at keeping in touch with friend and family.
| Also, my girlfriend likes little text messages here and there,
| and I'm not good at sending them. So "there's an app for that,"
| right? No, there actually wasn't. So I made one.
|
| I define the app as a smart device automation tool for text
| messages, calls and email that'll help you stay in touch.
|
| The story on how the app got started, my eureka moments, repeated
| failures and a little technical detail is at
| https://medium.com/@mtc.dev/my-first-android-app-story-331c9....
|
| I'd love some feedback.
|
| Cheers.
| bussiere wrote:
| Hi i'am interested in a subscription model and if you have time
| an api to consume the data of the app like since how many time
| i've contacted someone. Add birthday etc ...
|
| Thanks for your work :)
| binkHN wrote:
| I will keep this in mind!
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| I keep wondering what will happen if your girlfriend realizes
| "the app is doing it" - maybe explain to her that it's hard for
| you to send those little messages. I think she'll then
| appreciate it even more when you do send them.
| binkHN wrote:
| See my story I posted in the comment!
| xzel wrote:
| I almost wrote a similar app (but in a much more limited
| version) to keep up with friends and family but, ironically, as
| an extrovert. I wanted to have their birthdays and the last
| time we spoke so I could keep up with them if our contact was
| slipping. Congrats on launching! I'll take a look at this to
| see if it fits my use case.
| [deleted]
| nullify88 wrote:
| Getting a 403 error i'm afraid. I'd love to check it out.
|
| Strangely, refreshing the page after recieving the 403 gets me
| to the app store. But clicking the HN link always results in an
| inital 403:/
| mathattack wrote:
| Thank you for sharing! If you don't mind - has anyone come back
| to you concerned about automated notes seeming disingenuous?
| (This could appear like a generic holiday card on what should
| be a more personal format) From you Medium post it clearly
| comes from the right place.
|
| Also - if your girlfriend is ok with this, and encourages you
| to finish the project, she's a keeper.
| binkHN wrote:
| Yes! There are definitely those that don't see eye to eye
| with me on this!
|
| Just told my girlfriend your opinion of her ;) !
| mathattack wrote:
| From personal experience, it will come off better if you
| ask her rather than wait for the other way around. Even
| though you're an introvert!
| dstick wrote:
| Very nice! Congrats on launching. Pro-tip: do not let others
| know you have or use this. In general people will instantly
| devalue your outreaches, even though rationally that makes zero
| sense. You still think and care about them, but in a way
| that's... you.
| binkHN wrote:
| Thank you! You might want to check out the story I wrote!
| MiguelHudnandez wrote:
| It is rational to devalue automatic communication. The
| birthday card you get from your dentist is not valued.
|
| That said I have lost touch with a lot of friends I care
| about. The best friends are those you can pick back up
| without maintenance I think.
| fastball wrote:
| Right but the bday card from your dentist does not expect a
| subsequent back and forth.
| riedel wrote:
| I second that, but follow up reminders and warnings if you
| are to eager are really helpful, so reframing this app as
| helper and let people manually edit the messages is much
| better. I think particularly sentiment analysis on incoming
| and outgoing messages would be really helpful for many
| people not so good at casual communication. Maybe the app
| should start sending automatically if you really cannot
| decide for an option in order to not let you think too
| long. I think particularly positive response reinforcement
| is needed if one manages to keep up communication in
| symmetrical fashion.
| binkHN wrote:
| Please know, by default, the app will not take any action
| and largely act as a helpful reminder, and I highly
| recommend this type of use.
| neilv wrote:
| This seems less a tool for introverts, than for sociopaths.
| villgax wrote:
| @dang, HN url parser for extracting domain is borked. This should
| have play.google.com
| tomaszs wrote:
| I think your application is awesome. Also, that some people here
| in comments are offensive and don't understand really what being
| an introvert is about.
|
| Your application can help not only introverts, but also people
| who are isolated, depressed, who struggle to regain social
| connections after last months.
|
| Thank you for that. You put a lot of effort in the app and it
| works great. It is one of the best ideas and implementations I
| have seen in five years.
|
| Congrats again! It is far beyond my imagination how positive
| impact your project can have for millions of people!
| binkHN wrote:
| Wonderful words of encouragement! Thank you! I realize some
| people might see this differently, but, at the end of the day,
| I did what works best for me and felt others could benefit as
| well.
| imagine99 wrote:
| Is there a function for this to populate the clipboard with the
| predefined text and maybe open the messaging program (like
| Signal, Telegram, Wire, WhatsApp)? This way it could also be used
| relatively easily with these apps which probably can't be
| automated like SMS...
| kaioelfke wrote:
| Not sure about Android, but on iOS some communication apps
| support this. My app deep links into those.
| binkHN wrote:
| As an initial start I went with SMS text messages because the
| functionality is built into the device and the app can easily
| access the SMS messaging history on the device to make better
| decisions. I plan to review support for WhatsApp, Facebook
| Messenger and friends in the future.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Did you automate the human connection?
|
| I love it!
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Absolutely love it. Does it support birthday, anniversary, and
| other special date reminders? Consider cribbing off of the Monica
| friends CRM [1] for inspiration.
|
| Any plans for an iOS version?
|
| [1] https://www.monicahq.com/
| kaioelfke wrote:
| I made a personal CRM iOS app for myself and others. It
| supports these features besides special dates, which is on my
| road map. It's basically a privacy and offline friendly UI
| around a SQLite db.
|
| https://amicu.app/
| fergbrain wrote:
| This is beyond awesome! Downloading now!
| kaioelfke wrote:
| Thank you! If you've feedback you can reach me at
| @kaioelfke on Twitter or kai@amicu.app
| Dave_TRS wrote:
| +1 I would love this app if it did birthdays. I like sending
| texts, not FB messages, but it's a pain to check Facebook to
| see who's birthday it is and then find them in my address book.
| I'd love to sit down once and manually create a list of
| everyone I want to send a birthday text do, and then have this
| app either auto-send or notify me with a button to launch a
| blank text I can type to the person
| kaioelfke wrote:
| I use my app for birthdays like that. There's a button that
| opens the conversation in whatever app I use for this person
| (WhatsApp, Telegram, Email, ...).
|
| It's definitely good to maintain your own contact data
| somewhere. People delete FB accounts and FB changes all the
| time. They used to have APIs for birthdays, but they're gone.
| So there's no control unless you own the data.
| [deleted]
| binkHN wrote:
| Thanks! I specifically left date reminders out as I felt these
| were better handled by a calendar. I have not heard about
| Monica, but will check it out. As for iOS, not anytime soon;
| Google is very restrictive when it comes to text messaging and
| calls and Apple is even more so.
| ogwh wrote:
| This doesn't help you maintain connections with people, it's
| emotional forgery and anyone caught using something like this
| will find their "connections" evaporate instantly.
|
| If you want to maintain connections with people put the effort
| in, that's the substance of the connection in the first place. If
| you don't, then don't.
|
| People want to feel like they matter to you, so you contacting
| them shows that you care about them and fulfills that need. This
| app is a betrayal of that.
|
| Is this connected to an article from The Onion or something? A
| joke?
| bobiny wrote:
| By caught do you mean somebody sifting through your unlocked
| phone?
| unixfg wrote:
| If one of the edge cases the author mentions pops up they
| could deduce from the context of the message that you didn't
| personally send it at that moment. Short of lying about it
| and claiming it must have been slow to arrive, I'd say you
| were caught.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| "I use a program to send messages at a programmed time"
| snet0 wrote:
| I came to this thread earlier and thought I'd taken crazy
| pills, so I'd check back later. Not a single non-positive
| comment.
|
| People who use this or think this is a good thing have
| fundamentally misunderstood social interaction. Your girlfriend
| doesn't want the signal that you care, she wants you to
| actually care, and keeping in contact is an expression of
| caring. If you need to forge something this foundational, I'm
| sorry but that's not being introverted, that's treating social
| interaction as a game or trade. I feel like it's bordering on
| psychopathy.
| grayfaced wrote:
| I mostly agree. When I'm focused on something, I tend to
| isolate myself. I forget to contact people. I care but I'm
| just distracted.
|
| I would prefer reminders of "You haven't called your Mom in X
| days". Set configurable threshholds of how often you want to
| contact different people but still require you to actually do
| it.
| binkHN wrote:
| For what it's worth, the app, by default, will not take any
| action and largely act as a helpful reminder, and I highly
| recommend this type of use.
| snet0 wrote:
| This is a symptom of caring too much about what you're
| focused on, though. While I appreciate that sometimes it's
| easy to forget important things, I think if you need
| inorganic means to remember to call your mother, you need
| to take a moment to actually consider that, rather than
| looking for the nearest software "solution".
| fastball wrote:
| Not everyone's brain works in the same way as yours, that
| doesn't make them a sociopath.
| fastball wrote:
| I think the part you're missing is that this is supposed to
| be followed up by actual conversations and interactions.
|
| There are a great many friends where Life Happens(tm) and
| although I genuinely care about them, I haven't contacted
| them in months / years (and vice versa) because I'm not
| generally the type to initiate small-talk. That doesn't mean
| I don't enjoy catching up with friends and going over the
| little things in our lives, it's just not something I
| naturally do. Having an app that helps you keep in touch with
| the people you care about (if you don't care why would you
| bother to set up an app) seems helpful.
|
| And I think stating that this is not introversion but more
| like psychopathy is a bit beyond the pale. It can be hard for
| introverts to kickstart conversations with people they
| haven't talked to in a while for various reasons, none of
| which are "because they're a sociopath". They might feel like
| they're intruding or they might have confidence issues which
| cause them to feel that messaging people out of the blue will
| make them seem weird, even if neither of those things are
| actually true from the other person's perspective.
| spicybright wrote:
| This app won't last long enough to remind you to message
| year old dormant relationships, so if that's important one
| should find something else.
|
| I also don't see how an automated message helps you keep in
| touch though. It seems like people with a lot of this
| anxiety will just fiddle with the settings exactly like
| they fiddle typing out drafts they never send.
| tssva wrote:
| It may not be because they are being a sociopath but it
| also isn't just because of being an introvert. What you are
| describing is social anxiety which some introverts have and
| others do not.
| fastball wrote:
| Nobody said all introverts ("can be hard"). I think you'd
| classify anyone with social anxiety as an introvert.
| Therefore this is a problem that introverts have.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Words have meanings, and that's not what introvert means.
| fastball wrote:
| > Introvert: a shy, reticent person.
|
| What person with social anxiety does that _not_ apply to?
|
| No idea why the two of you are quibbling over the use of
| the word introvert here.
| kaioelfke wrote:
| Is the effort knowing, when to reach out yourself instead of a
| tool reminding you? Or is the effort about spending time with a
| person?
|
| I use a running tracker, but I still have to run myself.
|
| And how often do people reach out on their own? Often it's
| seeing a post in a feed or some other trigger. Is that more
| authentic?
|
| The willingness to add a reminder and spend time shows that you
| care about a person.
| binkHN wrote:
| I agree, and many others have seen it this way as well.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Relationships-as-a-service?
| brushfoot wrote:
| Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to
| automate it, I'd rather not hear from them.
|
| People don't want to be your duties. They want to be your
| pleasures.
|
| This changes messages from "I felt like talking to you" to "my
| scheduled trigger fired; please start a conversation so I can
| check you off my checklist."
|
| If I found out someone were using this to communicate with me,
| I'd frankly cut them out of my life -- not out of hatred, but
| because I'm not a sadist. If it's tedious for you to talk to me,
| I don't want to cause you that pain.
| fastball wrote:
| I feel like you're conflating the friction of starting a
| conversation with the friction of continuing one, which can be
| very different things.
| trutannus wrote:
| Most of the negative views on this app appear to
| fundamentally misunderstand how highly introverted people
| socialize. I know several highly introverted people. Having
| something automatically start a conversation for them which
| they can then engage in themselves would be very helpful.
| Especially for people who have social anxiety. My take was
| never that this app was going to socialize for you, but
| rather would initiate conversations for you which you could
| then finish yourself. There's nothing wrong with doing
| that...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I do not like the name "CommuniqAI".
|
| Think about how a person would recommend this app to a friend.
| A: "Hey, check this out, it's an app called 'CommuniqAI', it's
| great". B: "How do I spell that?" A: "C-o-m-m-u-
| n-i-q..." B: "Sorry, I lost you, start over" A:
| "It starts the same as Communism, but ism it ends in q-A-I"
| B: "grrr, fuck it. I am going to install Signal or Telegram"
|
| Don't make it harder for people to recommend your app.
| festive-minsky wrote:
| The name is fine; "Communique, but with an AI instead of an e"
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| You belong to a tiny percentage of the population able to
| make that association.
| officialjunk wrote:
| or give them a link?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| That too but the name is an important factor.
| azinman2 wrote:
| The more important factor is the actual execution. And the
| reality is this is has been done, many, many times. In fact
| a friend recently wrote a version of this in order to learn
| Swift.
|
| Ultimately it's a social problem not a technological
| problem. I don't think this is quite hitting the nail on
| the end. The author said part of the motivation was that
| his gf wanted periodic reach outs during the day.
| Automating this isn't the solution because it's totally
| inorganic. They need to figure their communication out
| themselves -- this isn't the right path that's sustainable.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Introvert, has gf... next.
| evrydayhustling wrote:
| Love the simple design. $.02 - absolutely require interaction /
| customization before the app sends messages. Reminding people to
| send is service enough, and creates an interaction opportunity to
| refine settings. But sending automatically requires asymmetric
| attention between sender and recipient - which is almost always
| bad news for relationships, soon or over time.
| binkHN wrote:
| Thanks! And I concur! By default, the app will not take any
| action and largely act as a helpful reminder, and I highly
| recommend this type of use!
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| You are not introvert, you are sociopath.
|
| And this app will "help" people stay this way instead of learning
| to connect.
|
| This app is cheating. It is like telling your friends you baked a
| cake while you bought it.
|
| I'd be disappointed if someone was using it with me. Would be OK
| if they warned me upfront, though.
| gtirloni wrote:
| The link is not working.
| binkHN wrote:
| I'm sorry, but the app is currently in beta and limited to 88
| countries/regions to better support this. Please let me know
| what country you are in so that I may rectify this.
| tgdn wrote:
| France
| binkHN wrote:
| Thank you. I made the change, but, unfortunately, it might
| take a few hours to be effective.
| superasn wrote:
| Would be amazing if it could interface with web.whatsapp.com as
| most people I know use WA primarily nowadays instead of sms.
| Graffur wrote:
| This is not healthy. Instead the friends should realise that
| their introverted friends won't always be in contact but that
| does not change the relationship.
| kakawait wrote:
| I'm not able to access (play tells me it does not found)? Is
| country limited app or something?
| binkHN wrote:
| Yes. I'm sorry. The app is currently in beta and limited to 88
| countries/regions to better support this. Please let me know
| what country you are in so that I may rectify this.
| kakawait wrote:
| I'm come from France
| binkHN wrote:
| This should be sorted now! Thank you!
| zubi wrote:
| I'm an introvert from Turkey.
| binkHN wrote:
| Added! Please give this a few hours to be effective.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| love it the goal. why do you struggle to maintain connections?
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(page generated 2021-06-26 23:00 UTC)