[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made an app that tracks your devices' bat...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: I made an app that tracks your devices' batteries from
your Mac
Author : ronyfadel
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-12-16 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fadel.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fadel.io)
| spike021 wrote:
| Will you add the Apple Watch too? Something I struggle with is
| timing when to charge it in the evening. I've used the Bedtime
| function and it works alright but not well enough.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| As mentioned in the FAQ, Apple Watch support is in beta. The
| reason is that the watch seems stubborn as to not wanting to
| sent frequent battery info to the Mac.
| rhtgrg wrote:
| How much time did you spend on the touchbar integration? I was at
| an Apple store recently and saw that the newest Macbooks have
| gotten rid of the touchbar. I'm wondering whether making such
| integrations is still worthwhile.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| I would say it took about a day of work to get everything
| right.
|
| I have the "old" MBP with Touch Bar as well as the new Pro, so
| it's nice to know that I can make my Touch Bar a tad more
| useful with this.
| rhtgrg wrote:
| Thanks -- that doesn't sound bad at all.
| kroltan wrote:
| Congrats on the release! As a part-time nit-picker, I found some
| issues on your landing page:
|
| The "hero image" overlaps the subsequent heading.
| https://i.imgur.com/PiCekWg.png
|
| Your links (the "Batteries for Mac" heading, "Buy Now" button and
| "Download" button) do not work in a non-JavaScript-enabled
| browser.
|
| The foldout FAQs are permanently hidden on a non-JavaScript-
| enabled browser. Suggestion: Have them visible by default and use
| JS to hide them.
|
| You have a "they're talking about us" section, but no links. I'll
| have to take your word for it.
|
| In the FAQ, the screenshots have some intense JPG compression
| artifacts. Consider reacquiring using a lossless format such as
| PNG.
|
| In the FAQ, the screenshots are absolutely huge. Consider setting
| a width/height based on the density-factor of your screen. Web
| layout pixels are not physical pixels, so if your Mac is 2x
| density, these screenshots should be set to half their actual
| size.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| Thanks for the nit-pick, these are all valid points. Thank you!
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| Love this! Congrats on the launch. Can't wait to try it out.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Nice. Dead simple, costs less than two lattes, might save me from
| forgetting to throw my phone/AirPods on the charger while working
| (a regular occurrence...), I've got a watch on the way, I'm sure
| it'll help a lot with reminding me to charge it too. I got a
| copy!
|
| I suppose it can't connect with AirPods while they're hanging out
| in the case?
| ronyfadel wrote:
| The AirPods stop transmitting BLE battery info while in the
| case AFAIK, so you get the same behavior as on the iPhone
| Batteries widget.
| hpen wrote:
| This is cool I was ready to try it! Then I saw it wasn't free :(
| I pay for lots of apps but this doesn't seem worth it to me.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| I'm an indie developer, and the $7.99 lifetime license purchase
| sustains Batteries' development.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| > sustains Batteries' development
|
| What future development needs to be sustained? I developed a
| similarly-sized app back in the days of Snow Leopard and I've
| not really needed to do much maintenance to keep it going. An
| hour at most every major OS X version and that was mostly
| just updating dependencies and recompiling. That's less time
| than I spend scrolling HN so I couldn't justify charging for
| it.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| New features (tracking other Mac batteries as well, better
| Apple Watch support), bug fixes, supporting new devices
| (Logitech, and new Apple devices), localization into new
| languages.
|
| You'd be surprised!
| 1-more wrote:
| nah they're definitely done introducing new products
| and/or changing the way their devices communicate.
| hpen wrote:
| I see this as a case not to charge a subscription, but I
| don't see why that should stop him from charging out right.
| My comment before was more about marketing, and reaching
| maximum people than doing what was justifiable.
| hpen wrote:
| I do respect that. And if you find people paying for it then
| I say keep at it! I definitely think it is a neat app, but I
| just didn't see the value proposition personally. Others
| probably do. I know the macOS software market is usually
| higher priced than iOS and others.
|
| Thats just my reaction and I wanted to give my feedback.
|
| As a side note: I'm trying to break into the iOS/macOS dev
| market, do you mind sharing if you make all of your income
| from indie development? And how long have you been at it?
| thehodge wrote:
| The balls you have to say your app is too expensive... THEN
| ask for help as you try and become and indie developer on
| same platform!
| hpen wrote:
| Nah I wouldn't go indie. Just curious if he really is
| able to make a living off one-off $8 apps. I doubt it
| really. BTW it's called feedback.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| This is so offensive. Why reply? _$7.99_ is too much for
| you? Then don 't buy it. God forbid someone try and recoup
| their Apple Developer Program annual fee.
| hpen wrote:
| This isn't offensive. That's ridiculous to say. My entire
| reply was to give feedback, I didn't ask him to lower his
| price, or give it to me for free. There is lots of
| software I will use if it is free, and lots I will pay
| for. I was just speaking my thoughts the value added by
| such an app.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| You don't get to choose whether or not it sounded
| offensive to someone. It's just trashy. Then you ask the
| guy for advice.
| hpen wrote:
| Sure you have your opinion but without bringing some
| level of objectivity to the conversation, it really
| doesn't mean much. Have you developed a product on your
| own before? When I have I am usually DYING for feedback
| of all kinds. Typically that's why people put things on
| hacker news.
| jmbwell wrote:
| For others who might be curious, here's how you break into
| the app dev market: 1. Dev an app.* 2. Market it.
|
| * abbreviated for clarity
| hpen wrote:
| You forgot the part where you fail to make any money and
| then get a job with new skills a big tech haha
| techsupporter wrote:
| I'm just thrilled there is a time-limited trial _and_ that the
| purchase is one-time.
|
| Based on how iOS usually goes, I anticipated being disappointed
| by a "just a cup of coffee every quad-fortnight" subscription
| of $3.99/56 days or the like.
| jensenbox wrote:
| I think your messaging should say "Apple Devices" as clearly it
| does not track Android.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| It tracks other brands' bluetooth devices as well, not just
| Apple. The messaging could be clearer though you're right.
| yosito wrote:
| Related question: is there an app that would allow me to see my
| Android phone's signal strength from other devices that are
| tethered to it? (Android, iPhone, Linux and/or Mac)
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yes, KDE Connect will display the battery status of all
| connected devices (iOS, Android, Linux laptops) and is free.
| bananabernhard wrote:
| Seems useful, I'm kinda sad that I can't use it, because I'm one
| of these psychopaths who like macOS, but dread iOS. And kudos for
| not making it a subscription model.
| metahost wrote:
| Isn't this the default behaviour on clicking the Bluetooth icon
| when a device is connected to a Mac?
|
| I am on macOS Monterey (12.0.1) and this is what I see:
| https://imgur.com/a/SAKj3Cs
| ronyfadel wrote:
| Here are some differences with the bluetooth menu:
|
| - Batteries also shows non-bluetooth devices (iPhone/iPad and
| AirPods/AirPods case even when not connected via bluetooth).
|
| - Batteries shows your devices in the Menu Bar, Touch Bar and
| Notification Center.
|
| - Batteries sends you notifications when any of your devices
| are low on battery.
| metahost wrote:
| Ah thanks for the clarification, kudos on the launch! :)
| CPLX wrote:
| This is genius. Really good idea.
|
| It makes me sad on your behalf to wonder just how long it will
| take for Apple to see this and put it into their next OS release.
| For your sake hopefully not right away.
| ixnus wrote:
| Loving the layout of your site as a whole. props on the launch
| spyremeown wrote:
| Agreed, really good looking and fast.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| Thank you both! The CSS animation for the MBP took a while to
| make, but otherwise I wanted to make something simple and
| that loads decently fast.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-16 23:01 UTC)