[HN Gopher] Show HN: Spawn - Build iOS Apps with English
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Show HN: Spawn - Build iOS Apps with English
Hi HN, Spawn lets you build apps with human language. You can
include images, audio and other files in your app just by dragging
and dropping. Here's a demo video where I build the game of Snake
in 60 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIqp7cvmE_M As it's
still in alpha, you may need to regenerate a few times to get the
app functioning the way you want. So far I've found it's pretty
good at generating simple utilities and games. Over time, as both
Spawn and the underlying models improve, it will be able to build
more complex software. I have a bunch of ideas for future updates,
for example: - Allow users to include wireframes that Spawn will
follow as it generates their app. - Android support in Mac,
Windows & Linux Spawn desktop app. This way, people can use Spawn
to build for both mobile platforms using the same app
specifications. Imagine someone living in rural India using their
Chromebook to build apps for their Android phone, without needing
to learn how to code. - Enable people to build apps that have
accounts and backend logic by autogenerating and deploying a
backend during app generation. Any feedback would be greatly
appreciated.
Author : gsundeep
Score : 25 points
Date : 2024-08-06 15:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (spawnapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spawnapp.com)
| JBorrow wrote:
| > Over time, as both Spawn and the underlying models improve, it
| will be able to build more complex software.[^Citation needed]
|
| It seems to me that with the transformer model world we now live
| in, utilities like these are excellent at generating things that
| appear in many tutorials/posts/etc. However, there's little-to-no
| evidence that they are able to generate anything truly custom.
| For instance, any application requiring any significant level of
| domain-specific knowledge (your last point), and given the
| model's architectures there's no reason to believe that will
| occur. What is it that makes you so confident that will become a
| possibility?
| gsundeep wrote:
| That's a fair point, I can't say for certain that tools like
| Spawn will be able to build really complex software. However, I
| think there's a ton of software that could be built with
| current model capabilities that simply isn't getting built
| because the remainder of the process still has a high learning
| curve (ex: learning how to use Xcode, figuring out app
| permissions etc.)
| aezell wrote:
| I'm interested to see how this goes.
|
| I recently used ChatGPT and Claude to help myself build a simple
| app for my wife. Just listing things and being able to edit them
| basically. It was VERY frustrating as both models get pretty
| basic things wrong around the plumbing stuff like configuring
| SwiftData or CoreData.
|
| I tried it with a version of the prompt(s) I used in that project
| and I got an app that's just a white page.
| gsundeep wrote:
| Thanks for giving it a try! I just took a look at your prompt
| and it looks well defined. I'll investigate the generated code
| and reply back here.
| gsundeep wrote:
| I made some slight modifications to your prompt and got
| something working:
|
| Here's the prompt: https://i.imgur.com/lUjLTsd.png Plain
| text: https://pastebin.com/HTUjcy7M
|
| The two differences from your prompt are I changed "A listing
| of horses" to "A listing of horses that the user has added"
| and at the end I added "Use NSUserDefault for data
| persistence, not coredata". I'm modifying the model prompt as
| something like that should definitely not be needed in the
| app specifications.
|
| Some screenshots of the generated app:
| https://i.imgur.com/IwEKuZW.png
| https://i.imgur.com/zONc9Fm.png
| heyrikin wrote:
| Always interesting to see new takes on natural-language-to-code
| projects. Let me know when I can build Android apps!
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I'd honestly settle for building iOS apps with Windows.
| darweenist wrote:
| I'd love to have something like this in Xcode. Or alternatively
| if I could export an xcodeproj file from my Spawn project? I
| couldn't imagine developing an entire launchable app in English
| (at least not yet). But if it could build an MVP that I can then
| iterate on, that would be awesome!
| gsundeep wrote:
| I totally agree! When you export your app in Spawn, it's
| exported as an Xcode project and you can make code
| modifications from there
| darweenist wrote:
| Oh nice! Will try this out next time I want to spawn a new
| xcode project.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I just realized that I don't have XCode installed, and I'm
| hesitant to due to storage etc.
|
| Would something like the following be feasible even though
| accelerometer isn't listed as one of the native capabilities?
|
| ``` Build an app that uses the accelerometer to measure the
| g-forces experienced while driving, and uses an audio tone with
| varying volume to indicate the magnitude of g-forces.
|
| Show a large circle on the screen with a single black dot to
| represent the current g-forces for X and Y. Show a vertical
| rectangle on the side with a single blue dot to represent the
| current g-forces in the Z direction.
|
| Using a single audio tone, vary the volume of this tone to
| represent the sum of X, Y, and Z g-force readings. At standstill
| the audio should be silent. ```
|
| I have wanted something like this for a long time for driving to
| get a better sense of whatever cargo or passengers might be
| experiencing.
| gsundeep wrote:
| Spawn apps can use the accelerometer - thanks for pointing this
| out, I'll clarify the website.
|
| I pasted your prompt and got this: https://imgur.com/a/3Wg8AuK
|
| During the recording, I moved around around and stopped twice.
| The only thing not working is the audio volume changing based
| on the g-force readings. I'm digging into why that's not
| working.
| fudged71 wrote:
| That's fantastic, wow!
| slashdave wrote:
| I'm confused why some people seem to believe that coding is the
| most difficult part of developing an App
| bruceb wrote:
| While distribution is the biggest thing, yes the number of well
| functioning apps is limited. Plenty ones in appstore that only
| half work.
| whycome wrote:
| Can this create Apple-watch-specific apps?
| gsundeep wrote:
| Not yet, but that sounds like a great idea as watch apps are
| often a lot simpler than iOS ones. I'll put that on the roadmap
| - thanks!
| CameronBanga wrote:
| Getting "Generation Error!" whenever I try to generate an app.
| gsundeep wrote:
| Sorry about that - can you try one more time? I just added some
| additional logging
| spamjavalin wrote:
| Early days but this is what I believe the future of 'product
| development' looks like.
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(page generated 2024-08-08 23:01 UTC)