[HN Gopher] Show HN: I Built an iOS app to locate stray animals
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: I Built an iOS app to locate stray animals
https://stray-sync-landing.vercel.app/
Author : Ic3creaM
Score : 69 points
Date : 2025-03-17 22:05 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (apps.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apps.apple.com)
| kennyloginz wrote:
| I hope this app isn't available on the planet Melmac.
| technol0gic wrote:
| live-action Pokemon Go
| rpjt wrote:
| I see strays from time to time and I do often wonder if they
| belong to someone. Is the idea that I'd be able to report the
| stray on the app and hope that the owner has the app too and sees
| my report?
| bb88 wrote:
| Well, I see two issues.
|
| The first is getting mass adoption of your app, and tell people
| what makes it so much better than what we already have
| (facebook/twitter/nextdoor/instagram/etc).
|
| Also lost pets are common, but they might rarely happen to you.
| That might lead to the second issue which is notification
| fatigue and uninstall the app. Or people will forget, and
| simply uninstall the app since they never use it.
|
| I think a better solution is putting an airtag (or an rfid tag)
| on your pet, along with a telephone number on the collar to
| call.
| roegerle wrote:
| map won't load.
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| Hmm.. strange. Will look into it.
| october8140 wrote:
| How do you prevent it being used to bait people down a dark
| alley?
| jmull wrote:
| What's the scenario you're worried about?
|
| A variation on "order a pizza, mug the delivery guy"?
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| I found your cat please meet me in seedy dark alley 3am or
| I'll release her back into the streets
| jmull wrote:
| Ah, well you don't need a special app for that, just a
| phone. People searching for their lost pet put their
| contact info out as widely as they can so it's very easy to
| find all over the place on social media.
|
| This scam is unfortunately very common in real life, though
| it's not set up as a mugging. They'll demand a reward (they
| wont have the animal of course, though they may have a
| sorta similar picture to send you, or a fuzzy one.)
| naveed125 wrote:
| Just wanted to say that i love your app's icon.
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| haha, thanks.
| damion6 wrote:
| Would you be open to Android? I love the idea
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| Yes, thinking about it, just wanted to see if ppl would be
| interested in the first place
| crystaln wrote:
| This is really cute, however I have a hard time seeing a route to
| widespread adoption as a marketplace of source. I was going to
| suggest adding adoption and rescues, however there seem to be a
| number of highly rated apps in that space already.
|
| I would imagine the most useful function if a pet is lost or
| found would be to allow posting to places like NextDoor, printing
| posters, a contacting shelters, etc. and offering other support
| to people.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Yeah its cute but where are the opportunities for scaling,
| platformization and in-app purchases?
|
| For something like this to work out we would need to
| incentivize users - how about a Pokemon Go style model for
| growth?
|
| Actually, maybe animal rescue might not hold business model
| promise after all. How about a bounty driven model - I hear
| there is great business in ivory. Perhaps a pivot towards
| poaching rare and exotic animals? Any chance we could build in
| market place functionality?
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| hmm.. interesting ideas. but wdym by bounty driven model. can
| you explain a bit more?
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| There is only so much one can make by taking a cut off of
| finding stray pets. Not much of a runway there and few
| cases of repeat usage.
|
| There is a much more promising market in finding and
| slaughtering rare and endangered species of animals that
| this would make a great use for. That's where the ROI on
| each identified animal would provide a higher yield with
| success rate.
|
| Finding grandma's cat? Who cares. Finding the last rhino or
| final tiger in jungle? Now that's some open-source poaching
| that we could platformize and scale.
| Tewboo wrote:
| Impressive work! It's great to see tech being used for a good
| cause. I've had a couple strays in my neighborhood, this could be
| a lifesaver.
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| thank you
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I like the idea. Plenty of people everywhere keep an eye out for
| strays, and having an app to connect them would be valuable. The
| main issue is how to let them know that the app exists.
|
| Where I live, a slightly similar app (intended to connect lost
| pets with their owners) has found widespread local adoption. It
| is promoted by a local non-profit, so maybe partnerships with
| non-profits would allow you to find the audience that will
| appreciate something like this.
|
| Also, this needs an Android app. You need every user you can get
| to make it successful.
| mkmk3 wrote:
| Huh, didn't know there were enough people to perpetuate a model
| like that just for lost pets. I had thought of this a while
| back and figured that would be a no-go
|
| I was thinking it might help if they opened up the premise a
| bit, just made it about collecting pictures of animals, maybe
| tagging them as being a stray or having a collar but being
| alone, that it might increase the engagement for something like
| this.
|
| Also +1 on the android point
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| Hmmm.. i like the idea of tagging, thanks for feedback
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| hmm.. connecting with non-profits might be a good idea.and
| agree i am working on android version. thanks for feedback.
| zombot wrote:
| This has to require some central server. If the app is free, how
| are hosting fees payed?
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| tbh, i wanted to see if this kind of app is needed in the first
| place so I made it free for now, if people will find a value in
| it, then I might put some minimal price
| Brosper wrote:
| I know that US iOS is the dominant system, but shouldn't it be
| just a website with PWA??
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| have not thought about it, you might be right
| upmostly wrote:
| Just tried emailing you and your contact form doesn't work.
| Ic3creaM wrote:
| Working on fix. Thanks for feedback
| alp1n3_eth wrote:
| This is one area where I'll actively discourage fragmentation of
| the existing ecosystem. Currently in the U.S. it's:
|
| 1) PawBoost 2) Facebook Groups (which PawBoost usually posts to
| as well) 3) NextDoor
|
| Past that, the animal needs to be captured and checked for a
| chip. Having 10+ different apps to report lost animals
| essentially means there's zero point to posting to one in the
| first place, unless there is some distributed system they all
| would agree to operate on top of (maybe ATProto? idk).
| laylower wrote:
| Do you use google maps or openstreetmap? How are you dealing with
| data costs? Do you cache data once every day/week or do you have
| a real-time call for both the cats/dogs and the proximity to the
| phone/mob user?
| araes wrote:
| Somewhat tangentially related, yet several posters mention other
| apps in a similar category.
|
| Is there a way to browse / search the app store from a desktop?
| Every link just seems to go to an advertisement splash page, and
| search for "stray" does not even return the linked app.
|
| Found Lifestyle Apps [1] from StraySync's own "Lifestyle"
| category, yet only the top free apps to number 100 on desktop.
| Does not appear to show "PawBoost" or some of the other mentions.
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/lifestyle-
| apps/6012?...
| isjustintime wrote:
| Neat idea! If you can, someone figure out how to get Nextdoor
| animal-posters to join and participate, this would be really
| useful. Last time I saw a dog on the street, I pulled over to
| catch the dog, re-installed Nextdoor, made a post, and brought
| the dog to the local shelter. It's hard to beat not only the
| neighborhood aspect of Nextdoor, but also just the volume and
| mental "this is where it goes" vibe. What's not hard to beat
| about Nextdoor is the NIMBY and triggering comments so you're
| halfway there, hah!
| karlylamm wrote:
| Nice work! Really great idea.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-03-18 23:02 UTC)