Hello Macrumors members! I've created my app Comfortable, which is a direct competitor to the popular Reeder app. You can check it out at http://comfortableapp.com/
![BAQpxp0CcAI36Xs.png:large]()
I'll be really happy to hear your reviews, thoughts and wishes for my app.
And here is a backstory about how it all started and finished:
A backstory. Some time 5 months ago the idea of creating a really cool reader stormed my mind. Yeah there was Reeder, Byline and all the others, but I didn’t like ‘em. I decided to create my own back in August. There was lot of things that need to be thought, before starting it up. I didn’t know about Readability then. I didn’t like Google Reader too much because it was, well a little bit of a mess. I wanted something simple, and this thing just needed to be gorgeous.
So I’ve created an in-app subscription management with categories etc. That was the first thing I did in my app. I’ve used Core Data API that Apple kindly provided developers since iOS 3 and it worked fantastic. And that what really differentiate Comfortable so much from all reading apps out there.
I knew I had to add Google Reader from the beginning. You know, supporting Google Reader in your app is troublesome. Their API is not documented, so everything can break any moment they want. But I did make a wrapper around it, and it works pretty nice. There is also mark-to-read-as-you-scroll, which is really neat addition too.
After this I know I had to give the user an option to display “trimmed” articles in full-text. I had to choose between Instapaper and Readability. I made the right choice - it was Readability that I really liked, although Instapaper is good too. And the result is just awesome - I can say that this is the best Readability client for the iPhone.
Hmm.. so iPhone. What about the iPad? Well I’m just getting started on an iPad version, but I still have tough decisions to make. I want it to be something like Flipboard or Zite, but better. However stay tuned! After implementing Readability I’ve decided to use the new UICollectionView API for iOS developers. It was a cool addition, however I needed to manage it for every service.
So managing every service. Let’s see I have to deal with articles from - Standalone (RSS), Google Reader, Readability. Okay but also from Shelf and Favorites.
That was one of the most challenging problems I faced. I needed to create an universal view controller where you can read articles. And also, do some actions based on what services you are using. Manage next/previous article. The rect view, and loading more articles in this rect view. I spent a lot of energy working on this particularly problems. And I still think there is a room for improvement on this one.
Oh and I also decided somewhere in 17 of Dec, 2012 that I want the app in the App Store by 21 Dec. And no, not because of the “Mayans end of the world”, but because iTunes Connect (the tool used by developers) is shutting down for the holiday that day till 28 Dec.
Yeah it was practically not very possible but I believed in myself and said to myself “You can do it”. There was so much stuff left, also a lot of nasty bugs. So I didn’t sleep too much. I was working on the app for days, and In 18 dec I didn’t sleep the whole day till 19 dec around 2pm, when I submitted my first version.
Wow I was happy. And sleepy. When looking from statistics from Flurry. I started the app around 365 times on 17 dec and 362 times on 18 dec. Of course it didn’t got approved by 21 dec, so I fixed some bugs in the holiday season and resubmitted my binary again on 28 dec. Then again on 2 jan. Ah those bugs. So it got approved 7th of Jan and went live on 8th of Jan.
Thanks a lot for reading this and I hope you like Comfortable! P.S. - Please excuse my grammar, not a native english-speaking person.
Follow us on twitter for promo codes once in a while and other super cool stuff - https://twitter.com/ComfortableApp
I'll be really happy to hear your reviews, thoughts and wishes for my app.
And here is a backstory about how it all started and finished:
A backstory. Some time 5 months ago the idea of creating a really cool reader stormed my mind. Yeah there was Reeder, Byline and all the others, but I didn’t like ‘em. I decided to create my own back in August. There was lot of things that need to be thought, before starting it up. I didn’t know about Readability then. I didn’t like Google Reader too much because it was, well a little bit of a mess. I wanted something simple, and this thing just needed to be gorgeous.
So I’ve created an in-app subscription management with categories etc. That was the first thing I did in my app. I’ve used Core Data API that Apple kindly provided developers since iOS 3 and it worked fantastic. And that what really differentiate Comfortable so much from all reading apps out there.
I knew I had to add Google Reader from the beginning. You know, supporting Google Reader in your app is troublesome. Their API is not documented, so everything can break any moment they want. But I did make a wrapper around it, and it works pretty nice. There is also mark-to-read-as-you-scroll, which is really neat addition too.
After this I know I had to give the user an option to display “trimmed” articles in full-text. I had to choose between Instapaper and Readability. I made the right choice - it was Readability that I really liked, although Instapaper is good too. And the result is just awesome - I can say that this is the best Readability client for the iPhone.
Hmm.. so iPhone. What about the iPad? Well I’m just getting started on an iPad version, but I still have tough decisions to make. I want it to be something like Flipboard or Zite, but better. However stay tuned!
After implementing Readability I’ve decided to use the new UICollectionView API for iOS developers. It was a cool addition, however I needed to manage it for every service.So managing every service. Let’s see I have to deal with articles from - Standalone (RSS), Google Reader, Readability. Okay but also from Shelf and Favorites.
That was one of the most challenging problems I faced. I needed to create an universal view controller where you can read articles. And also, do some actions based on what services you are using. Manage next/previous article. The rect view, and loading more articles in this rect view. I spent a lot of energy working on this particularly problems. And I still think there is a room for improvement on this one.
Oh and I also decided somewhere in 17 of Dec, 2012 that I want the app in the App Store by 21 Dec. And no, not because of the “Mayans end of the world”, but because iTunes Connect (the tool used by developers) is shutting down for the holiday that day till 28 Dec.
Yeah it was practically not very possible but I believed in myself and said to myself “You can do it”. There was so much stuff left, also a lot of nasty bugs. So I didn’t sleep too much. I was working on the app for days, and In 18 dec I didn’t sleep the whole day till 19 dec around 2pm, when I submitted my first version.
Wow I was happy. And sleepy. When looking from statistics from Flurry. I started the app around 365 times on 17 dec and 362 times on 18 dec. Of course it didn’t got approved by 21 dec, so I fixed some bugs in the holiday season and resubmitted my binary again on 28 dec. Then again on 2 jan. Ah those bugs. So it got approved 7th of Jan and went live on 8th of Jan.
Thanks a lot for reading this and I hope you like Comfortable!
P.S. - Please excuse my grammar, not a native english-speaking person. Follow us on twitter for promo codes once in a while and other super cool stuff - https://twitter.com/ComfortableApp
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