This last week I’ve spent most of my time on the user interface. I’ve rewritten a lot of the existing code and implemented a number of new features. I’m still set on getting a public release out before the end of May, which is in two days, so I’m in a bit of a hurry. But even though there’s a lot of work left, even after I’m at the point where I’m okay releasing the app, I feel like I’m getting closer to something I’m happy with.
New features of note are: new cards on the main screen for stops and trips. The new button that lets you add new cards from the main screen which includes searching through all stops. A new send feedback mechanism using instabug so you can take screenshots and draw on them when sending feedback, which is super useful.
Besides this I’ve been tweaking the icon and the color scheme of the app. I was getting pretty sick of the red icon I’d made initially. Now it’s a simpler symbol for A to B: two different place markers with an arrow in between. I’ve experimented with what feels like 100 different nuances of green, maybe 5 of which I actually released version of, and I’ve landed on one I’m pretty okay with. Paletton.com was really helpful in that process.
Finally I’ve started working on the intro pages that I want to show when you first open the app to give you a basic idea of what the app is meant to be able to do for you. I’ve only drawn some sketches in the sketch app so far but I think I’m pretty close to something decent that I can use.
My parents have been beta testing the app and over the weekend my dad gave me a bunch of feedback, including a couple of crashes. Those are the first thing I want to work on this week. Then I’ll spend some more time testing the app myself and see if I can shake out some more problems which I’ll then fix. And finally, Wednesday, I should be ready to spend some time on the app store listing for the app. And towards the end of the day I’ll click publish and publish the app as a public beta on the app store. Then probably nothing at all will happen because nobody will notice. We’ll see.
