Reporter for iPhone released (itunes.apple.com)
almost 10 years ago from Spencer Hamm, Designer & Developer
almost 10 years ago from Spencer Hamm, Designer & Developer
Really interesting.
I like how there aren't any sharing features, or anything in the form of achievements. Plus, most of the default questions are qualitative, and possibly subjective. That's completely in opposition to the more usual fitness tracking apps.
In particular, its use of the microphone is definitely unusual, and the custom questions strike a great balance between flexibility of the feature and complexity of the UI for said feature.
I think that people who say that it doesn't help them accomplish anything are missing the point. It’s not designed make you fitter, or help you eat healthier, or anything like that. But if you want to, it lets you understand things about your life that you didn't before. It depends on what you want to know, and if you want to know.
As for the matter of $4, it's more than worth it, even for research purposes only. Most people wouldn't even blink before asking for another beer. But for a beautifully designed one-of-a-kind app made by industry peers, $4 becomes "too much". Please.
I think the problem here is it' s not abundantly clear the benefit that the app gives you. Yes, people are used to paying $4 for a beer, but in a world of dollar apps, one with a $4 price tag seems expensive. I agree with you, but if I spend $4 on an app, i want to know i'll keep using it. I'm really intrigued by this, but worried its going to just tell me things I already know for $4. The dev here didn't really sell it to me.
Also, I'm worried the app would just confirm that I'm always working and boring =]
The app's proposition is quite clear to me: log any kind of qualitative and quantitative personal data you want, and do so quickly and frequently. Which kind of data and how you want to use it is up to you — you decide what the benefit is.
$4 is pretty steep for an app that just records data. When I initially signed up to be notified about updates/release/etc, I was looking forward to an app that could connect that data in interesting ways to tell me things I didn't think about before. So basically its a notification to record data?
Also, re:the first comment.. $4 might not be a lot considering the amount of work that probably went into releasing this app, but that's not how consumers assign value. My perceived value is based on what it gives me, not what was put into it. This particular app seems like just a data logger. If I'm missing something, it seems like a lot of others are too
I found this to be a great article on it.
http://mokriya.quora.com/Connecting-Data-Dots-Reporter-for-iPhone
Yea... after using it for a few days I'm even more certain that $4 is ridiculous for this. How can it be considered to give "insights" into things you didnt think about if you have to write all the questions yourself? What am I paying $4 for? An average design for a reminder to answer 5-6 default questions. Where's the value?
For someone like me that has never done this kind of thing, I have no idea what questions to ask. When it talked about "insights" and I saw the $4 price tag, I figured it would do a little more than just let me ask myself questions that I thought of..
I for one am excited about it. I love Felton's work, and this Reporter seems to be a more personal and engaging version of his previous Daytum project. http://daytum.com/
I'd rather they made it a free download with optional paid premium features though. I'm obsessive about cataloguing details of my existence, but too stingy to part with $4 :P
I'm actually not sure what it does or helps me accomplish.
Says it will reveal things but gives no examples as to what that is? Not sure who the customer base is for this app or what value it provides my life.
I too thought it was funny that it tells me it'll display "insights"…
I'm not seeing any evidence of that. Insight isn't showing me a graph. That's showing me my data.
Data is "you spent 10 hours surfing the web" Insight is: "you're spending 5 hours more surfing the web than most people".
Thats a great explanation. For $4, it should be taking the raw data and connecting it in interesting ways to tell you things you didn't already know/notice.
I love the design but I am not sure why I should use it and, worse, why would pay $4 for it.
IMHO, design is not very great either. And the $4 price tag. Expensive for what it does.
I agree, I bought it just because my curiosity got the best of me. Wholly unimpressed with the design. You can change it to gray, but parts still stay red.
It would seem to be for people who want to create annual reports for their own life like Nicholas Felton has been doing for the past couple of years. http://feltron.com/ar12_01.html
What it do? :)
Aw man, this is so similar to the iOS app Ive been working on all past month. Hope people don't think I cloned it :(
I took the plunge and bought it because I love building data visualizations with bizarre data sets.
It takes a bit of digging in the interface to understand how to adjust the survey content and customize it to your own goals. I'm still unsure if the reporting prompts are purely random or determined by some hourly increment.
But it's a great start. Love that you can export the data, too.
In this video, Nicholas Felton talks about his early version of the app and how he used it to gather data for his annual reports: https://vimeo.com/70800507
I've been looking forward to this for a while. I already track a lot of stuff with my fitbit, but I'm excited to get more data!
For those who want more info check out, http://www.reporter-app.com/
One of the coolest features is that you can capture any type of info you want with custom questions.
For some reason I thought this app was made by Google, but now I'm not seeing any reference to that. Did I make that up by accident?
Also Spencer Hamm, I thought there was a bug on designer news.. nope, just another rare Spencer H.
I've been apart of the Spencer H. crew since '89!
'82 here, high five!
You guys should meet Spencer Harrison! https://twitter.com/spenceroni
I think there is a Google app that has a similar icon. I remember seeing it recently and thinking, man, that looks just like the Reporter app icon. (I signed up for the newsletter months ago so I knew what the icon looked like :)
Love the use of National, otherwise not sold on either the design or what it does.
Some pretty bad artefacts on those screenshots, makes me angry at Apple, their optimisation methods for iTunes screenshots seems to be pretty terrible.
I've noticed that's usually the web view / desktop itunes app that has artifacts but on mobile it's much better, especially when you click into them
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