Show HN: I took over Painteresque, a 14 year old Objective-C app and rebuilt it(apps.apple.com)
117 pointsby busymom08 days ago10 comments
  • Terretta8 days ago
    I had this app. Great job!

    PS. Thank you for Hack, one of the only YC clients that's perfect on mobile and supports all features: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-yc-hacker-news-reader...

    • nozzlegear7 days ago
      What a coincidence, I'm using Hack right now! I second it being perfect on mobile, really great app. My only nitpick: I wish it wouldn't reload the entire app view when switching from dark mode to light and vice versa, losing my place and the story I was reading.
    • busymom08 days ago
      Thank you. Glad you like both my apps!
      • fragmede7 days ago
        Hack has this bug where it doesn't let me a share comment if I wrote the comment in reply to another comment I wrote

        also, I get a notification if I reply to my own comment.

        can I get notifications for replies to replies to comments I've made?

        • busymom07 days ago
          > Hack has this bug where it doesn't let me a share comment if I wrote the comment in reply to another comment I wrote

          Let me have a look and fix it.

          > I get a notification if I reply to my own comment.

          Hmmm, I feel like this should be the intended behaviour. But maybe I can add a setting to disable this behaviour.

          > can I get notifications for replies to replies to comments I've made?

          Unfortunately, I don't think this would be possible due to the limitations of the HN website itself. Remember that HN's api is very rudimentary. So the whole notification system in my app works using scraping of the newest comments. This would require me to keep track of every single comment and its parents and that's just not feasible.

          • 3 days ago
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  • Clubber7 days ago
    I learned Obj-C during the early days of the app store, probably 2009-2010. This was before the iPad came out, so I remember ARC being introduced. I really liked it back then because code had to be so lean memory wise (compared to say Java or C#) and I had to deal with memory allocation and deallocation in the Delphi days, so I was comfortable with it. I published a few apps that were moderately successful (not FU money) then kinda got bored during the long tail of the cycle and didn't feel like upgrading the icons and images over and over again.

    I never got onto the Swift train, it was too new when I stopped. I think I know the answer, but would you recommend Swift over Obj-C, for someone failingly familiar with Obj-C if I were to get back into the game? If so why or why not? Is it just as fast as Obj-C and is there anything I can't do with Swift that I could do with Obj-C?

    • busymom07 days ago
      I stuck around with objective C for a long time. Till around 2018/2019 when I finally built my first fully swift app. It was actually my hacker news app called HACK:

      https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/hack-for-yc-hacker-news-reader...

      I would highly recommend Swift over Objective C. It's a lot cleaner and therefore also fun. I still use objective c if I am using some old codebase but other than that, nowadays, I don't see any reason to start a new project I in objective c.

      You should really give Swift a try.

      Also, Android's Kotlin is also kinda fun similar to Swift.

  • Gys8 days ago
    You did a good job! Will try it later.

    > The app is entirely free to use, has no ads, third party analytics, trackers, subscriptions or other junk. It does offer 5 options for tips (which are basically consumable in app purchases), portion of which I will share with the original developer. However, based on my past experiences with tips, they are rarely given by users.

    I noticed the 'in app purchases' remark. Generally (not in this case) a little annoying, good that you explain. Because Apple does not seem to offer a more clear option to explain what these purchases may be, feature wise of price wise. Sorry for the rant :/

    • ludwigschubert8 days ago
      Hm, I’m not sure from your comment if you’ve seen this: if you scroll down on an app’s App Store page, there’s an “Information” section with an “In-App Purchases” subsection that you can expand to see all In-App purchase names and their associated prices.
      • pan698 days ago
        Even after you pointed it out, I really had to search the page for it and finally found it tucked away if the far bottom right corner of the page.. I can totally imagine that for those who do not know where to look specifically, that they'll never see this information.
    • busymom08 days ago
      Yes. Even though they are called tips (they do not unlock any features in the app), they are still mandatory to go through Apple and they take their 15-30% cut.
    • Terretta8 days ago
      In-App Purchases

      Godzilla Tip: $19.99

      Amazing Tip: $9.99

      Generous Tip: $5.99

      Nice Tip: $1.99

      Kind Tip: $3.99

  • fadesibert8 days ago
    This is a really fun app. I took a painting class for a few years in an effort to exercise the other side of the brain - and this does what I failed to do with tens of hours of effort with GIMP, and no amount of prompt magic could do with $LLM.

    I trust your tip jar gets and stays full - bringing this back to life is a wonderful contribution!

    • busymom08 days ago
      Thank you. I also really love the Charcoal filter. After fine tuning it to be a bit darker, I really like the look.
  • nar0016 days ago
    How did you get the source code and rebuilt it? I'd enjoy reading a blog post about the whole story!
    • busymom06 days ago
      The original developer simply sent me the zip file of the entire source code of the old app. Nothing special really.
  • Gys7 days ago
    Maybe at some point you do a blog post or something about the results of the tipping. I am curious how that works out.
    • busymom07 days ago
      I will look into it. Though, there is very little to write about. I have had tipping option in most of my apps. But very very few users use it.

      Only exception is that a single user from my Hacker News app sent me $280 CAD in tips via PayPal (not via app). Very grateful to them. However, they are an exception.

      Otherwise, I rarely get tips via the apps. For example, I have a free OLEDify app which lets you make dark photos be pure black as they look good and save battery on OLED phones. It's used by thousands of users. But in the 8 years it's been in the App Store, it's gotten under $20 in tips.

      If developers want to make a sustainable income via apps, I would not recommend relying solely on tips. A freemium model plus an extra tipping option is the way to go.

  • nokun77 days ago
    How timely!! I was looking for something similar to convert some of my portrait images. I'm trying it right now and I'll let you know how it goes soon. Thank you
  • _aavaa_8 days ago
    Interesting app! If you can share, are you getting the effects through the Kuwahara filter?
    • busymom08 days ago
      I don't think so. Note that the original filters were coded in vanilla c by the original owner of the old app.
  • noja7 days ago
    Nice.

    Could there be an option to retain exif data (date time and location)

    • busymom04 days ago
      I released an update yesterday which now lets you retain the original exif data. And there is a setting in the "Fine Tune" page which lets you disable this behaviour.
    • busymom07 days ago
      Since the entire original image is converted to a UIImage and then modified, the exif data gets destroyed. However, I could add a setting to write the exif data back into the saved image.