jsx

A daily journey of building things and trying to find the next thing

A few months ago a friend and I started experimenting with a concept for a fitness app. We wanted to take all the thinking out of working out. You would either get home or go to the gym and have some instructions ready for you. We wanted to take all of the pain out of fitness and have a professional craft a workout for you.

The product focus was on email. Email is a simple way to deliver the information and very easy to build. Plus we can do all of the work manually just try to prove out the concept.

We thought about what it would look like to get this as an app. As we continue to evolve the product and examine some new avenues. We wanted it to see what this would look like in app form.

We wanted to create a little excitement for the workout with the countdown until it is viewable. When you are logged in you get to see the countdown, and you can view the last few days workouts. Just in case you wanted to work on a move. The workout screen just gives a clean way to see what moves you need to do. You can watch a video if you are not sure of how to perform the move or a button to let us know if you want to get more challenging workouts.

Also, we wanted a spot to be able to talk to your trainer and to be able to work out some issues or areas to improve your workouts.

I can see this as the next step for the product. Below you can view and interact with some of our mockup ideas.

Apple just announced their foray into streaming music and how they are going to leverage the Beats acquisition. Honestly, it was nothing special. Apple wrapped up some features that nobody wants or ever asked for and tried to convince us that we need them, and we need them right away. They made a huge push for their artist connect feature where artists can post updates, and you can comment on things and share. They also have these new radio stations and in all fairness those could be interesting. I like the idea of having some curation when I am just to lazy to pick and poke around my playlists. They have lined up some DJs who could make it something interesting.

Also, the fact that Apple is going to make an Android and Windows app for this service as well. So, we will now have shitty software on those other platforms as well. For anyone who has used iTunes or Safari on a PC, I am sure they are holding their breath on this one. Personally, I would love to see a powerful web app more than a windows app. That is one thing that did disappoint me. I think that a lot of people stream music during the day at work, and some IT departments might lock down installing apps on work computers. It would be a pleasing addition to the app roster.

The killer thing that Apple did was a price. They are offering a family plan for 14.99 for up to six accounts. The fake families are already starting to form on the internet. I am sure there is a sub Reddit that will happen soon after it launches. I mean that price point alone is compelling to make me think about switching. I use a family plan with my wife on Spotify for 14.99 for just the two of us. But, if we can get a little group situation going for the same price and cut are bill down even further. It is not like Spotify is the killer app. I thinkRdio beats them on design. Spotify is just the spot that all my friends are on. It makes sharing easier and playlists.

They waited till June 30th to launch, and that is another particular thing to me. Everyone was talking about it last week, and the buzz was high. They are offering up 3-month free trials for it as well. I was ready to sign up. I think some of the allure will be gone come the end of the month. But, I think that family plan pricing will be something that will lure more people than we think over to Apple Music.

Don’t forget just because Apple installs the app by default doesn’t mean people will use it. I am sure a lot of people have a folder of just “Apple Junk” with the stocks app and other tings you can’t remove. There is nothing stopping this from adding to the mix.

As part of my summer project, I wanted to get some more design work done. I have been obsessed with Watch apps lately, and I want to take this idea and at least get something mocked up.

For this project, my notes showed up again in my Evernote. So, I wanted to get into Sketch and work on a few views. Also, I didn’t get added to my growing lists of things I never ended up making.

Meowington is an app that makes a tinder like an approach to rating cats. Swipe right to vote and swipe left to reject the cat. The idea is that the cat with the both lowest and highest would receive a donation.

The revenue part was what I struggled with some ideas. We need to be able to generate something so that we have money to donate. Ads would allow more consistent money to be able to donate. But, I also tend to pay to turn them off.

My tagline would be something like “The cats have given us so much, now it is time to get back.”

Below is an embed of a few of the screens. I only did four to get everything in motion. In designing for the watch, there are some constraints to keep in mind. It was cool to be stuck in such a small space because you have no room for bullshit. You need something simple and glanceable or its a huge waste of time.

I would like to add more views down the line as well as even prototype out the phone app as well.

The Pebble Steel has been a permanent fixture in my gadget family for awhile now. They have had an update for awhile that allows you to have notifications that you can take action. Also, you are allowed some more control over the notification that get pushed to your phone.

Lately, I have been switching up the notifications that get pushed to my watch. I want to learn to see which ones are invaluable to my day and which ones just piss me off.

Instagram and Linkedin are the worst offenders of these notifications. I don’t need to know on my wrist if someone liked a photo or someone is looking at my profile. These are notifications that may not need to be even pushed to anything at all.

Whatsapp group messages are just too much. If you have a big chain going back and forth, it can be overwhelming to you.

Twitter at replies where something that was a nice joy to see on my wrist. I am not a high traffic Twitter person, so I would only get at most 3-5 a day scattered throughout the day.

Google Wallet surprised me. I have a weekly transfer setup and when I was in stores that I had a loyalty card or a gift card for the store that I am in. Getting a notification on my wrist for that information was useful. If there were a way, I could pay. That is the one thing that I am jealous about the apple watch.

The notifications need to start changing. What works for the phone won’t work on our wrist? What we get pushed to a device that we wear have to provide some value. There is a lot of nonsense that gets filled in my notification drawer on my phone. From games to reminders to track my meals and my latest emails I don’t want all of this stuff coming to my wrist.

If my wife calls me during the work day, I want to know about that right away because that is going to be an issue.

Wearables will force us to rethink notifications and start to design for real world experiences and interactions.

In college, I ran a music blog that to me was very successfully. It was almost like an accidental startup. I even had a staff at one point. Then, I was faced with a decision of join the real world and finish college and get a job or try to see if I could grow it. At the time, I knew nothing of starting a business, paying people or what the hell I was doing. I was barely breaking even. But, that was the most amazing project I have ever done.

Lately, I have been trying to scratch that itch again. I have had a few other ideas I have put out into the world. Nothing with the fire and the passion I had of trying to spread the world of the blog.

I wrote a post a few months back about getting fired up and getting some of these projects off your plate. I’ve had a productive year, but I wanted to finish off the year on a big note.

This past weekend it got me thinking. I am getting married in just about six months. Now, as many of you know, there is plenty of things to do before getting married. As everyone says, there is never a right time. But, my thinking behind it was I wanted just to empty the tank and go after some of my ideas. Plus, If I hustle for six months and just empty out the tank. That honeymoon is going to be even that more enjoyable.

I have six months, and I think it is perfectly reasonable to be able to launch some of my ideas by that time. The ideas and the finish products will vary. Some of them might be a simple landing page to try to validate and idea while others might be a full on web app or mobile app or hell even a full-on the blog. The only rule is that I must post a link on the blog before the date I agreed on. Also, some ideas might be for a week, and other might be six weeks. They can improve on something that I have already out there in the wild but they simply just can’t be a new blog on Medium.

This show http://buildandlaunch.net/ was a big inspiration to me over the last few months. I liked what Justin did with this series. He gave himself a week, and he allowed himself to fail. Some of the best episodes where were he missed his deadlines and didn’t ship what he was trying.

But, it showed me one valuable thing. I have no excuses anymore. I can find the time. I can find the resources and I can take the chance and still do everything I need to do. I just need to maximize the time that I have and try to even create little pockets of time where I can find them.

This is a post to keep me honest. I want to put it out there in the world that I want to do this. I want to know if having that pressure to actually do something get me out of my cycle of not producing.

I have already started to push some of my ideas out into the world. Some have no traction, and I even spend some money on ads to try to get some page views. But, the excuses end and now it is time to show off.

For my journey to get better at Javascript, MDN Posted A re-introduction to JavaScript. Walkthrough was a really good refresher of some concepts and worth some time this weekend.

SASS Pixel Art - This is an amazing walkthrough of some SASS and box-shadow moves. There is nothing that I could write that would do this justice. They also have audio with the post to make it easier to follow again.

Finally, if you love sublime text and plugins you will learn a lot from this short video from a few Google Developers

I have been doing a lot of research this week about building an app. I am going to be starting the process of building something for both Android and iOS. As I have stated here before I love material design and I just want to build something with some of these principles in mind. I have been battling with the hybrid vs native battle on how to build it but I want

Frameworks


Materialize CSS Material UI Angular Material Mui CSS Ionic Material

UI Kit / Design Tools


Material Kit Floating Action Buttons Kit Sketch Color Pallette Plugin Color Pallete Generator Origami and Material Design

I woke up today sore from the gym. It was actually almost hard to walk down the stairs this morning. I have also been recovering from a knee injury from about a few weeks ago. The one thing that I love about going to the gym is it is always time away from a screen. My phone is not in my hands and I am just doing my thing.

Everytime I am at the gym I can’t help but to want a little more data and a little more information. I have been wearing activity trackers before. I have had a Fitbit, jawbone up and now I have been wearing a Mi Band.

The MiBand has an interesting setting in the app you can switch it to and track jump ropes and situps. I would really want to use something that I wouldn’t have to switch modes for to get that data. I would love to do my workout and open up the app and get a recap (100 pushups, 50 deadlifts, etc)

http://www.liveathos.com/ http://www.trainwithpush.com/ http://welcome.moov.cc/

These products do showcase an exciting future. Athos is something that is promising as it is on your clothing and can really focus in on the muscle being used. Imagine a world where you can see all that data and know when you should rest to minimize risk of injury and have a clear graph of all the work you have been doing.

I have just been off my game for a few weeks. Then last night, the flood gates opened up, and I just started writing and writing. The content was not particular good and anything that I could reuse.

There is something about the writing process that just brings me a level of balance. I notice that I can articulate my ideas and thoughts better, and I generally feel more relaxed.

I found this article the other day, and I just loved the idea. Plus, the writer is someone that I follow and always check out his work. The first rule that he had was there are no bad ideas in brainstorming.

I want to get in the habit of writing things down more. I want to clean out the home screen on my phone so its just Evernote, Todoist and any other app that I have where I can capture something. I piece of inspiration or something that I see that I want to make sure that I take a photo.

Another, little thing that I noticed was that the more that I am in the browser, the more likely I am not achieve the task that I am working on. I started writing in an app outside Chrome, and the results have been impressive so far.

“I just don’t have enough time” is a phrase we have all uttered or said to someone recently. I feel like the older I get, the less time I have, but that also opens up more opportunity for disruption.

My finance drives over an hour each day I the car to get to work. If she could have, someone drive her. How valuable is it to get those time back. She loses anywhere between 5 to 8 hours a week just driving.

Time is one of those things in short supply, and people are willing to pay to get back. Uber, Instacart, Task Rabbit, and Postmates.

All these companies just help us automate some of those tasks. They are selling us more time and more freedom with some of the essential work that we all have to do. Plus, the beauty of some of these products is that everyone is their customer.

But the big one that I have been dreaming of is laundry. I want to be able to leave my bag outside my house and specific how long of a turnaround I need and get the clothes back clean and folded. That is a massive time suck on my weekend, and I would pay for that each week.

You know what else is special about these companies they make you feel like you are special. I will also remember my first uber ride. It made me feel like I was James Bond. I hit a button, and I had the car waiting for to take me anywhere.

Today, on Product Hunt there was an app called “Alfred.” The tagline for the app is “Alfred is your personal butler.” Starting at 25/week you can have your Alfred do all kinds of things for you including Laundry!

According to the website “A weekly home visit from one dedicated Alfred, with access to the high prices, vendors, and customer support. You give us your key, and we give you a completed to-do list.”

I both love and hate this idea. The main hurdle for me outside of non-set fee is. Do a want a stranger in my house? It is going to say hard no to a service; that will get your groceries and do your laundry.