Reef App Ideas

briancarterkc · Jun 22, 2016

So, I almost put this in the DIY section, because it's the truest form of DIY, but I wanted it to get a wider audience.

I haven't written software in over 15 years, but I'm ready to crack my knuckles and learn how to write code for these newfangled iPhones. As a product management executive, I know the first step in good software development is market research. That's where you all come in. I am not delighted by any of the options out there for a good all-purpose reef tracking app. From occasional threads on this forum, it seems most of you aren't either. So, if you have an iPhone, I'd love to know what you wish you had in an app. Here's my personal wish list.

- trending graphs in the app (not on the website only like AquaticLog)
- self-established ranges for red/yellow/green for your parameters
- ability (and reminders) to take pics of your aquarium when you finish a testing cycle.
- a "check in" feature for new species. When you add a species, "check them in" so you have a pic of when things were added.
- reminder to take a monthly pic of each species.
- a time-lapse of photos of each species so you can see progress over time (this ones a bonus feature, since you can realistically use other apps to do this)

What else? I'm not promising anything, and it may take a really long time, but my engineers are starting not to believe I can't actually code so, I need to do a project and this seemed like the perfect fit.

briancarterkc · Jun 22, 2016

Lest this be perceived as advertising, let me be clear that I plan to make this a free app. It's mostly just the latest, nerdiest extension of my hobby.

Psiber_Syn · Jun 22, 2016

I have written apps for Android so I'd be willing to help/port whatever you come up with to androids also

what language are we talking?I'd use something cross portable like java or even a scripting language

Psiber_Syn · Jun 22, 2016

You could add the reef calculator

Agamerce · Jun 22, 2016

I would recommend a cross-platform Ui. Yeah, apple is a difficult platform in this hobby, but available to everyone. Maybe a search bar of some kind or an expert board to scour threads for expert advise like this one. I might also want an integration with modern reefing systems like Seneye, and neptune. How about a way to connect people with similar tank setups to connect and share ideas and best-practices? Enough? [emoji41]

Love the idea!

To really solidify it, work with several other leading companies in this forum.

briancarterkc · Jun 22, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
I have written apps for Android so I'd be willing to help/port whatever you come up with to androids also what language are we talking?I'd use something cross portable like java or even a scripting language

Awesome! Since its been so long, I was thinking about learning Swift because it's supposed to be pretty easy and there are so many iOS libraries I can leverage. Unfortunately, that's obviously an iOS-specific language. I'm also entertaining something like Python with HTML/JS interface and just wrapping it with a native app for easy install...obvs more portable, but less able to use native facilities and less..."appy."

To everyone that isn't a coder, sorry for this post that you didn't understand

briancarterkc · Jun 22, 2016

Agamerce said:
I would recommend a cross-platform Ui. Yeah, apple is a difficult platform in this hobby, but available to everyone. Maybe a search bar of some kind or an expert board to scour threads for expert advise like this one. I might also want an integration with modern reefing systems like Seneye, and neptune. How about a way to connect people with similar tank setups to connect and share ideas and best-practices? Enough? [emoji41]

Love the idea!

To really solidify it, work with several other leading companies in this forum.

I knew one of the first 3 replies would be "integrate with my controller!" Good suggestions, thank you!

briancarterkc · Jun 22, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
You could add the reef calculator

Aw yeah. That's a great idea. There are 2 or 3 sites I have bookmarked that I use for stuff like that and it'd be awesome to just have them app-handy.

Psiber_Syn · Jun 22, 2016

Android has some libraries that make porting from swift painless so go for what you know

Psiber_Syn · Jun 22, 2016

Id database allow users to upload photos of their corals that are ided and allow other users to search them by like chalice-red eyes-green body etc

ReefQueen · Jun 23, 2016

You already know my thoughts, make it for android lol! But some things I wouldn't mind seeing are alarms to remind you to dose or waterchange or whatever. No ads would be nice, but I understand that's not always possible with free apps. What about a sort of library with general Info, so when we are at the LFS we don't need to look it up on liveaquaria to see what the minimum tank size or lighting requirements of fish and corals are

briancarterkc · Jun 23, 2016

ReefQueen said:
You already know my thoughts, make it for android lol! But some things I wouldn't mind seeing are alarms to remind you to dose or waterchange or whatever. No ads would be nice, but I understand that's not always possible with free apps. What about a sort of library with general Info, so when we are at the LFS we don't need to look it up on liveaquaria to see what the minimum tank size or lighting requirements of fish and corals are

I like the reminder nag idea! Probably won't do ads since its just a hobby. I'd rather charge $0.99 for the app after you love it for 30 days. Probably make as much and it's not annoying. Library is interesting...I wonder if LA would expose their data for other apps...I certainly don't want to try to recreate that knowledge base.

ReefQueen · Jun 23, 2016

briancarterkc said:
I like the reminder nag idea! Probably won't do ads since its just a hobby. I'd rather charge $0.99 for the app after you love it for 30 days. Probably make as much and it's not annoying. Library is interesting...I wonder if LA would expose their data for other apps...I certainly don't want to try to recreate that knowledge base.

Maybe have members volunteer to send you the basic info of fish and corals they are most familiar with? Doing it alone would definitely be a chore lol

donnievaz · Jun 23, 2016

I'd like to see the ability to enter previous data. I recently bought Aquaplanner pro and could not enter my records from previous dates. Now that I think about it, data export would be nice as well.

briancarterkc · Jun 23, 2016

donnievaz said:
I'd like to see the ability to enter previous data. I recently bought Aquaplanner pro and could not enter my records from previous dates. Now that I think about it, data export would be nice as well.

Agreed. AquaticLog does actually allow you to back-date entries and I love that feature. My phone was dead a couple weeks ago when I did testing. I was able to write the results down but then enter them accurate to the day I actually did the tests. Export is interesting, but it assumes some other tool will be ready to receive the formatted output, so, not sure how much use it would get.

KingBlingTX · Jun 23, 2016

+1 on the reminder function!

User-defined targets is also a great idea. Dosing calculator based on a definable list of Ca & Alk solutions would be a nice touch.

Psiber_Syn · Jun 23, 2016

You can easily scrape LA for any info using php curl but it's just like searching the site just using the app instead of a search function

Also the site parse is a great database to keep the app small and just allow any info to be stored on their site instead of creating your own DB

bms270 · Jun 23, 2016

I use an app called Aquarimate and it's great.. It's a bit expensive but well worth the money. It has tons of features and a neat database as well. I think you should look at that app to get some ideas.. I'd get your app if you build some nice features like monitoring Apex controllers.

projectx · Jun 23, 2016

Didnt read all oft he post, so if its been mentioned, sorry.
Equipment purchases, price, location entry
Coral, picture upload similar to the fish entry.

briancarterkc · Jun 24, 2016

Thanks guys. Keep the ideas coming. Thanks for the reference to another app to check out.

While you're at it, app name ideas would be great. All the ones I've come up with are already the name of an app or some kind of reef project.

I spent five hours on it tonight. I've pretty much got a handle on the UI side of Swift. I did a little throw-away project that launches an app, gives me a list of options, and lets me "create a tank." That's enough to have shown me where I'm going to need to make custom UI/find libraries and where I can use stock features.

Next steps are learning how to import libraries (who wants to write code someone else wrote?!) and figuring out what approach I want to use for saving data. I'd rather avoid having to manage a web server.

Things sure have change since I was coding Java. I think it'll be a lot easier once I get acclimated. I'm feeling pretty good with just 5 hours of swift under my belt.