Author Topic: My first "retirement" project. Interested in testing my iOS app?  (Read 1716 times)

RyFI

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My first "retirement" project. Interested in testing my iOS app?
« on: February 22, 2017, 12:49:50 PM »
Hey MMM community!  I quit my job almost two years ago and have no regrets.  My family and I have traveled, lived in Mexico for awhile, and for the past few months have been working on a side project with a friend building an iPhone app.  It's the first time in my life I've worked on something with little concern whether or not I would make money, and it's so much more fun to work that way.  For those of you working hard to reach FIRE, keep up the work, it's totally worth it!

We're now looking for testers to use the app I've helped create.  It's an iPhone app called Nearstory.  The app plays spoken audio pieces from various sources (podcasts, historical speeches, etc.) that are connected to a location.  Nearstory organizes the stories based on your location or you can search for stories around other locations. 

Would you like to test the app and give us some feedback?  If so, please visit www.NearstoryApp.com and fill out the short contact form.  Please note that you heard about Nearstory from MMM forum.  You'll then receive an email invite from TestFlight, a third-party app that's used to test iPhone apps before they're live.  After you've used Nearstory for a couple weeks, we'll contact you to see if you'd like to give us some feedback about your experience.

More details about the app...
Nearstory is a great way to learn more about your surroundings in an audio format.  For example, if you were standing at the Lincoln Memorial you could listen to an author speak about her biography of Abraham Lincoln, or you could hear Martin Luther King, Jr. give his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  While standing in New York, you could hear a story about the nearby tiny museum that's only 36 square feet in size, another one about the battle for height between the Chrysler Building and the 40 Wall Street Building, or a piece about the monthly subway beauty contest that ran for 35 years starting in 1941.  Those are just a few of the 1,100 stories (and growing) currently on Nearstory.

Feel free to comment with any questions about Nearstory or FIRE side-gig questions in general.  Thanks!

UPDATE: I should have noted that we are very focused in the United States. You're welcome to test outside the US, however there won't be very many stories near your location. Thanks!
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 03:08:54 PM by RyFI »

Felicity

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Re: My first "retirement" project. Interested in testing my iOS app?
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2017, 01:37:47 PM »
That's awesome! Replace "iOS" with "Android," and that's my dream in the next few years. :D

If I had an iPhone I'd love to test it - it's definitely an interesting idea.

Question that may be applicable to others in the MMM forums: Could you use this app without data?
Random question for you as a developer: How are you adding clips/stories?

RyFI

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Re: My first "retirement" project. Interested in testing my iOS app?
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2017, 06:55:34 PM »
That's awesome! Replace "iOS" with "Android," and that's my dream in the next few years. :D

If I had an iPhone I'd love to test it - it's definitely an interesting idea.

Question that may be applicable to others in the MMM forums: Could you use this app without data?
Random question for you as a developer: How are you adding clips/stories?

Sorry we're not on Android yet, hopefully someday! 

It's possible in the future the app will include an option to download the content while on WiFi so that you don't have to use data while travelling.  It's more of a copyright issue than anything because our preference is to pull the content directly from the original producer each time someone listens to their content, that way they get a traffic hit in order to get advertisers, investors, etc.  There are ways around this where everyone still gets appropriate credit, we just haven't crossed that bridge yet.

We're curating and geo-tagging stories using a system we built to do just that.  Currently it involves a decent amount of manual (human) input but there's a chance this will advance in the future. 

Thanks for your questions!

Felicity

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Re: My first "retirement" project. Interested in testing my iOS app?
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2017, 10:11:25 AM »
Ah, very cool!

Good luck with everything. :D

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!