Author Topic: Children's App - programer needed  (Read 5418 times)

MEJG

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Children's App - programer needed
« on: December 15, 2016, 07:35:53 AM »
Hi Folks,

I have a great idea for a kids app, but I am not a programmer.  I've spoken to some local friends who do some IT/programming work and they feel it would be super sophisticated to make and are not interested.  Since I can't launch it :) I figured maybe another Mustachian would like it?  Anyone interested?


neo von retorch

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2016, 07:41:00 AM »
Are you trying to launch it on the Apple Store and Google Play Store at the same time, or focus on one platform at first?

MEJG

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2016, 07:48:12 AM »
I literally have no programming skills, so did not have a launch plan.  I think this would actually be better suited to selling to a company rather than launching directly but I could be wrong :)  I just want someone to do something with it! it's been sitting in my head for too long.

ketchup

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2016, 07:48:28 AM »
Just be careful that as a non-programmer, you recognize which parts of this project are easier and which parts are more complex.


MEJG

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2016, 07:56:47 AM »
Yep! I know I don't know.  Which is why I'd love to hand it off to someone who does know about programming. I'm not really looking to be involved- trying to give a side gig to a fellow mustachian if anyone is interested.

Just be careful that as a non-programmer, you recognize which parts of this project are easier and which parts are more complex.



gimp

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2016, 06:10:33 PM »
You could post a rough outline of the idea here, and the 65% of this forum who are programmers can debate how easy it would be for the next four hundred posts.

brute

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2016, 06:59:54 PM »
You could post a rough outline of the idea here, and the 65% of this forum who are programmers can debate how easy it would be for the next four hundred posts.

I was going to suggest something like this, but my python script got in a fight with pandas and then everything went of the rails...

I'd offer to help, but between my actual job as a data scientist and my consulting work in software and database, I don't think I'd be able to focus on it properly.

MEJG

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2016, 07:34:06 PM »
Have you seen the recordable books for kids?  Most if not all of them made by Hallmark? I think an app that does that would be a huge seller.   

So the app, probably for tablets and not smart phones, would allow the adult to record themselves reading a book.  Then the child would pick the book, and swipe through it.  There are copyright issues... So, it would probably need to be developed then sold to either hallmark or maybe ibooks?

I've got ideas for the interface, but really thats all window dressings.  I think it would look nice to be able to chose a few options for customisation of a virtual books case, like color, kid's name, style of book case, and then a shelf for the books.  Maybe you could sort it by reader?  The grandma and grandpa, or Aunt Susie, or a family friend etc. could always be on the tablet to read a favorite book your kids.

gimp

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #8 on: December 20, 2016, 08:18:26 PM »
Yeah, technically this is all pretty trivial. You can get someone to whip you up a prototype in, like, ten hours. The going rate for a decent freelancer online is ~$30/hr, especially if you don't mind working with a student.

Phones can record - and so can any other computer. They can send that recording to a server; there are a million easy ways to upload an audio file. Databases are trivial. An app with basic UI and accounts is trivial. Asking the server to download and play an audio file on demand is trivial.

Data integrity and distributed backups, scaling, etc - fairly hard, but absolutely unnecessary for a prototype. Also, amazon cloud or google cloud etc will make this easy, it's just hard to do it really cheaply and better than those off-the-shelf services.



The copyright issues and the business model might be harder to work out successfully.

MEJG

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2016, 04:54:13 PM »
Ok, so I've been doing some thinking over the holiday.

Would it be possible to create basically another type of "E-reader" that you could migrate your e-books into? that then your could record and sync audio to?

Or would that be getting into sketchy territory with the digital media?  since I've just learned ebooks are licensed not really owned?

Alternatively, could you overlay the audio to the pages while reading within one of the readers (ibook etc).  So you'd just be using two apps at the same time- rather than creating a whole new reading platform.


My husband has a kid's book he's written that we are having a friend illustrate. I'd like to use that book for our prototype (no copyright issues!).

The more I think about it the more I'd like to work this through.  I don't buy apps.  There are VERY few I've spent money on I mostly have used free apps.  I know I would buy something like this so my kids could be read to by their family members that don't live near us.

MEJG

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2016, 06:43:42 PM »
Mother trucker!!!! I should have pushed on this two years ago.... https://www.astorybeforebed.com/

gimp

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #11 on: December 28, 2016, 09:29:42 PM »
Happens to the best of us. It means your idea doesn't suck. :)

joleran

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2016, 03:19:00 PM »
Yeah, technically this is all pretty trivial. You can get someone to whip you up a prototype in, like, ten hours. The going rate for a decent freelancer online is ~$30/hr, especially if you don't mind working with a student.

The going rate for a decent *student* freelancer may be $30/hr, but I would question anyone asking much less than $100-150/hr as an actual professional freelancer.  As you mention though, you really don't need a professional to make a working prototype here as the concept is technically simple.

10 hours though, is a massive underestimation of actual time cost.  Sure, you can put something together that works fine on your laptop in that time frame, but I hate to think about creating something that could be thrown over the fence to a non-technical person to run with in that time frame.  Creating a polished app for secure public distribution and the associated server-side frameworks, assuming no legal/funding issues, I would put at a minimum of 300 hours.

My use case suggestion is to try to detect when a child is attempting to learn to read via eye movement tracking and dynamically modulate the speed of the recording without pitch distortion, emphasizing syllables.  This would be a battery hog though.

gimp

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2017, 07:53:09 PM »
Joleran, I think I was fairly clear about the above costs being costs to make a super basic prototype. Ten hours is enough time to set up a back-end with a basic database, server to process requests, and storage for media; and a front-end (app or website). It will be extremely barebones and have just enough function to prove that it works. It wouldn't be the basis of the actual product, just a proof of concept to get people interested. For such a need, your basic student freelancer should do just  fine.

I would agree that doing this professionally is a whole 'nother can of worms. You need a real programmer and designer who charges triple that rate or more, and ten times as many hours, to get something polished and pretty.

But it's a moot point because OP's been beat to the punch.

CanuckExpat

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2017, 12:09:43 AM »
There's always room for more than one entrant in a market. I like this idea, have no idea about potential.
I'm curious how you market and get yourself found?

areox27

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Re: Children's App - programer needed
« Reply #15 on: June 19, 2017, 11:46:13 PM »
Just be careful that as a non-programmer, you recognize which parts of this project are easier and which parts are more complex.



The funny thing about this comic is that with the ML tools and libraries that are coming out, this is an app that could be built in a day now. Google Vision API is very robust!