Black Friday 2023 Day 2
Day 2 of the Indie App Sales event. Its great to see all the support for indie developers. Keep it up and keep sharing!
All the apps featured here are currently discounted. Check Indie App Sales for the latest deals.
App Name : Textastic
Developer : Alexander Blach - Mastodon, Twitter/X
What is Textastic?
Textastic is a text and code editor for iPad and iPhone. It supports syntax highlighting of more than 80 programming and markup languages, including HTML, CSS, JS, Swift, Objective-C, C++, PHP, Perl, Python, SQL, shell script and many more.
You can connect to SFTP, FTP and WebDAV servers as well as Dropbox and Google Drive accounts and use the integrated SSH terminal to work directly on your server. iCloud Drive and opening external folders via the Files app are fully supported.
It allows opening files in multiple tabs as well as in multiple windows on iPad and offers full support for external keyboards, trackpads and mice.
Where did the idea come from?
When I got my first generation iPad in 2010, I was looking for an app that I could use to view my source code files on the new device, so I started working on Textastic. After a while, I realized that I could not only create a viewer, but also a complete editor. Textastic 1.0 was released in October 2010.
13 years later, Textastic has reinvented itself several times, always adapting to the latest operating system updates and trends. While the first version had a very simple syntax highlighter, Textastic 10's custom syntax highlighting engine now supports syntax definitions from Sublime Text 3 and TextMate 1.
What’s one stand out feature you’d like everyone to know about?
Textastic's "Find in Files" feature is quite unique on iPadOS and iOS. It allows you to search entire folder trees for text and regular expressions. Search your Git repositories or iCloud folders and get results very quickly.
The app shows you a list with a preview of all matches, including line numbers, number of matches per file, total number of matches and number of files searched.
What's one tip you would give to someone starting out?
Find a problem in your everyday life and write an app to solve it. The most successful apps I've written are the ones that I use myself on a daily basis. You'll quickly learn how you can improve your app and you'll implement it because you want to have that feature yourself. Once the app is on the App Store, listen to feedback from your users.
App Name : Paku
Developer : Kyle Bashour - Mastodon, Twitter/X
What is Paku?
Paku is a beautiful native app checking air quality from PurpleAir. It’s got tons of great features to help you breath easy - a lightning-quick map of sensors, gorgeous charts, tons of powerful widgets, and air quality alerts (requires Pro). It works across all of your devices, with great Watch and Mac versions too.
Where did the idea come from?
I started building Paku when I was living in San Francisco in 2020 and the sky turned completely orange for two days due to wildfire smoke. Everyone was checking purpleair.com and aqi.wtf, but there was no app for checking PurpleAir. Widgets had just launched, so I decided to build a widget inspired by aqi.wtf. I’ve iterated and added more features over time, and Paku finally feels like a “real app” to me with the 5.0 release this year.
What’s one stand out feature you’d like everyone to know about?
It’s kind of small actually, but if you live somewhere densely covered in PurpleAir sensors, my favorite feature is using the Paku temperature widget on my Lock Screen instead of the Weather app. It’s even more accurate due to the hyperlocal data (often a sensor is across the street or just a few blocks away).
What's one tip you would give to someone starting out?
It’s ok to start small. You don’t have to quit your job and go all in, but keep in mind that it’s easy to burn out if you’re coding all day at work and working on your own projects. So just start small, work on things when you’re motivated to do so, and prioritize the work that you think is most interesting. Over time, you’ll be surprised how much you’ve accomplished.
App Name : Recurrence
Developer : Stephen Hayes - Mastodon, Twitter/X
What is Recurrence?
Recurrence helps you manage and track everything relating to the repeating tasks in your life so you never miss a thing again.
Recurrence helps you manage and track everything relating to the repeating tasks in your life so you never miss a thing again.
Recurrence is more than just another app that reminds you what needs to be done — it tracks what you did, too. An example: you have a pet that needs medication. Maybe it needs checkups at the vet, too. Recurrence can remind you when you need to do give it the medication it needs as well as to arrange a visit to the vet, all while tracking things from past ones — what it weighed during the last visit, which medication was prescribed, and anything else you think might be handy!
By changing the way you think about reminders and repeating tasks, Recurrence becomes more than an app that reminds you to do things — it becomes the place that tracks your entire life as well.
Where did the idea come from?
My wife. She is one of the most organized people I’ve ever met. She loves her checklists and goes through one every day. As we moved into a new house and had a child, there became so many recurring things that needed to be done. Reminders & other apps didn’t really scratch the right itch for us, so Recurrence was born.
What’s one stand out feature you’d like everyone to know about?
New with iOS 17, Recurrence now has interactive widgets. You can now easily complete tasks right from your Home Screen. Widgets also support filtering so you can create a widget for each category. Lots of people like to do this and add them in a widget stack.
What's one tip you would give to someone starting out?
Focus on an app that you’d personally use everyday. All of my apps have come out of scratching a personal itch of mine. Using the apps everyday means I am always seeing areas for new improvements or where the potential paper cuts are. I also recommend including your email address for support. Conversations (positive or negative) with any users always help you to learn how people are using your app & where your improvement areas are.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoying reading as much I do putting it together. Please help support the newsletter by sharing it. The social links are below.
If you have an app, tool or service that would like to be included then please submit it here.
IndieAppSpotlight - Mastodon, Twitter/X
by Craig Osborne - Mastodon, Twitter/X