Issue #16 - Pockity
Back with the normal schedule after the Black Friday specials. It was great to see so many indie app & from what I hear it was sucessful for many.
App Spotlight
App Name : Pockity
Developer : Nikhil Nigade - Mastodon
What is Pockity?
Pockity is a simple and private budgeting and expense tracking app for iOS and macOS. With emphasis on privacy, all user entered data is always stored on their devices, and only ever synced over iCloud.
Where did the idea for Pockity come from?
There a lot of budgeting and expense tracking apps on the App Store, but none which were:
- multi-platform
- privacy oriented
- did not require sign-ups and log-ins
- synced over iCloud
- supported multi-currency transactions
Most of the existing apps primarily revolved around a single transaction, but money always comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. The flow of money was never realised or visualised.
Over time, I came across the double-entry book-keeping system and it sounded like the perfect fit for what I was looking for. I found only two apps which supported this, but neither were updated in a while. So I decided it was time to build something myself.
What’s one stand out feature you’d like everyone to know about?
Local Intelligence! It’s a simple on-device intelligence system which looks at the title or location of an entry, and automatically suggests the appropriate category and account for the user.
It takes a few entries to build confidence per title (eg. Lunch, Dinner) or location (eg. McDonald’s, Pub across the street), but once the system has built a confidence level of over 75%, it begins to suggest these.
These are also per ledger, so each ledger can different suggestions associated for the same term. And the locations are unique too! So your favourite pub near home and near work will suggest two different accounts 😉
A few others would be Shared Ledgers and the interactive widgets, but there’s room for only such feature, so I’ll let you discover these on your own.
How do you promote Pockity?
So far, it’s mostly talking about it on Mastodon, suggesting it to friends & family, features in deal listings.
Apple Search Ads isn’t directly usable in India, so until that opens up again, I’m limited with options.
This will be my first time talking about Pockity on a newsletter, so hurray for that!
How did you decide on the pricing?
Over the last couple of years, especially during the CoVID pandemic, I realised more people were beginning to get averse towards IAP subscriptions.
I was making an app to help people track their expenses and budget their income. I could not be the one who's responsible for an entry in their financial statements every month or year.
It just did not sit right with me, so I decided to make the app a one time purchase to unlock **plus** features, and in a later update also added family plans by popular demand.
But I had to generate a decent revenue from the app, to motivate myself and to be able to keep working on it, so I’ve priced the iOS and Mac apps separately. This also unburdens users who only wish to use it on a single platform, they won’t have to subsidise it for others.
How did you launch Pockity?
Quietly, and unexpectedly. I wish I were kidding, but I just submitted what was a solid v1.0 of the app for review, and forgot to select the option to release the app manually. Next morning, the app was the on the AppStore, and I was completely unprepared.
So over the next few days, I got the website ready, started posting links on Mastodon and Reddit, and then the traction slowly grew.
How long did it take to get to the first version?
I started working on the iOS app back in 2019, only ever worked on it over the weekends, sometimes with long breaks in-between. Then in 2021, I decided to seriously work on it and release it.
Only counting the days I worked on it, maybe 3 months. But the story began in 2019.
Is there anything you’ve learnt that stands out?
Dates are hard, time zone math is harder! But the hardest thing for me turned out to be: convincing a stranger to enter their expenses into an app, developed by someone they absolutely do not know.
Bigger companies have an inherent trust built around them, which is much harder to build for indie developers.
Any tools or apps you would recommend others check out?
Tower (Git), Kaleidoscope (diffing), Cascadea (custom CSS for Safari), Control Room (by Paul Hudson), and DevCleaner.
Where can everyone go to find out more?
To learn more about Pockity, you can go to the website and its FAQ. People can always ping me on Mastodon with feature requests, suggestions or bug reports.
App Radar
New Apps
HabitSquare by Paco Sainz - Twitter/X
HabitSquare is a beautiful and minimalistic habit tracker. We all have daily, weekly, or even monthly habits that we want to achieve.
You can use it for any kind of tracking. People are using it as a health tracker, a habit list, after reading books like Atomic Habits, and even as a tracker to stop smoking and/or stop vaping.
Reflect by Kuba Milcarz - Twitter/X
In a world filled with hustle, daily journaling can be a challenge. That's where Reflect shines! Tailored for busy lives, it's not your everyday journal; it's a thoughtful, weekly companion.
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