Nothing Was Delivered

Estimating how long it will take to program something is famously difficult. So while I’ve been plunking away at my project for the last few months, I could see that I was still quite a ways away from anything I would be proud to release. And it’s not that I’m slow—well, I am slow, but that’s not the only reason—it’s that this project is very ambitious for a guy who’s doing this all in his spare time and teaching himself what he’s doing from scratch while he’s at it. 

At this point I was starting to get a bit demoralized. I didn’t want to spend another year at this with nothing to show. Was there something quick I could whip up in the mean time? Basically a dry run to get something into the store. If I was going to make any mistakes, let’s do it on something that would only take a month or two, rather than 10 times that. 

So I needed a new idea. I had a few criteria. 

1. Everything is self contained. Web service? Apple Watch app? One thing at a time please. 
2. Simple UI. Nothing’s coming from a web server, and no one wants to plug a ton of info into their phone. 
3. Useful. Frankly having a few dollars coming in would be a nice motivation to keep this going. It needs to be something I can charge at least $0.99 for.
4. Not a game. I am not an artist, so interaction should be text based. That and I’m not really a gamer, so I don’t know what makes a good game.

So I talked it out with my girlfriend over some pizza. Erin suggested a budgeting app. That was useful, but it could easily violate number 1 and 2. Peoples budgeting systems get crazy complicated, and of course everyone’s going to want it to sync to… something. What about a lightweight budgeting app? After a week or so you’d realize this was completely inadequate. But what if you only needed it for a week or so?

Most people have some sort of budgeting system, from using elaborate spreadsheets to just roughly keeping it in their heads. But when you’re on vacation that all breaks down. Your routine goes out the window. You could use some way of making sure you’ve not blown all your cash by day two. 

This was what I was looking for. An idea! One that seem feasible! Something to write about on my blog! Stay tuned.