- Website looks nice. The copy being so painfully AI-written is a turnoff, enough that my first thought was "oh yeah, I remember hearing about this kind of app, I should look at the other one I'm thinking of". I do like that it's local and free.
Imported some contacts, doing quick setup, first contact, can't scroll down to confirm/finish setting them up. I'm on the SE, which is a slightly smaller screen, sometimes apps seem to have trouble with it, I assume they're assuming a larger screen.
by swaminarayan
0 subcomment
- A lot of apps try to solve the “stay in touch with people” problem, but in my experience the novelty usually wears off after a while and the reminders start feeling like noise. Curious how you approached this in Poppy — did you design anything specifically to avoid reminder fatigue and make it sustainable long-term?
- I really appreciate this work. Yes, it's AI language and it seems it's not polished to run on every device -yet.
And it does one thing really good: be there. Sounds silly, I know, but an app that tries to make the world better AT NO COST is so much more than "well, I could vibe code that myself".
Thanks fellow creator of this app. Thanks for believing that this app may have an impact on the important part of our life:
re/connecting people.
- "Poppy turns your contacts into a living garden. Gentle reminders, zero guilt."—bleh, at least write your own taglines :/
This is a neat idea that has been tried about 300 times over, but since it's contingent on already being cognizant of keeping up with relationships, people that install it aren't going to people that need to be using it.
- The AI writing is a big turn-off: if the app is crafted with the same care as the copy on the website, I'm not sure I want to trust the owner with VERY personal data like that :)
by jonners00
1 subcomments
- This is great, but also not well suited (in terms of visuals, name, language) to some of the audiences that need it most. A version that resonates more with middle aged men would be great. Oak or something.
- Thanks so much for this! It’s exactly the kind of think I’ve looked for many times. There are slick alternatives that I abandoned due to their (to me) insane pricing models, like “add a few friends for free, then unlock unlimited friends for only $20/mo!” I get that they want to make money, but I’m not paying hundreds per year to remember to call my sister.
The main competitor here is plain old Reminders, or OmniFocus, or any other task manager. A repeating reminder to text that cool coworker you want to stay in touch with isn’t as shiny, but it gets the job done.
I don’t know if there’s an Apple API for getting metadata about recent calls and texts, but that would be the final piece for me: if I texted Joe yesterday, reset the timer on his reminder. I wouldn’t touch that idea with a ten foot pole for other apps, but your privacy policy of “everything you do stays on your own device and we see none of it” is perfect and compatible with the feature.
So, nice job, and thanks for sharing!
by testbyhuman_tor
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- Most of the feedback here is about AI-generated copy, which is a valid signal from HN users but probably not representative of your actual target audience. If you're building for people with ADHD who struggle to keep in touch, their first 60 seconds in the app will tell you everything: can they import contacts and set up a first reminder without getting stuck?
jamilton already found a real onboarding bug on iPhone SE. Get 5 more people like that trying it cold and you'll learn more from watching them than from 50 HN comments about your taglines.
- I like it! It’s aesthetically pleasing and has a nice concept.
There’s still quite a lot that could be refined in terms of UX, visual details, and even the AI-generated texts, as others in the comments have pointed out, but it works well as an MVP. With some polishing over time, it could become a really great app. Great work.
by alabhyajindal
0 subcomment
- I built something very similar recently but eventually lost interest because I couldn't find customers. It's main focus was sending email reminders to users to contact their friends.
https://alabhya.me/myfriends
by marvin-hansen
0 subcomment
- Totally love this app. I've always struggled with fostering relationships over time and keeping track of all the little things different people value. I actually tried a friend journal a week ago but that didn't worked as planned either. Once I installed this app, I pinged some folks, had a great unexpected call and now my garden is growing. I value the privacy & local first paradigm. I would have not installed a cloud SaaS app or hidden subscription. However I'm okay with paying a reasonable one time fee for an upgraded version. I did paid for IA Writer on Mac and iphone because their product is exactly right. Your app is similar in the sense that it solves one particular problem for one specific group of people really well. Therefore please consider a paid version at some point.
- Hmm if I were to use this I'd want it synced with my desktop (self hosted). I don't spend so much time on the tiny screen of my phone. When I'm at home or the office I have glorious 24" displays and real keyboards so I just use those. It wouldn't work if the phone is the only way to get to this.
Also I'd want it to connect to my messaging apps so I don't have to tell it when I connected with someone. I have better things to do than keeping logs up to date. I have all my messaging apps integrated into a self hosted matrix instance.
But it's a nice idea especially with ADHD.
- Is this a CRM for your friends? FRM? FriendsForce?
- Realising the irony of complaining about the complaining; can we not just have one comment that moans about AI writing and then consider it said?
It's going to be and endless circular discussion going forward, AI is not going anywhere, people are going to use it to write copy. Like all things that irk overly technical people it will be completely missed by the masses so none of the pushback will have any effect.
- very nice! I'll give it a shot! I thought about something similar in the past few years. I like the fact that you insist on "no social pressure" and a "gentle" nudge. The goal is not to make the user feel bad :). I also like that you make me import just a small subset of my contacts, to not feel overwhelmed right from the beginning (start small! make it work then make it better).
some quick feedback:
- I feel a more natural path to add an "extra checkin" would be from the "flower" in the garden (home page).
- I would love to be able to add a date in the checkin. Let's say I know the person I just checked in with told me she has an important event coming up (exam, interview, work deadline, baby...) I'd love to be able to add a specific date for a future checking on a specific topic.
- Love the idea! Contrary to the comments i have seen this first time, just the website copy is AI generated hence it feels off.
by billyjobob
0 subcomment
- I recall a post recently that suggested rather than a fixed contact interval ("message this friend every 2 weeks") it was better to use a Fibonacci spiral (2 weeks, 3 weeks, 5 weeks, etc). Perhaps you could implement that?
- I love this! It’s a fantastic little free app. Any reason you don’t open source it? I’d love to help fix some bugs that I encounter.
by dddddaviddddd
0 subcomment
- It would be nice if the homepage loaded more gracefully with Javascript disabled -- as it is, it's completely blank without JS.
- I’ve been meaning to build a personal selfhostable version of this. I’ll vibecode it as simple webapp someday and OSS it, should be easy enough.
I see the merit in this project as well but no way in hell i share this data with a third party
- This is definitely very useful, and something i've been thinking of to build myself. A personal CRM. Issue is when I see something like this - where it will take me around half hour to figure out - while i can vibe code something in an hour which will do much more and personalize it for me, I hold back on trying it out.
- Hey it’s an amazing app. I was trying to make an app where user can send notifications to friends when they think about them. I think it would be a great additional feature to your app! Reach me if you want to talk about it
- The review section looks very unpolished: no x-padding at all, a random black a rrow..
- Beautiful. I am a little worried that you’ll soon lose interest and stop supporting the app without a business model. Do you plan to at least get sponsored, e.g. by some kind of foundation, like ones that are behind mental health initiatives?
- So, I respect the entrepeneurship and technical skills to make this. Well done!
That being said, this is insane.
Maintaining your social network is a skill, just like being able to swim, doing math, being able to hold a good conversation, being able to code or cook or do your taxes.
The "promise" and "illusion" of silicon valley is that all problems (including and maybe even especially social ones) can be solved with technology. This is not true.
Having to use your brain to think about things is definitely painful. It also has incredibly good long-term effects -- and also negative short-term effects because it costs energy. It's similar to eating well, regularly exercising and other aspects of taking care of yourself.
Making sure you can remember to think about other people is not a problem -- it's a REALLY valuable skill that is gradually disappearing.
- Duolingo for relationships. The word engagement is hot lately.
- website looks exactly like a millions of others ai coded tools, that may be a turn off for someone like me
by paulhebert
0 subcomment
- This looks lovely! I've been meaning to do a better job of calling friends and family. I'll try it out!
- Why is it only for iOS? That fully cuts me and many others off from even trying it.
- Nice Idea! I noticed a bug during contact import. The month of birthdays are shifted -1 :)
by Madmallard
1 subcomments
- The solution to fostering relationships is getting off the computer and your phone and social media for a prolonged period of time.
- Looks lovely, but unusable by me as I'm on Android.
- I am probably too old for this, so I don't understand the purpose of this app. As life goes on, old relationships are either maintained naturally or fade away, new ones replace them, etc. If I don't remember or feel like calling someone, I don't. The only thing I need an app for, is to keep track of birthdays, any calendar can do that.
Genuine question: for someone who finds this useful, how and why?
- AI writing = nobody will read it. The lure of easy perfection is death to meaningful interaction.
by devcraft_ai
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by MagicMoonlight
0 subcomment
- You definitely slopcoded this entire thing, including all the text. It ha that weird AI tone to it.
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