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Show HN: My first project – Football voting app built in RubyMotion

73 points by bg23 12y ago

logikblok 12y ago
Hey this looks impressive. Something I can use to end arguments as well where can I deliver feedback once I start using it? Cheers
- bg23 12y ago
  Yes thanks, any feedback is very much welcome!
dvcc 12y ago
Does this exist for general opinions? Looks awesome overall.
- bg23 12y ago
  I think a few have tried but nothing major I don't think. I recall a site called Opinsy a year or so back. My initial thoughts we're creating it on a subject I was passionate about, as I personally wouldn't go on a generalist site to argue my opinion's about chalk then about cheese. But the concept can be applied to anything of course.
netskrill 12y ago
I'm learning Rubymotion myself. Can you list out the different technologies/gems used in this? RMQ, teacup, etc...? This looks really nice, btw.
- bg23 12y ago
  Thank you. I bought Rubymotion in November and it took me a month or two testing out different gems etc. I ended up using RMQ, CDQ, Restkit, formotion, bits of bubblewrap
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    Did you try promotion at all? I've made a few toy apps with RMQ and now have been trying Promotion. I think I'm going to stick with Promotion but would love to hear anyone's experience with the various frameworks.
    - bg23 12y ago
      I've not got round to Promotion yet. I'm really enjoying RMQ though and would be hard to move away from it!
      - wuliwong 12y ago
        Definitely stay with what works and obviously RMQ is working for you!
Omnipresent 12y ago
This looks great! I'm in the process of building my first iOS app with Rubymotion. May I ask where you got all the awesome looking icons and whether you used RMQ? Awesome work!
- bg23 12y ago
  Thanks! I'm using RMQ for the front end and CDQ (also created from infinitered) for the Models and backend syncing. The icons are from https://flaticons.co/ https://flaticons.co/
  - Omnipresent 12y ago
    awesome. I loved RMQ. I can't imagine the level of detail in your cell stylesheets though :) looks fantastic.
    - twerth 12y ago
      Offtopic question: I created RMQ, what specifically do you love, what do you think needs improvement?
      - wuliwong 12y ago
        Just to chime in, I've been using rubymotion for a couple weeks and used RMQ for some toy apps. I now have switched to Promotion. I may come back to RMQ but my goal is the quickest path to an MVP on iOS. It seems Promotion is a bit easier (as I have no prior iOS experience) but I could be wrong. I think RMQ seemed really great, and I do think I could get where I'm going using it (but maybe a little slower). If I recall, working with tableviews is where I switched to Promotion. Tableviews are dead simple for Promotion. I saw your video on the more complex view (the name is escaping me at the moment) but I am generally going to be using the tableview. At the end of the day, none of the offerings have solid documentation (with examples!). For my needs, Promotion (so far) happened to have the documentation and examples in the places I needed it. I would definitely switch to a framework if it had easier to use docs and examples, but that's just me. I'm not a typical developer (computational physicist and musician turned web/mobile dev).
nowlnowl 12y ago
Thinking about an Android version?
- bg23 12y ago
  Yes definately.
- mwcampbell 12y ago
  Is there any good way to port a RubyMotion app to Android? Or would you have to rewrite it?
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    I don't believe that is possible. I think the closest thing would be http://ruboto.org/ http://ruboto.org/ which allows you to code native Android apps in ruby.
waterside81 12y ago
As a football fan, this looks like it can be fun. Especially as you're watching the game live, create a poll to see the opinion of people in real-time during a controversial play e.g. "Was Rooney tripped or did he dive?". Good stuff bg23. One small nitpick: on your demo screen shots, you have "Which is the best player?". It should be "Who" not "Which".
- bg23 12y ago
  Thanks waterside, and thanks for picking that error up. Completely envision the app working in real-time too. Also for man of the match voting etc. Future versions will also include a breakdown of the votes by supporters as Football is a tribal sport and opinions are biased towards your club. Thanks for the feedback
  - nelmaven 12y ago
    I think this will be a especially fun for the World Cup. Good stuff!
  - rkuykendall-com 12y ago
    I agree with the "event" polls aspect. There should be a way to say that you are live-watching a specific event and get/create realtime polls. Microsoft did this with the presidential debates and it was a blast. I'm not a sports guy, but once this app is more developed you may consider forking it to politics or TV shows or maybe just generic mass events.
wingerlang 12y ago
Is that a volleyball in the logo though?
- soneca 12y ago
  It is a very old football one: https://icfut.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/files_37988_201003301120020b4a.jpg https://icfut.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/files_37988_201003... But I agree he should have gone with the traditional one: http://donosdacopa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bola-mexico-1970-1g.jpg http://donosdacopa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bola-mexico-1...
- brycekahle 12y ago
  Volleyballs generally have 3 parallel panels, while the older style footballs have 2.
- leemcalilly 12y ago
  +1 for the old school ball
- bg23 12y ago
  Still trying to figure out how to add a piechart/barchart into the logo...
  - wingerlang 12y ago
    You could have a line-chart with the ball at the end? Like this(ish) http://imgur.com/FGFGjI8 http://imgur.com/FGFGjI8
markcrazyhorse 12y ago
Love the site design too
leemcalilly 12y ago
Just in time for the world cup!
m4tthumphrey 12y ago
Looks awesome man. I presume there are no plans for Android at this time? :)
- bg23 12y ago
  There are definitely plans, I would like to get round to it asap really....
wlj 12y ago
Impressive. Really like the design. A quick note...on your Twitter auth page it's not possible to paste usernames and passwords into the fields. Probably not a huge problem for most but my passwords are at the long and un-typeable end of the spectrum and I normally paste these in from a separate password manager app.
- bg23 12y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I will look into improving that!
finalight 12y ago
too bad only for ios, furthermore the SDK that you use can only be deployed to ios as well
- bg23 12y ago
  Well if the app is successful I plan on releasing it for Android and on the web
knes 12y ago
Really great idea and looks like it it well executed. On a side note, I really enjoy the new turn of HN moderation which let a lot more of cool project / show HN rise to the front page. Good job bg23!
- ppanagi 12y ago
  Or google, intitle:show hn site:news.ycombinator.com
joshdance 12y ago
For a first project, design looks pretty great. It it works like it looks, nice work!
wuliwong 12y ago
Just installed it, seems to run great and it looks good too. Selfishly, I would LOVE if you wrote an article about implementing signup with facebook/twitter via rubymotion. What did you write your server using?
- bg23 12y ago
  Happy to write an article on that. I initially built the website using Ruby on Rails and had twitter/facebook omniauth implemented. It was then a simple case of displaying a web view in the app with login similar to how you would on the web, then diverting back to the app upon login.
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    awesome, what's your twitter handle or website? I was thinking the webview might be the simplest way to go. I wonder if you get any extra functionality by tying into iOS's facebook/twitter stuff? Might be easier for things like "post to facebook" and the like.
    - bg23 12y ago
      Yeh I think it would be easier eventually. I struggled trying to implement it though looking at objective-c. Its on my to-do list
      - wuliwong 12y ago
        I've found stuff like this https://github.com/aaronfeng/facebook-auth-ruby-motion-example https://github.com/aaronfeng/facebook-auth-ruby-motion-examp... but I haven't actually tried implementing anything yet.
JSno 12y ago
Great app. I have tried. Registred as MANUTD fan. your app gives me some Norwich polls I don't care. Maybe that is something this fabulous app can improve. thanks!
- bg23 12y ago
  When you log in initially you are following 'Footpoll'. The main page is similar to twitter dependent on who you are following. You can go to the categories section to view Man Utd polls.
hydralist 12y ago
r/soccer would love it
goshx 12y ago
Did you find help to translate it to portuguese yet? Brazil will love this.
zscho97 12y ago
I've been debating about learning code for a while. Really like what you did. How long did it take you to learn and develop?
tejaswiy 12y ago
I feel there needs to be an expiry date on polls. I'm still getting questions on who's going to win in past football games.
almata 12y ago
There's one thing I totally disliked: I hate when I need to login as the very first required step. I (may) still don't know what the app does and I already have to login or create an account. To me, that's a bad user experience and in general I uninstall apps that do that. Very few apps really need the user to be logged in from moment zero. I would suggest to let the user see what the app is for, so he feels by himself how cool it'd be to have an account to use the app at its 100%.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  I understand this argument but I don't believe it is a slam dunk. On the web, a user has invested nothing other than a click or possibly typing a url. On mobile, a user has already downloaded and installed the app. They have more invested, so you would think, are more likely to create an account. That being said, you are certainly making the "funnel" smaller at the top but possibly the slope of the edges are more forgiving to the app developer as the user progresses down the conversion funnel?
  - almata 12y ago
    I don't know. I know apps requiring login as step zero have a higher rate of "installdeletes" (I myself do that usually). Not sure if the users who actually decide to stay (so, to login) are then "better users". It could be. It actually makes sense. But I have no data about that tbf.
    - wuliwong 12y ago
      Hah, I don't have any data either. This was a debate at the last startup I worked.
dan1234 12y ago
Here's a bug: I signed up via email, I was told my username had already been taken but then it let me go to the next screen and create polls with that username. I like it though, nice design & well executed.
anupshinde 12y ago
This question might be a bit naive. I'm developing a similar app and I have not developed full mobile apps earlier - I started with Phonegap. Was there a reason why you did not consider that?
- bg23 12y ago
  I came from a zero programming background and built the website in Ruby on Rails whilst learning Ruby. I wanted to build a fully native app for the best user experience and really enjoyed learning ruby, Rubymotion seemed like the perfect fit and it didn't disappoint. I still have the limitation with Android of course...
  - anupshinde 12y ago
    Great work! Where/How did you learn Ruby (and programming)?
livestyle 12y ago
Really clean design. This reminds me of the Heineken Star Player app from a couple of years ago. http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-star-player http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-st... I work for a pro sporting league and have need for the same experience.
livestyle 12y ago
Really clean design. This reminds me of the Heineken Star Player app from a couple of years ago. http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-star-player http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-st... I work for a pro sporting league and have need for the same experience.

73 points by bg23 12y ago

Hey this looks impressive. Something I can use to end arguments as well where can I deliver feedback once I start using it? Cheers

bg23 12y ago
Yes thanks, any feedback is very much welcome!

dvcc 12y ago

Does this exist for general opinions? Looks awesome overall.

bg23 12y ago
I think a few have tried but nothing major I don't think. I recall a site called Opinsy a year or so back. My initial thoughts we're creating it on a subject I was passionate about, as I personally wouldn't go on a generalist site to argue my opinion's about chalk then about cheese. But the concept can be applied to anything of course.

netskrill 12y ago

I'm learning Rubymotion myself. Can you list out the different technologies/gems used in this? RMQ, teacup, etc...? This looks really nice, btw.

bg23 12y ago
Thank you. I bought Rubymotion in November and it took me a month or two testing out different gems etc. I ended up using RMQ, CDQ, Restkit, formotion, bits of bubblewrap
- wuliwong 12y ago
  Did you try promotion at all? I've made a few toy apps with RMQ and now have been trying Promotion. I think I'm going to stick with Promotion but would love to hear anyone's experience with the various frameworks.
  - bg23 12y ago
    I've not got round to Promotion yet. I'm really enjoying RMQ though and would be hard to move away from it!
    - wuliwong 12y ago
      Definitely stay with what works and obviously RMQ is working for you!

Omnipresent 12y ago

This looks great! I'm in the process of building my first iOS app with Rubymotion. May I ask where you got all the awesome looking icons and whether you used RMQ? Awesome work!

bg23 12y ago
Thanks! I'm using RMQ for the front end and CDQ (also created from infinitered) for the Models and backend syncing. The icons are from https://flaticons.co/ https://flaticons.co/
- Omnipresent 12y ago
  awesome. I loved RMQ. I can't imagine the level of detail in your cell stylesheets though :) looks fantastic.
  - twerth 12y ago
    Offtopic question: I created RMQ, what specifically do you love, what do you think needs improvement?
    - wuliwong 12y ago
      Just to chime in, I've been using rubymotion for a couple weeks and used RMQ for some toy apps. I now have switched to Promotion. I may come back to RMQ but my goal is the quickest path to an MVP on iOS. It seems Promotion is a bit easier (as I have no prior iOS experience) but I could be wrong. I think RMQ seemed really great, and I do think I could get where I'm going using it (but maybe a little slower). If I recall, working with tableviews is where I switched to Promotion. Tableviews are dead simple for Promotion. I saw your video on the more complex view (the name is escaping me at the moment) but I am generally going to be using the tableview. At the end of the day, none of the offerings have solid documentation (with examples!). For my needs, Promotion (so far) happened to have the documentation and examples in the places I needed it. I would definitely switch to a framework if it had easier to use docs and examples, but that's just me. I'm not a typical developer (computational physicist and musician turned web/mobile dev).

nowlnowl 12y ago

Thinking about an Android version?

bg23 12y ago
Yes definately.
mwcampbell 12y ago
Is there any good way to port a RubyMotion app to Android? Or would you have to rewrite it?
- wuliwong 12y ago
  I don't believe that is possible. I think the closest thing would be http://ruboto.org/ http://ruboto.org/ which allows you to code native Android apps in ruby.

waterside81 12y ago

As a football fan, this looks like it can be fun. Especially as you're watching the game live, create a poll to see the opinion of people in real-time during a controversial play e.g. "Was Rooney tripped or did he dive?". Good stuff bg23. One small nitpick: on your demo screen shots, you have "Which is the best player?". It should be "Who" not "Which".

bg23 12y ago
Thanks waterside, and thanks for picking that error up. Completely envision the app working in real-time too. Also for man of the match voting etc. Future versions will also include a breakdown of the votes by supporters as Football is a tribal sport and opinions are biased towards your club. Thanks for the feedback
- nelmaven 12y ago
  I think this will be a especially fun for the World Cup. Good stuff!
- rkuykendall-com 12y ago
  I agree with the "event" polls aspect. There should be a way to say that you are live-watching a specific event and get/create realtime polls. Microsoft did this with the presidential debates and it was a blast. I'm not a sports guy, but once this app is more developed you may consider forking it to politics or TV shows or maybe just generic mass events.

wingerlang 12y ago

Is that a volleyball in the logo though?

soneca 12y ago
It is a very old football one: https://icfut.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/files_37988_201003301120020b4a.jpg https://icfut.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/files_37988_201003... But I agree he should have gone with the traditional one: http://donosdacopa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bola-mexico-1970-1g.jpg http://donosdacopa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bola-mexico-1...
brycekahle 12y ago
Volleyballs generally have 3 parallel panels, while the older style footballs have 2.
leemcalilly 12y ago
+1 for the old school ball
bg23 12y ago
Still trying to figure out how to add a piechart/barchart into the logo...
- wingerlang 12y ago
  You could have a line-chart with the ball at the end? Like this(ish) http://imgur.com/FGFGjI8 http://imgur.com/FGFGjI8

markcrazyhorse 12y ago

Love the site design too

leemcalilly 12y ago

Just in time for the world cup!

m4tthumphrey 12y ago

Looks awesome man. I presume there are no plans for Android at this time? :)

bg23 12y ago
There are definitely plans, I would like to get round to it asap really....

wlj 12y ago

Impressive. Really like the design. A quick note...on your Twitter auth page it's not possible to paste usernames and passwords into the fields. Probably not a huge problem for most but my passwords are at the long and un-typeable end of the spectrum and I normally paste these in from a separate password manager app.

bg23 12y ago
Thanks for the heads up. I will look into improving that!

finalight 12y ago

too bad only for ios, furthermore the SDK that you use can only be deployed to ios as well

bg23 12y ago
Well if the app is successful I plan on releasing it for Android and on the web

knes 12y ago

Really great idea and looks like it it well executed. On a side note, I really enjoy the new turn of HN moderation which let a lot more of cool project / show HN rise to the front page. Good job bg23!

ppanagi 12y ago
Or google, intitle:show hn site:news.ycombinator.com

joshdance 12y ago

For a first project, design looks pretty great. It it works like it looks, nice work!

wuliwong 12y ago

Just installed it, seems to run great and it looks good too. Selfishly, I would LOVE if you wrote an article about implementing signup with facebook/twitter via rubymotion. What did you write your server using?

bg23 12y ago
Happy to write an article on that. I initially built the website using Ruby on Rails and had twitter/facebook omniauth implemented. It was then a simple case of displaying a web view in the app with login similar to how you would on the web, then diverting back to the app upon login.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  awesome, what's your twitter handle or website? I was thinking the webview might be the simplest way to go. I wonder if you get any extra functionality by tying into iOS's facebook/twitter stuff? Might be easier for things like "post to facebook" and the like.
  - bg23 12y ago
    Yeh I think it would be easier eventually. I struggled trying to implement it though looking at objective-c. Its on my to-do list
    - wuliwong 12y ago
      I've found stuff like this https://github.com/aaronfeng/facebook-auth-ruby-motion-example https://github.com/aaronfeng/facebook-auth-ruby-motion-examp... but I haven't actually tried implementing anything yet.

JSno 12y ago

Great app. I have tried. Registred as MANUTD fan. your app gives me some Norwich polls I don't care. Maybe that is something this fabulous app can improve. thanks!

bg23 12y ago
When you log in initially you are following 'Footpoll'. The main page is similar to twitter dependent on who you are following. You can go to the categories section to view Man Utd polls.

hydralist 12y ago

r/soccer would love it

goshx 12y ago

Did you find help to translate it to portuguese yet? Brazil will love this.

zscho97 12y ago

I've been debating about learning code for a while. Really like what you did. How long did it take you to learn and develop?

tejaswiy 12y ago

I feel there needs to be an expiry date on polls. I'm still getting questions on who's going to win in past football games.

almata 12y ago

There's one thing I totally disliked: I hate when I need to login as the very first required step. I (may) still don't know what the app does and I already have to login or create an account. To me, that's a bad user experience and in general I uninstall apps that do that. Very few apps really need the user to be logged in from moment zero. I would suggest to let the user see what the app is for, so he feels by himself how cool it'd be to have an account to use the app at its 100%.

wuliwong 12y ago
I understand this argument but I don't believe it is a slam dunk. On the web, a user has invested nothing other than a click or possibly typing a url. On mobile, a user has already downloaded and installed the app. They have more invested, so you would think, are more likely to create an account. That being said, you are certainly making the "funnel" smaller at the top but possibly the slope of the edges are more forgiving to the app developer as the user progresses down the conversion funnel?
- almata 12y ago
  I don't know. I know apps requiring login as step zero have a higher rate of "installdeletes" (I myself do that usually). Not sure if the users who actually decide to stay (so, to login) are then "better users". It could be. It actually makes sense. But I have no data about that tbf.
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    Hah, I don't have any data either. This was a debate at the last startup I worked.

dan1234 12y ago

Here's a bug: I signed up via email, I was told my username had already been taken but then it let me go to the next screen and create polls with that username. I like it though, nice design & well executed.

anupshinde 12y ago

This question might be a bit naive. I'm developing a similar app and I have not developed full mobile apps earlier - I started with Phonegap. Was there a reason why you did not consider that?

bg23 12y ago
I came from a zero programming background and built the website in Ruby on Rails whilst learning Ruby. I wanted to build a fully native app for the best user experience and really enjoyed learning ruby, Rubymotion seemed like the perfect fit and it didn't disappoint. I still have the limitation with Android of course...
- anupshinde 12y ago
  Great work! Where/How did you learn Ruby (and programming)?

livestyle 12y ago

Really clean design. This reminds me of the Heineken Star Player app from a couple of years ago. http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-star-player http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-st... I work for a pro sporting league and have need for the same experience.

livestyle 12y ago