Show HN: My First iOS App

Show HN: My First iOS App(apps.apple.com)

2 points by zacksiri 28 days ago | 4 comments

Honestly I didn't think it would be possible when I started, my background is Elixir / Phoenix / Backend engineering. But thx to Codex the app turned out to be something I'm quite proud of.

The app is designed to help you find movies to watch. Give you back control, instead of just taking what the algorithms give you, and you end up scrolling for 30 mins not picking anything just to end up on youtube or tiktok.

You can find movies based on your interest, ask it for top 10 lists on specific providers and so on...

Do let me know your thoughts. I've personally discovered many gems I never knew existed for example:

- Uncut Gems

- Awakenings

- Wake up Dead Man (Knive's Out)

- A Quiet Place I / II

- Blackberry

- Army of Thieves / Army of the Dead

- Infernal Affairs

- The Amateur

I hope it gives you as much joy as it has given me.

granto 28 days ago |

Congrats on shipping! Looks quite polished. May be helpful to show how it differ from JustWatch or other streaming service aggregators.

zacksiri 28 days ago | |

Well with JustWatch and other service aggregators you cannot search for movies by themes / use natural language. For example:

- "Zombie or post apocalyptic movies released in the last 5 years"

- "Find me top 10 movies on [insert streaming provider]"

- "Can you find me top 10 movies released in the last 5 years I haven't seen"

- "Movies that will make me feel like I'm trapped in space"

- "Movies that put smart people under pressure"

You simply cannot do this with the streaming service aggregators or JustWatch.

vunderba 28 days ago | | |

> You simply cannot do this with the streaming service aggregators or JustWatch.

While that might be true, you can also just type "Movies that show smart people under pressure" [1] or similar queries directly into Google, and Gemini AI overview will give you a list of movies that match said criteria.

I assume you’re just passing the request on to an LLM. So unless the LLM is running on prem (like a tiny llama model), you’re probably sending it to OpenRouter or some other AI provider at cost which might explain the In-App purchases.

In all candor, I think it’s going to be an incredibly hard sell to convince people to pay for a recommendation app.

[1] - https://share.google/aimode/GiCcCHX5MpgN5o5V2