Show HN: My small side project - Direct app links via SMS

Show HN: My small side project - Direct app links via SMS(apptxter.com)

4 points by avalore 13 years ago | 5 comments

avalore 13 years ago |

This is my first solo side project, that I only decided to do after the feature was requested by a couple of clients. Rather than create their own individual solutions I figured it would make sense to roll it in to a web app that others can use. It's currently being tested by these clients, I have a little more work left to do (better number input/validation for starters) then I'll be launching.

Any comments or advice would be much appreciated. I'm usually an iOS dev so cutting my teeth on web dev again… a lot has changed in 4 years. If anyone is interested: it's hosted on heroku using flask and SQLAlchemy for the web app, Twilio for SMS and redis for queueing messages.

Jeremy1026 13 years ago |

Question for you, if users are going to the applications website, why wouldn't they simply click a download link from there? Why the added step of submitting their phone number to receive it as a text? Now, with automatic download syncing, I personally don't see how this is efficient for the end user.

avalore 13 years ago | |

Good question. If the user isn't on a mobile device then it could be easier for a number of reasons:

1) It's not their machine, or they're not signed in for automatic syncing, so getting a link on their device that takes them straight to the app store listing is easier.

2) I very rarely let a link to the app store open up iTunes on my laptop so again an SMS message is quicker to getting it on my device.

3) With the above points you could just say, "search for the app on the store", but in lots of cases (from an iOS point of view) it can be difficult to find the app.

raghunathj 13 years ago |

The idea is amazing, but when you are restricting only for app doesn't make sense as people normally like to go to app store and sync it. But using the same feature making people to subscribe to newsletter etc might make sense

avalore 13 years ago | |

Thanks for the comment, the initial idea is/was to just send a link to an app… saying that it won't take much to allow sending of further messages/updates to registered numbers.