I wanted to be able to type on my phone, and felt that the solutions that were available were expensive. The fact that users like it, and are reaching out with suggestions is a huge reward. Thank you!
I wanted to be able to type with a keyboard on my phone. Multiple reasons for this:
- I am so much faster in typing than hunting and pecking on the phone with my thumbs.
- I don’t want personal message notifications (from Messages, Whatsapp) popping up when I have my phone open in a conference room (or on a Zoom call when I am sharing my screen)
- I wanted to be able to keep my personal life and work life separate. My text messages, WhatsApp, facebook, personal email are on the phone.
All 3 were solved for me by solving 1. Then a friend challenged me to put it in the App Store. That, was a lot of work, and a huge learning experience. This is my first app where I have developed everything, on any public app platform.
Users started downloading the app. Users liked the app, and everything was looking great. A silver lining.
And then MacOS 10.15.3 came out (January 2020). A bug in the OS broke my app (and all other similar apps). This bug also spread to 10.14.6 and 10.13.6 in their Security updates. Killed my app, killed my plans. I stopped development on the app. Went crazy getting somebody in apple to see the issue. Finally filed a paid support incident, sent them my code, and said “Please help me figure out why this code is not working.”
Two months later Apple fixed the bug. So this app was truly launched on March 25th 2020. Users came back, they liked the app, and slowly the downloads have been increasing. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I now have purpose, positive feedback is such an awesome feeling, and I am back to thinking how I can improve the app.
Users are also finding other uses for the App, they are using it to control their TVs, iPads, Android devices, even the Rasberry Pi.
If you reached here, do check out my other project. https://lytesync.com and do tell your friends about KeyPad.
Feedback
Let me know what you think about the app. Especially if there is a feature that you want, or an issue that you are facing. I will respond as soon as I can. Send me email at tools@toolbunch.com, it seems to be better than feedback in the website (some users are seeing my emails going to junk mail).