Episode 14: HoursTracker With Carlos Ribas

Name: Goodpods
Rating: 4.8 (3721 reviews)

04/16/15 • 51 min

Carlos Ribas joins me to discuss his app HoursTracker. We discuss hobbies turned pro, the fact that there is still success on the App Store, iOS widget security considerations,  Watch apps and more!

Carlos Began Cutting His Coding Teeth Early, Then Moved On To Cutting Edge Online Retail & Day Trading Backend Systems.

Carlos started programming in middle school in BASIC. He wanted to be a game developer, so he spent a lot of time learning about efficiency and low-level programming.

After high school he got a job at a web company and learned how to write CGI programs in C under Apache, mostly feedback forms. In the late 90s, while working for a small web company, on the frontier of e-commerce he wrote custom shopping basket systems in Perl. He then went on to working on server-side C#/.NET since .NET 1.1, spanning everything from more shopping baskets to real-time day trading order processing systems.

Since then he continued developing HoursTracker while working as a Sr. .NET developer, architect, or manager. A few years ago with his friend David he started working on HoursTracker Cloud, a cross-platform web companion to HoursTracker. David takes on all of the web work and Carlos supplies the back-end logic. Currently this is a read-only web site but he has plans beyond that.

Outside of computers, Carlos like fast cars & closely follows Formula 1. He tells me he’s pretty quick in a racing kart. He also dabbles in guitar. Carlos is also an AV geek and built his own home theater in his house including nerdy elements like gray scale calibration using a colorimeter, laser-assisted speaker aiming, and speaker EQ with an SPL meter and band-limited noise.

Simply Put, HoursTracker Is The Only Mobile Time Tracking App You’ll Ever Need.

HoursTracker is a full featured time tracking app for iOS and Android. I’ve actually been using it myself for years to track my day job, and I am currently trying to get into the habit of using it to track my app development project time. If you check out HoursTracker within a few days of this release you can even catch it on sale!

You clock in and out as you work and watch as time accumulates and earnings grow. Then easily review your past entries, grouped by day, week, month, or pay period. There’s no need to enter each pay period yourself – just set your pay schedule type and HoursTracker automatically calculates everything, even daily and weekly overtime earnings. Time entries are automatically created when you clock out. Or, you can add entries yourself in just a few quick taps. You can also easily export your data by job, date, or selection. Then choose to export as a text summary or in spreadsheet-ready CSV format. HoursTracker also supports geofencing for reminders or automatically clocking in or out. It even has a convenient Today View widget for accessing your jobs quickly, and will have a full featured  Watch app ready on the day your new watch arrives.

Started As A Hobby Project To Make An App For His Wife, HoursTracker Has Turned Into A Full Time Job For Carlos.

In 2008, on the encouragement of his boss, Carlos purchased a Mac and started work on HoursTracker to satisfy his wife’s need for a good time tracking app. After she felt frustrated that the apps currently on the market didn’t meet her needs, Carlos decided he would make her one.

In 2009 he launched HoursTracker 1.0. The original version had basic support for multiple jobs and time entries for them. He then later added pay periods and automatic overtime calculation. As the App Store and the iOS SDK feature set has matured, Carlos has kept busy making sure HoursTracker matured right along side it. He carefully studied new APIs available and then implemented the ones that he felt best suited the needs of the app. Along the way he’s adopted geofencing, a fresh new look to blend perfectly into the iOS 7 redesign, and continued with cutting edge iOS 8 features. Today the app boasts a Today Widget, Actionable Notifications & Touch ID. There is even an  Watch app ready for watch launch day. He’s also added web and cloud features, and better handling of breaks with pauses & adjustments to your time entries, as well as tips and milage. There is even an Android version he maintains himself as well.

Carlos has recently gone full time indie, and is really doubling down on HoursTracker. He recently wrote a very popular post on Medium about how it’s grown into a full time job for him. He’s in it for the long haul and has lots of plans for the future, including an upcoming companion app.

Contact Links:

Carlos Began Cutting His Coding Teeth Early, Then Moved On To Cutting Edge Online Retail & Day Trading Backend Systems.

Carlos started programming in middle school in BASIC. He wanted to be a game developer, so he spent a lot of time learning about efficiency and low-level programming.

Simply Put, HoursTracker Is The Only Mobile Time Tracking App You’ll Ever Need.

Started As A Hobby Project To Make An App For His Wife, HoursTracker Has Turned Into A Full Time Job For Carlos.

Contact Links:

Previous Episode

Episode 13: Wants And Needs With Marco Napoli

In App Story’s first ever Release Day Special, Marco Napoli joins me to talk about his brand new app Wants And Needs, an app dedicated to helping keep your life balanced and in perspective. We discuss the philosophy behind the app and go into some technical details of it’s implementation, as well as Marco’s thoughts on marketing and important strategies to succeed.

After years in the enterprise sector, Marco was enchanted by the iPhone and shifted to mobile development.

Marco is the founder of Pixolini, Inc. an iOS, Web, Windows, Enterprise and Client Server Developer. He’s been passionate about computers and developing software his whole life. He spent a lot of time in the enterprise sector making things like banking and sales software before moving into the consumer space. He wrote first iPhone app in 2008. These days he is primarily focused on mobile app development especially iPhone, iPad, iOS Extensions and he’s already got things planned for the Watch. He confided in me his biggest development secret, he cannot code without caffeine. He loves Espresso, Cappuccino, Coffee and also Martial Arts.

If you only Want without Thanks, you will never be happy.

We all consider the things we want (like a new car) and the things we need (like making the rent or mortgage payment). But how many of us think about what we already have? Are we grateful? Do we take what we have for granted? Do our Wants outweigh our Needs? Are our Needs overshadowing our Thanks? Wants and Needs app was designed with these questions in mind to help place your Life in Perspective.

Wants and Needs is a brand new app designed to organize personal goals, ambitions, and expressions of gratitude into three simple categories: Wants, Needs, and Thanks. The app not only gives users the ability to personalize their thoughts, but it also presents their custom data with graphic charts. These charts help the user visually understand if their life goals are in or out of balance. Life in Perspective.

Marco’s design process starts with how the user will use the app, and everything is completely designed around that perspective.

About a year ago Marco was inspired to develop Wants and Needs to help place our Life in Perspective, by acknowledging our gratitude. He was sitting in Church listening to the Pastor's homily talking about the time he had to reflect on his life. It was like a lightbulb went on and Marco first envisioned Wants and Needs as an app.

He began mapping out the needs of the project in his mind. At this stage he was extremely focused on how the users will use the app. As he fleshed out the details mentally he pictured the flow of the app and then moved on to prototyping the storyboard. He then spent time playing with the storyboard on his device and refined the flow of the app and the User Experience. Next he knew an app like his absolutely had to sync between multiple devices. He then got to work on Core Data syncing, which was also beneficial as he needed it for the app’s Today View Widget, and will need it for his future plans for the app as well. Marco shared with me some of these future plans for the app, one of which will be an Watch app, and many others as well. I look forward to seeing where else he takes the app in the future.

Marco views the marketing so integral to an app’s success, that he starts that process almost before he’s even really started developing the app. He told me a lot of interesting pieces of his strategy during the interview. I personally believe a developer would do well to take notes from him. He certainly help me to realize some of my own marketing short comings.

Contact Links:

Support Marco & the show by using this link to get Wants And Needs on the App Store: