Product Updates: February 2023

Welcome back to my (inconsistent) monthly cadence of reporting on new features for Happyfeed, after spending nearly 100% of November through January building and launching video support for iOS.

Even if you’re new to Happyfeed (hi 👋) you’ve probably noticed that photos and, more recently, video are what makes Happyfeed special compared to our peers in the mental health space. Whether it’s easy uploading, efficient device storage, or new ways to review your past memories, Happyfeed hopefully just does photos and video better.

What’s New

I spent the last month working on a wide range of updates to photo and video features - including a big experiment on iOS, more media support on Web, and allowing Android users to upload multiple pics per post.

Web:

• 🎠 Multiple photos display - When you add multiple photos to a post, they show up as a carousel (to use the technical term) in the apps but they weren’t accessible on the web version. Now you can see all your media online too.
• 🎬 Video player - Just like multiple photos, the web app wasn’t showing videos either. As of February, enjoy your videos on our website too!
• 🙌 Share pages - Both of the above changes are working on any moments you share via unique share links now too. Bring joy to everyone (please!)

iOS:

• ✂️ Monthly Movies - In case you missed it, now you can stitch together all your favorite photos and videos from a month into downloadable movie. Learn more in this post - Month Mashup Movies
• 😍 New Pods Emoji Picker - The emoji picker from the upload screen is now used for sending emoji reactions as well. The benefits? Less taps, more options, and the ability to remove a reaction.
• 🔘 Quick Media Buttons - To save you a few taps, you can now open your Photo Library right from the new moment screen without needing to go through the drawer. Same goes for the camera.
• ✨ Odds & Ends - Fixing uncommon crashes, adjusting options for Monthly Movies, and continuing to improve video support.

Android:

• 📸 4 Photos Per Post - Alongside a new photo adding drawer, Plus subscribers can now add up to 4 photos to each of their posts. That’s 40 per day if you really had a photogenic adventure!
• 🖼 Natural Image Ratios - No one wants to see their head chopped off in a photo. To prevent this and other unpleasantries, photos in your feed and Pods now show up in their proper ratios.
• ⚙️ Performance Updates - There may or may not be noticeable speed enhancements in the app, but I cleaned up the codebase significantly. This will make future updates much simpler and speed up my cadence here.

Surveying for Improvements

Last month, many of you filled out a survey asking about how you use the app and what could be better. With over 100 responses, it was incredibly valuable and I appreciate everyone who took the time to share their thoughts. I read every single answer 👀

At least a dozen of those specific requests have already been updated in the app and I’m planning to prioritize the larger ideas into bigger releases.

OK, What is a Pod?

According to the survey, about 25% of people on Happyfeed share in Pods. Many of the comments regarding Pods were about confusing interfaces and concepts. That’s 100% on me! I still think of Pods as an experiment but it’s time to clean up and polish them into a truly valuable part of the app. This means better sharing controls, profiles with recent shares, and a refreshed design to focus on the best features.

If you’re in the 75%, please know that Happyfeed will never force you to share because personal reflection shouldn’t be ruined by the expectations of others. It can be powerful for close friends, couples, and family, and I would like it to feel less confusing if you do want to share.

Thank You

Thank you for being such a thoughtful, kind, and helpful group of people! I can’t imagine Happyfeed growing as much as it has over the years without all the feedback and support ❤️