Product Updates: July 2022

Another hot summer month, another month filled with app updates! I’ve been focused on improving existing features, bringing the Android app up to par with iOS, and running a few small experiments for new ideas.

The Android app received the bulk of my attention this past month. It’s almost completely caught up to the iOS app now in terms of Pods functionality (like nudges and following) and I’ve been optimizing the code to make it noticeably faster. If you catch anything broken from all the changes, please reach out to me by email.

iOS Updates

• 🖼 Moment history layout - New photos appear bigger and above moment text in your history tab. I increased the max ratio for photos in Pods up to 1:1 ratio (so they don’t overwhelm the text).
• 🗑 Delete account in app settings - I’ve always been a little worried about having an option to delete your account in the app because of the chance of accidental deletions, but the new delete button requires a password, clarifies the process, and gives you 72 hours to reconsider.
• 📆 Memories 3 years ago in the Calendar - Did you know you can use the Calendar to add moments to ANY day? The Calendar previously only went back to the day you joined Happyfeed, but now you can go back 3 years (and possibly longer soon!)
• 👨‍🔬 Fun experiments - You might have noticed the emojis that popup after you finish a day. I added a little fun by adding more options and a small chance that you’ll get three of a kind and a special effect!

Android Updates

• 👀 Moment history layout - Photos has a much bigger focus in your moment history now. I got rid of the extra padding on the left and moved the photos above the text to better reflect the way you upload them
• ⌨️ Send any emoji as a reaction - Tap a new option in the reaction pop-up to select any emoji from your device’s built-in emoji keyboard. User profiles - Tap a Pod member’s photo at the top of the Pods screen to see their profile. You’ll see a bigger photo and some useful options (details below)
• 🤫 Muting users - From profiles, you can mute members of your Pod. This is perfect for random pods where you might just not love someone’s content. You can skip their content without having to leave the Pod.
• 👉 Sending nudges - Once per day, you’ll be able to send a “nudge” to your fellow Pod members and followers. Nudges might be a way to say “hi” or remind someone to keep up the habit!
• 👂 Following - To add flexibility to sharing, now Android users can follow each other and share posts with followers. Following requires approval from the person you follow and you can learn more about it in this blog post about followers

Thank You!

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone for being so incredibly understanding about a (not-so-minor) bug I introduced this month. Since Happyfeed is a daily habit for many of us, I really hope that anyone affected was able to quickly recognize the issue and update to the version with a fix. Thank you to everyone who messaged me about the bug too - that helped me get it fixed within hours (rather than days).

You may or may not know that I’m the sole person designing and building Happyfeed. I’d like to be more transparent about that moving forward and am trying to avoid using the words “we” and “our” so often. I think that habit probably comes from a mix of a personal dislike when people on teams say “I” too often, wanting to be taken seriously early on, and looking ahead to when I actually have a team at Happyfeed.

It’s been almost 9 years since I started Happyfeed and it’s been such a joy to work on!