Alpenglow

After previously reaching #3 Top Free App in Spain on the App Store. Alpenglow hit #1 today after being shared on TikTok and going viral.

The app received 12.5K downloads yesterday and due to the increase in usage actually hit the API limit for SunsetWX. After a short period of downtime while I waited for my plan to be upgraded the app is back serving forecasts as normal.

I have a remote trigger for a "Low usage mode" for high traffic periods. Unfortunately one screen in the app doesn't follow those rules so I've submitted a release for iOS and Android to patch that up.

I've also hit a all time high of 100 active trials and I'm sure download figures will be even higher today now that the TikTok video in question has over 1.5M views.

I've wanted to support as many languages as possible within Alpenglow since v6.0 was released last October. I previously paid for translations from translated.com when I felt like adding a new language.

I've always been inspired by 1Password's crowdsourced approach using CrowdIn as a tool. We've previously used it at Buffer but never really got traction with the crowdsourcing element of the tool. However, I recently came across POEditor again and decided to give it a go for Alpenglow, adding the existing string files and opening up the project.

Alpenglow already had a cell within Settings that pointed users to a GitHub, which housed the string files they could translate. I've had a couple of contributions but not as many as I thought I could get.

In Alpenglow on iOS, I have a feature that allows me to dynamically add a notice to the first screen, usually used to communicate with users when there are service issues, I decided to slot in a notice asking for contributors pointing to the POEditor project.

Previously the app was only available in English, Spanish, German, French, Swedish, Finnish, and Norwegian.

Since starting the new localization project, 229 contributors have signed up and have completed Catalan, Dutch, Italian & Vietnamese. With further contributions to Basque, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Galician, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish.

I'm also experimenting with providing promo codes to people who contribute 20+ strings or more as an incentive to help with translating.

Of the 229 contributors who signed up, 136 of them are assigned to the Spanish localization, which was at about 80% completion after various feature additions since my initial translated.com order.

I've also added the strings for the App Store / Play Store to the project allowing me to localize marketing materials for the stores, including screenshots. I'm not sure if there was any relation but Alpenglow ended up #2 Top Free in Spain the same week I added Spanish to the App Store Description.

Happy to answer any questions. :)

The Alpenglow Android app has always lagged a little behind the iOS counterpart as I am an iOS Developer day to day. The app was in quite a sad state with 2 stars on the Play Store and received just as much attention on Android as it did on iOS when Alpenglow hit #2 in the Top Free rankings on iOS.

Before this years WWDC kicks off I've been working to improve the Android app to add in various missing features as well as ironing out the most common issues users have had with the app.

These features have now been added...

• Outlook Tab
• Localization
• Dark Mode
• Ability to share forecasts
• Ability to set independent Forecast notification thresholds for Sunrise/Sunset
• Lots of fixes for In-App Purchases and Subscriptions.

I'm going to be keeping an eye out for betas that support Jetpack Compose Widgets/Android Wear apps so the app can become even more in line with iOS.

Released a new Apple Watch app, returning Alpenglow to Apple Watch.

The update includes a bunch of Watch Face Complications along with a new Outlook Home Screen Widget.

The update also makes it even easier to share forecasts with a new iMessage App.

The app is also now available in Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.

Alpenglow got over 5k downloads yesterday on the App Store from Spain alone. During the day it hit #3 in the Top Free list and is still sat at #1 in the Top Free Weather App Chart.

Fortunately the app is super over provisioned to deal with spikes in traffic, especially after Apple requested artwork to be sent a few months back for a potential feature.

I'm still unsure of the exact source of the downloads as it also spiked on Google Play and no one is linking directly to the App Store Listings or Website. Someone mentioned that someone included it on a video on TikTok but I'm yet to find it.

During this the app also passed 200 subscribers. 🎉

Added In-App Subscription trials for the Alpenglow Pro options. Users who select Monthly will be able to try the Pro features for 3 days, users who choose the year subscription will get 7 days to try out the features.

I also adjusted the upgrade screen to highlight the discount of the Yearly option vs Monthly as well as marking the lifetime option as a one-time purchase.

Shared a little blog post about the journey from Free to 100 Subscribers.

Lots of new stuff in the works to add additional value to the Plus and Pro tiers including the ability to see Sunrise/Sunset quality overlaid onto a map, which is a feature I've wanted to include since 2017.

After months of development, Alpenglow v6.0 with support for iOS 14 launched. The release included an entire rewrite of the app using SwiftUI and iOS 14 Widgets & App Clips.

The release also included a restructure of unlock able features into Alpenglow Plus available after sending a one-time tip and Alpenglow Pro via a monthly, yearly or one-time lifetime payment.

v1.0 launched with a very different feature set to the newer versions of the app. Initially the app was focused on Sunrise & Sunset reminders but also tried to crowdsource sunrise/sunset quality reports to then send alerts to nearby users. I still feel like this would be doable with enough users but is tricky on a worldwide scale. "hello aurora" does this quite well with Northern Lights alerts over Iceland.