Shopping Lists App

In order to provide loyal users of the app with a better experience, I implemented the option to disable ads forever with a one-time payment. Users who don't mind adverts or aren't willing to pay will continue to see them, but those who decide to pay won't see them anymore.

After years of total neglect, I eventually became serious about creating a new version of the application. Finally, after months of hard work, I managed to release the version 4.0, which I created from the ground up using the latest-and-greatest of Android development.

This version was designed to keep the app as simple and free of distractions as ever, but it also included many new features for those users who wanted to do more with it. Now, users could assign a different colour to each list, sort items, add prices, and more.

While a lot of people liked the update, many users didn't want the app to change, so the ratings ended up taking a hit. Five-stars reviews praising the new design started to come in, but so did one-star ones complaining about the change. Hopefully, the changes will be for the better in the long run.

This new version of the app improved its design and UX, and it also included new features that many users had long requested, such as the ability to edit existing items. Unfortunately, it also introduced a very annoying bug that many users would end up complaining about - over the years, these complaints would eventually bring the app rating down to 3.7 from its original 4.6.

While it seems like I should have just fixed the bug to avoid this downfall, at this time of my life I was busy with various endeavours, which resulted in the app being completely neglected and almost forgotten about.

After less than two years in the market, the app reached the 100,000 downloads milestone.

This was significant not only symbolically, but also because the Play Store page of the app would start to show the number 100,000+ in the downloads section, which could potentially convince users who were hesitant about downloading the app to give it a go.

Approximately one year after releasing its first version, I developed and released a new version of the application.

This version would have the exact same features, but its design got revamped to be both more beautiful and more practical from a UX perspective.

The month when I published my app, Google Play decided to promote it in the "New Apps" category, which brought in many new users rapidly, mostly from Russia.

This was very lucky, and it is something that couldn't have happened today. First, because now it is much harder to get your app selected by Google Play to be promoted for free. Second, because the Google Play application doesn't highlight new apps as much as it used to back in the day. And third, because most of us have all our needs for Android apps already covered - the exciting times of going through the Play Store to discover new, useful and interesting apps almost daily are long gone now.