My iOS Journey! - Capstone project

Journal
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Hey everyone, my name is Stephane Boutet and this is the beginning of my capstone project for the Launch Your First App program.

I come from a background in stem cell biology, genomics and single cell gene expression. I’ve been learning iOS for the past 2 months.

Ultimately, my goal for learning iOS development is to make useful apps for my fellow biologists in the laboratory. I am doing this mostly for fun as I always wondered what it would be to have an app on The App Store…(I’ll let you know how it goes!)

I’m looking forward to updating this project log as I progress to completing my capstone project!

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Good luck Stephane.

Welcome to the community.

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Thanks Chris!

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So far, here are my plan for my first App for the CWC capstone project:

MVP for APP.001
Description:

  • Timer dedicated to experimental scientists (Biologists, molecular and cellular biologists)
    • Only 2 lab timers in App store for iPad (which is strange since people have phones but not iPad!?)

Requirements:

  • Main screen (HomeScreen) shows a deck where users can add timers from a library to Timers. They can select individual or group of timers or, alternatively, create a new one and directly add it to the deck. They can visualize all timers counting down or up at the same time. They can also select a timer for a detail view of the selected timer.
    (Note: After a quick search, I couldn’t find a timer for scientists on iPhone. I did find 2 timers for scientists for iPad (with poor designs) which is strange since iPad are not super common in research laboratories?!)
  • Users can organize timers in groups/experimental protocols
  • Users can set timers as counting up or counting down (99 hours, 60 minutes and 60 seconds)
  • Timers are accurate and persistent (timer can continue where it left off after dismissing page or app? (use Date to keep track of Timer)
  • Users can set Favorite timers (“Favorites”)
  • Users signs up and sign in/out (Firebase Auth and firestore) => This is useful the future such as building a user base for future Apps, updates, etc or gamification for community based ranking (mostly out of scope for MVP - MVP has only registration, sign up and sign in and profile)
  • Users have a profile
  • No or very limited gamification (fireworks at the end of timer and count of completed timers)
  • App has original sounds for alarm and transitions between pages
  • users can select an alarm sounds for each timer
  • Initial library is populated with a few protocols (SPRI Select protocol, 10x single cell gene expression V4, TBD), load protocol from JSON files
  • Need a clean/simple design, easy to use app and professional interface (very important since it is a classic differentiator in this space).
  • Free version without pre-loaded protocols (goal: gain users and get feedback and make a useful app)
  • It may be possible to have a Paid version with pre-loaded protocols (I need to do a market study on this.)

Feel free to make comments on the MVP