this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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I love it. I made an Android app in 2011 and I still sometimes load up the .apk for nostalgia.
It was the first app I ever made and although some functions no longer work (due to 3rd party SDKs and APIs that no longer exist), it's mostly still pretty flawless.
According to my Google Play dashboard, there are even some people that still use it!
Ha, I was not expecting anyone to be that interested in it! I've checked my Google Play console and it turns out I unpublished it a while ago to stop new downloads.
The app was called "Gaffer for Giffgaff". For those of you who aren't from the United Kingdom, "Giffgaff" is a mobile phone network over here.
Back when I made this app, the network had a real problem with onboarding. The APN settings weren't included on new Android handsets by default as of yet (which they are today) and most new users would have to type them in manually. There were apps that input these settings before I started developing mine, but these were not very user friendly even by 2011 standards! In later revisions of the app, I even paid £100 to have a professional voice actor record some lines to guide users through the setup process which I uploaded here: https://m.soundcloud.com/bitbrit/gaffer-for-giffgaff-apn-setup (I don't know why I thought uploading this to SoundCloud at the time was something to do. Guess I was just proud of it?)
As well as onboarding, the network had issues with reliability. My app included push notifications so that the user could connect to WiFi and quickly figure out if the Giffgaff network was down or if their phone was not working properly. At first I started sending these notifications myself but after my app gained some attention, the Giffgaff forum moderators began sending the notifications themselves (although I seem to remember that I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about this at the time).
These days, features like push notifications aren't considered to be that fancy. When I was making this app, though, it was a pretty big deal. I was sending notifications at scale and doing it on basically 0 budget, as an individual.
Anyway, enough background information. I've gone through the app and taken some screenshots. I've also included the .APK file however I would recommend that you don't install this (I am, after all, just some guy on the internet and not a trustworthy source) - but it's there in case you feel adventurous.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14m-d-uADZZvFeEAkMNtYwvyfxoIeMDpq