What I Learned Making an App for My Family
18 hours ago
- #App Development
- #Family Solutions
- #Flutter
- Developed 'OurCar,' a Flutter app to help family share a car, solving issues like gas bill splitting, tracking car location, and managing usage.
- Defined app scope to improve on WhatsApp group communication, focusing on car location (privacy-respecting), status tracking, and fuel usage monitoring.
- Chose Pocketbase and Flutter for tech stack, later adding Riverpod for state management and Auto Route for navigation, with iterative design based on native UI principles (e.g., referencing WhatsApp for cross-platform consistency).
- Faced and addressed challenges like UX clunkiness, performance jank from large widgets, and complex data modeling by merging trip and fuel logs into a unified timeline with a state-machine approach.
- Prepared app for open beta with features like user management, invitation flows, and deep-linking, but project stalled after family moved, lacking broader user adoption despite positive feedback.