This morning I released version 2.0 of my app, Shared, on the App Store and I’m writing this to tell you about it.
What does Shared do?
If you go by one of my favourite reviews:
“It does what it says on the box.”
Descriptive, I know.
What does it say on the box? Well, in this milieu of different music and podcast services, I’m sure we’ve all received links to music or podcasts that aren’t from the services we use. What Shared does—what it said on the box—is simplify the process of sharing music and podcast links across different services. Here's how:
It lets you share links to songs, albums, or podcasts that will open in Shared. Once in Shared, they can be opened in any of the supported services.
It allows you to take a link from a service you don’t use and open it in a service you do.
Well that’s what it said on the box in 2020.
Now it would probably say what it says during onboarding. That you can use Shared to:
Share music and podcasts with your friends, regardless of their streaming service,
Open music and podcasts from one service in another,
View song lyrics with annotations on Genius,
View music reviews on Musicboard,
Identify songs playing around you and track progress with a Live Activity,
Set reminders for music and podcasts that you open in Shared, and
Automatically open music and podcasts in Shared with the Safari extension.
(and in tiny font it would say there’s even more stuff like Siri and Shortcuts support, widgets for your home screen or desktop, and iCloud sync for those of you with more than one device signed into your iCloud)
New to Two
As for what’s new, the biggest change I made for 2.0 was the introduction of Shared+. It’s available as a monthly or yearly subscription, with:
search across music and podcast services,
a growing list of custom app icons,
a new tint colour for the Recent History and Quick Actions widgets,
an additional live activity when opening something in Shared, and
about 5 more features that you would’ve got with the old Convenience in-app purchase.
I’ve also:
made searching your history smarter (typos are okay)
and more accessible (added to the widgets, Siri, app icon actions, and shortcuts),
redone all the settings screens (and there are quite a few), and
given it a sleeker, more modern design.
With all those changes, my favourite one is probably the confetti you get after you subscribe to Shared+ :D.
If you’re looking to give Shared a try, head over to sharedapp.net/get! It’s a great app and available on iOS, macOS, and visionOS (but that’s just running in iPad mode and you probably don’t have a Vision Pro anyway).
Thank you to everyone who helped shape Shared along the way.
For those of you who stay behind when the credits roll, I have some Shared lore:
Road to Two
I started working on 1.6.2 in October last year, but had to pause at the end of November. A couple months passed and I picked it up in early February when I resumed releasing new builds to my alpha testers almost every day, until the end of March.
1.6.2 became 1.7, and 1.7 became 2.0. It started with a bugfix and some refactoring, then I wanted more buttons on the widgets, and then everything else.
My routine usually looked like this: I’d work at my jobby job, go to gym, eat, and then I’d work on Shared until I convinced myself that I should probably get some sleep. Most weekends were pretty similar, but work was just on Shared and I didn’t have an alarm waking me up 5 hours after my last commit.
Origins
I created Shared’s Xcode project on 7 July 2020. That wasn’t the best time for me; I was really depressed and lonely, but I had a problem and an idea as to how I’d solve it—and that was enough. I worked on it for about three weeks, and got enough done to release version 1.0 to the App Store on the 31st. I still remember waking up to notifications that App Review approved my app and that it was available for sale. I was ecstatic. And then… nothing.
Well, no, not exactly. I kept making it. Over the years, I added features, fixed bugs, tweaked the UI a bunch, made an iPad and Mac version, and some other stuff.
What’s also happened over the years, is that it’s found users. Users who like the app and use it to share links, or convert links, or identify songs, or remind them of songs… or maybe they just downloaded it to make me happy. Having people just organically discover and share my app has been extremely gratifying and I’m really proud of making something people like and find useful.
Having said that, I think there’s something to be said about pouring your heart and soul into an idea you have, regardless of the external validation. Doing it because you’re passionate about it, because you love doing it. I love making Shared, I love using it, and I sure hope you like it—and if you do, don’t forget to subscribe.
Congrats! ✨ All the hard work is paying off!