Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to My weekend iOS project "Simple Knot"
Had some time available and wanted to play with user interface design, so I thought of a simple app that lent itself to that. Coding was roughly 8-10 hours for the whole thing, then another 15-20 hours to take the pictures (homemade studio, iPhone for camera, Gimp to edit). Looking forward to your feedback, and I have promo codes available for anyone that wants them https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-knot/id593421479?mt=8
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. My weekend iOS project "Simple Knot" launched in 2013; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Demonstrate▲187Idea to mobile prototypes in minutes. Zero coding required.
2016 · nfnlabs.in · its alternatives →
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- 5A2
Hi y'all! I am full stack web developer, and recently I started to mess around with Swift. I've been having a lot of fun and I actually build little Countdown app ( I know, how original..), but I just wanted to share it with the world!
2024 · its alternatives →
- 6

Well HN, I've finally produced something I think is worthy of sharing, but I didn't do it "in a weekend". Yeah, it's an iOS puzzle game. And yeah, it's a game I built because I wanted to play it rather than based on market research, so all this sort of makes it the antithesis of a popular HN post. But whatever. Still hoping for some of that patented (har har) expert HN feedback. Critique any part of it except the music. Also, PM me for upgrade codes, or I can post some here if there's any interest. Download (it's free):…
2012 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 7AS
2014 · sexlifeapp.cc · its alternatives →
- 8BA
http://www.barebonesapp.com I run a web development company in the UK[1]. Last weekend, we participated in Leedshack[2], and we build Barebones, which is a really simple wireframing tool for the iPad. We spend a lot of time in meetings sketching in our notebooks, and often these sketches are a valuable artefact long before 'traditional' wireframing even enters the process; we wanted to replicated the speed and simplicity of 'back of a napkin' sketching, and combine it with really simple sharing (anything is better than taking a photo of a sketch with my iPhone and emailing it to a client!)…
2011 · barebonesapp.com · its alternatives →
- 9MF
My first iOS game is released. It took me 2 weekends to develop and 9 day approval time. Here are a few promo codes. If you take a promo code, can you please also leave a review? Happy to answer any questions. An update is already being prepared for iPhone support as well as a more major update that adds difficulty adjustments and a "dreaded" twist :-) The Game: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pop-corn/id905859076?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 Promo Codes: F79LRP4JNWT4 X94XXNNW77E3 PEWJ77FHTME7 9PHN99RLLE6W
2014 · its alternatives →
- 10IM
Hello everyone! I just launched an iOS app called RetouchAI! You can easily type in a prompt, ask the AI to enhance it and generate a cool image you can download to your gallery. Also you can expand the generated image (or any other from your gallery/camera) beyond the borders, making a cool “zoom-out” effect. See examples of the quality of the images you can create visiting https://www.getretouchai.app/#gallery. More features to come, including inpainting, erasing and upscaling. You have 5 free credits to use the app, and there’s no need to login. Just download it and…
2024 · getretouchai.app · its alternatives →
- 11MF
HN, I would appreciate some feedback on my first coding project ever. It's a visual instant search for iTunes (using Apple's API) I consider it MVP at this point, some features are still missing. I've tested the site in Safari, IE, and Firefox, and it seems to work in all of them. http://38069.vs.webtropia.com/tester/test/ (not too fancy of a URL) My background is nowhere near coding or designing (English major in the making, quite sure my code shows) and I only knew some basic PHP going into this last week, so don't be too harsh. Why this idea? I strongly believe visual search will be…
2011 · 38069.vs.webtropia.com · its alternatives →
- 12

Hi HN, I recently got the AnkiMobile app for iOS for Mandarin. It was buggy and feature-lacking in my opinion, so I made a nice looking Anki-compatible alternative app, with more features. It uses a tuned FSRS5 algorithm and supports image occlusion out of the box. You can import your existing Anki decks into it or create a new one. Pretty quick to add cards with the image feature. I'm using it right now and will add more to it so let me know what you think. FYI, it has a one-off purchase of $14.99 to unlock it for lifetime (no taksies backsies) after a test period of seven days.
Dec 2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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this is an open-source project. the MVP to end all MVPs. made by me, a teenage developer angry at FAANG employees for creating a soulless, consumer-oriented world. The future is in creation, and the future is in teaching people to slam shit together with ChatGPT. Welcome to the start. :P
2024 · 48hr.dev · its alternatives →
- 15CT
Built this at a Startup Weekend last November. We've been sitting on this code for months. Would love to have some people signup and throw us a little feedback. Clearly this isn't finished, but with a little crowd support, we could just wrap it up in a weekend. A few things: - Works with Youtube and Vimeo, probably a few others. - Web UI is still pretty sloppy - zero onboarding. sorry. - We have native iPhone and iPad clients that are a handful of bugs from being shipped. Anyone interested in beta testing them, shoot me an email at ddinch :at: gmail. We will beam you up via TestFlight (great…
2011 · clpstr.com · its alternatives →
- 16

I have always dreamed of learning Swift and creating apps for iOS, but I never found the motivation to do so. I was scared by the complexity and the learning curve of programming with UIKit and Storyboard. I thought they were too complicated and too boring for me. But then I discovered SwiftUI, the new framework for building user interfaces for Apple platforms. I was captivated by its simplicity and elegance. I watched some videos and read some articles about it and I was blown away by what it could do. I decided to give it a shot and see if I could learn it and make something with it. I set…
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 17

After being inspired by your responses to the Ask HN thread yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35299071), I decided to see if I could use ChatGPT to make a functioning app. I picked a random project idea out of my Notebook of Amazing Ideas, and spent just a couple of hours using GPT-4 to build it. I've never built an iOS app before, and even if I made something like this as a web app (my usual job), I would expect it to take at least a week. My process was basically 1) Ask ChatGPT to write some code 2) Copy and paste the code into the right files (this took a…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18IS
i built a heart rate zone training app for runners. ios + apple watch. custom zones, real-time haptics, post-run graphs. all the “smart” stuff you’d expect. but i never talked to a single runner before building it. not even myself lol. started as a thesis → kept building → added features → added a paywall (€4/month!) → launched it → and yeah… no one cared. zero feedback. zero users. just code in the void. i recently made the whole thing free. not trying to “sell” anything now — just seeing if it’s actually useful, and listening this time. curious how others handle this. ever build…
2025 · basamasa.github.io · its alternatives →
- 19

Early this week I offered to donate 8 hours to any project that needed some design help. There were a few candidates and thanks to everyone that emailed me and posted in the comments. I decided to lend my time to Simple Invoices, an open source invoicing system. You can see the result here: http://jasonstrachan.com/clients/simpleinvoices/ And the original site here: http://simpleinvoices.org/ Comments and feedback welcome.
2010 · jasonstrachan.com · its alternatives →
- 20

After a long fought battle, my friend and I finally have our first app (Skill Sketch) in the app store and we're looking for feedback. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skill-sketch/id498835340?ls=1&mt=8 The app is a simple drawing game that provides you with a series of random lines (0-4) that you then try to turn into art. When you do something that you like, you can save it to your gallery. Currently we have it listed at 99 cents. Mainly so that we can make back the $99 bucks it cost us to join the Apple Developer Program. Any feedback would be welcome.
2012 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 21

I launched an iOS app that lets you scan documents as quickly as your camera takes photos, all wrapped in the skeuomorphic style of iOS 6.0. It was a fun indie project. Hope some of you will enjoy it! :)
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Hello HN! I just launched a new social iPhone game called "unun". It's like drawsomething but in a puzzle way. You can also animate your puzzle and message your friend during the game. Would definitely enjoy any feedback so I can make it better! Feel free to check out the demo video and download it from appstore. Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8aPmDej65s Download: https://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/unun/id555254223?mt=8
2013 · youtube.com · its alternatives →
- 23MW
Hey all, just wanted to invite you to take a spin on this project I've been working on recently. To give you a bit of context, I'm a Pinterest/Tumblr/Svpply user but found that it's all still sub-optimal. The experience of these, I guess 'social' things, is still always about "me, me, me": Pin things I like, post items I like, I want this and that etc. My point is, in my experience, this got boring relatively quickly. Plus, when I log in to Pinterest for example, it's this wall of sound of relatively (albeit nice looking) yet random things. Anyways, a few weeks back, my roommate happened to…
2012 · letsflair.com, · its alternatives →
- 24TO
LégalEd for the Masses Title links to actual app Here is the demo video to show you around the interface Self funded on scraps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwsPz0mKAU
2025 · labs.sunami.ai · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →