AutoPick - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

Yes, I've worked on mobile technologies before, I'm also mildly good at web development.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

It was dissecting the highlighted parts of the text from it's surrounding. At first the solution seemed simple, that is to separate the regions of a particular color from it's surrounding but half way to building this solution I realized the input frame does not capture the same exact color for the whole highlighted region as it is in the real world, the color of the highlighted region is captured slightly darker on the sides, so to tackle this I considered a range for a particular color when separating the highlighted region.

_{Ajit Singh}

I'm a maker from India who wants to bring peace to the intersection of humans with the technology. I believe we can do more of what we do best when there's lesser friction in how we interact with technology.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

I'm a big fan of IFTTT because of it's ability to trigger real-world events. It's a programmable web of networked connections that can extend into the real world and a novice smartphone user can design them, making it one of the most inspirational apps for me. I also love what Snapchat has done for the smartphone camera - changing its image from a picture capturing machine to a sensor that can sense the surrounding and project interesting CGI on the real world, by introducing augmented reality to the masses through cute puppy face filters.

How long have you been working on this app?

I came up with the idea around August 17, 2017, and started working on it around December 17, finally launching on 7th June making it a 6-7 months journey from the idea to launch.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

We can't choose where an important piece of information will show up, sometimes it might appear in a medium article we read on PC or sometimes we stumble upon it from the books we read in coffee brakes and our first response to that is to try having it on our dear smartphones as soon as possible. This is where AutoPick brings some crucial help by letting the user decide what to scan before the scan itself, as a result saving time and making it a one click scanning experience. No more crops and clicks just to get two lines of text onto our smartphones.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

I believe the ability to choose what to scan and what to leave behind before doing the scan itself, as a result saving enormous crops and clicks over time sets AutoPick apart from what exists. AutoPick is also the only app ever built that can simultaneously scan multiple specific parts of what the camera sees on one click, for eg. you can highlight three different lines on your PC, all of them separated from each other throughout the complete text but highlighted with the same color and scan all three at once.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

The number one priority right now is to get the iOS version done. The second priority is to make more autopicking mechanisms available in the app, such as being able to scan only the underlined text on any page. I'm also exploring the head-worn augmented reality headsets for possibly building a version of AutoPick for them as well.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

I would definitely love to get their feedback, and also know what they expect from AutoPick in the future. Also please contact me if you're interested in joining me to build further or help me reach more avenues such as studying groups, reading groups, power users etc. Being a solo maker I would really appreciate that.