Hours - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

At the time I created Hours, I worked as a Senior Programmer for a major bank, doing some old-style boring stuff, but started to learn mobile development for iPhone and Android in my free time. Later, I became a professional mobile developer. Hours was my second app, the first one was iLuna, which is the most successful of my mobile apps.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

I had to create it for both iPhone and Android. Later, to save effort, I used for Hours a cross-platform framework.

_{Alexander Kolesnikov}

The interviewee, Mr. Alexander Kolesnikov, is the creator of this app, and the Founder of Lunarium - a platform that encourages people to learn Astrology instead of just believing in it and seeing how it transforms their lives in a positive manner.

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

Well, I'm using my iLuna all the time, to find out the phase and the sign of the Moon and other details. Another app I use very often is Telegram, it gradually replaces for me all other forms of communication. I also use Evernote regularly, to work on various texts cross-platform.

How long have you been working on this app?

I don't remember, it was a long time ago. A few months perhaps.

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

I knew from communication with visitors on my website (https://www.lunarium.co.uk) that they are using planetary hours for different purposes — like gathering herbs or making talismans. So I decided to create for them a convenient tool that would allow them to define the current or future planetary hour in any location. Later I added the calculation of planetary strengths which is a lesser-known but important feature.

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 this app is unique as I don't know of any other planetary hours calculator able to calculate planetary strengths (except for the one I'm offering on my website). My research into traditional literary sources shows that this feature is very important, and at the same time, it is relatively unknown. I'm teaching everything about the importance of planetary strengths in my Udemy course https://www.udemy.com/course/planetary-hours/.

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

First of all, I need to make Hours more robust. Currently, because it was built using a cross-platform framework, it doesn't work 100% reliably on some devices. This is my highest priority, and I am now working on fully native iOS and Android versions using the latest technologies for these platforms. I'm also going to implement different ways of sharing the information provided by Hours.

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 highly recommend them to take my Udemy course, to understand the importance of planetary strengths when using planetary hours.