Wheel of Indecision - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

I've been coding for about twenty years. Wheel of Indecision was my second mobile app and the first that wasn't a game.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

There wasn't really much of a challenge. I picked my trade-offs early: I made it using a game engine (the wonderful Godot) because I wanted the wheel to turn very fast, fluently, with believable physics when the user flicks the wheel on a touch screen. The price you pay for that is that the UI (which I needed so users can specify wheels of their own) is a bit clunky.

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

I think the Guardian app is among the best. It carries amazing content and has beautiful photography as well as well-written journalism. (I used to love the FT app too, but I don't pay for the subscription so can't speak to the current edition.) The BBC Sounds app is amazing, though mostly because it carries the Beeb's exceptional output. Oh I'm a fan of Yousician too. If I'd had an app like that I would no doubt be a more accomplished musician today.

How long have you been working on this app?

This app is a commuter project, so I wrote it in the span of a week commuting from Brighton to London (and back again).

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

Very selfishly I actually wanted it for myself first. I've been using it for a long time for picking the member of the team who "walks the board" at standup.

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.

The app does something extremely simple and I was focused entirely on getting the wheel to spin fast without dropping frames. I don't think there's another wheel of its kind that is as fast.

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

Because the wheel is rendered once and then rotated with hardware acceleration, I'm tempted to add Midjourney-generated high-resolution graphics. I think they would show off the wheel's core feature (speed) better than the current rainbow wheel can.

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.)?

If there's something you'd like me to add or fix, please send me a feature request or bug report! Wheel of Indecision is open source and freely available for commercial or other use at https://github.com/gerald1248/wheel-of-indecision. Please let me know also if there's interest in the app returning to the App Store. I run it on Mac, iPad and iPhone at work and regretted its disappearance from the App Store. It's not easy justifying the annual fee for a spare time project. I'd love Apple to waive the fee for open source projects one day.