Apps that push you to create?
Last week, I downloaded and purchased @AgBr after seeing it on the homepage. Its design and super specific goal just immediately clicked with me. I love black & white photography, and this was a really interesting and approachable way to experiment with it; even though I've never been much of a photographer myself. I'm usually just appreciating others' photos.
But then, over this past weekend, I noticed that I kept feeling compelled to take pictures throughout my day so that I could play around with different filters and try out different levels of film grain on them. Having the tools to create was suddenly making me look for more and more opportunities to use them.
I'm curious if others have had experiences where a really great app or product actually pushed you to start creating in a way you hadn't before. What was it?
Replies
For me, it was @Obsidian . For quite a while, I stopped taking notes in my notebook and used random apps like sticky notes, notepad, etc. to write notes. But they didn't have a structure and I felt very lazy to go through my folders just to check on my notes. Then, I stopped taking notes altogether and struggled quite a bit.
A while ago, I came across obsidian and was fascinated by how people organized their notes and wanted to check how I would fare here, so that's what I did. I started using it and realized that note taking didn't have to be so hard and I found myself making notes every now and then. Totally a gamechanger for me.
@Hipstamatic® does a good job with light gamification that offers stamps that you collect in a passport for completing certain activities, like golden hour shots, location-based challenges, and more.
Glad you liked @AgBr!
@chrismessina seems that gamification has moved into the background of many products (or gone away entirely). It felt like a really popular thing to do when 4SQ was hot. I still miss the original version of that app.
Things that push me to create are incredibly easy to use + time to initial value is low. Claude 3.7 Sonnet is giving me some of that feeling, but I can't say I've had the experience you've describe recently (😥). Following this thread to hopefully resolve that :)
Airport mode? I'm already out :D
I’ve definitely had similar experiences with apps that really pushed me to be more creative. For me, tools like DALL·E and MidJourney are huge motivators – I find myself brainstorming more visual concepts throughout the day and experimenting with prompts just to see what kind of unique images I can generate. There’s something about using AI to create something totally new that sparks a lot of inspiration!
Have you tried any AI tools like that, or do you primarily stick to photography apps?
Product Hunt
@AgBr is such a vibe! I would love to try it out if an Android version comes out.
I have recently been playing a lot with @Stable Diffusion and Flux. I got a few pods running in @RunPod to train LoRas of myself and run ComfyUI. I am just having lots of fun generating images. It's a deep rabbit hole to fall in!
Product Hunt
I also purchased @AgBr after testing it out on an old photo from Paris. Currently I find myself putting every photo I take through it, most work, some don't but it's fun!
AgBr
It's awesome to hear your experience with AgBr @jakecrump, and how using it makes you want to go out and take more pictures. That's exactly the kind of creative experience we were going for!
One of my favorite creative tools of all time is @Looom for iPad - a little sketchpad for animation. Animation tools are often complicated and intimidating - but with a few gestures, well thought out interface, and clever visual metaphor (the spinning notched wheels) Looom makes it super easy to experiment and quickly get animation ideas out.
The most inspiring thing for me is @Canva , and I'm dazzled by the numerous templates. I would collect a lot of favorite templates and then take the parts apart and assemble them individually. It saves me a lot of time and effort!
Joke apart, trying Kortex nowadays (if you know Dan Koe, I think he's the creator)