An app that I used religiously when the kids were newborns is BabyConnect.
- An app that I used religiously when the kids were newborns is BabyConnect.
- Think of it as a "vertical OS" for parents of newborns.
- BabyConnect is not special; there are dozens of similar apps.
- It's basically just a handful of CRUD UIs on top of a SQLite database specialized for parents of newborns.
- When they last had milk, and how much.
- When they last had a dirty diaper.
- When they woke up and when their next nap is.
- There is absolutely nothing special in the app, but it's still indispensable.
- Instead of fiddling with a spreadsheet, you can hit a button or two well-designed for each micro use case.
- It has multi-user sync, which allows you to hand-off caregiving duties between caregivers without missing a beat.
- It helps you keep track of what the baby needs despite the brain fog.
- Even though the kids haven't been newborns for years, we still use it as the canonical place to keep track of immunizations, height measurements, etc.
- This app could go away at any moment.
- My data is trapped inside of it.
- There was no good alternative:
- I can't remake it in Notion because Notion doesn't allow turing-complete modifications to make bespoke UIs with the right affordances for a given use case.
- I can't remake the thing in AirTable because its pricing scheme is prohibitive for consumers (and it would be too hard to make bespoke UIs).
- Imagine how many other little niche vertical OS style use cases exist that are below the coasian floor.
- Where a simple CRUD on top of a spreadsheet data would be life changing.