tl;dr - Will be deleting Gunpla Viewer from Google Play Store. Back in early 2016, Gunpla Viewer helped me find a job I really like.
This is a copy-pasta of my reddit post regarding Gunpla Viewer
Hello there! About two years ago, I posted here about Gunpla Viewer, an Android app that's supposed to be a better way to view dalong.net on Android phones. I was learning how to write Android apps at the time (I am a programmer by trade, but not for Android). I was tired of my job, so decided to write an app that I would use for myself.. something to show off to employers while interviewing. I was heavily into gunpla at the time- the decision to make this app was easy!
After three days of writing code, I released the app in the Play Store! I posted it here to get some feedback. You guys seemed to like it a lot, so I continued updating for a while. Heck, I still get emails every now and then.. and I love every single one of it! I find it funny when people think I'm dalong himself. I love it when people email me photos of their gundams!
Eventually, I interviewed for jobs. The project highlighted on my resume is Gunpla Viewer. I would talk about my experience writing the app, maintaining it, and supporting the users through email. I did this until I got an offer for a team that I like. Early last year, I accepted this role and I still work here!
This wouldn't happen without all your support. I am hovering at 4.5 stars at any given time. I get about 40~ downloads a day, 500~ users a day. I have a total of 24k downloads, 7.5k of which are still active! That's 1/4 retention rate, it think that's not bad for an amateur app!
With all that said, I am pulling the plug on this app later tonight. I don't have time to maintain it, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I lost the source code last year while reformatting my PC. It was my fault for not backing it up, nor using a proper version control system for this app.
The app works by scraping dalong.net each time the app is started. Scraping is gray area in terms of legality. It works if only one person uses the app.. but that could be trouble when a lot of users start using the app. This is primarily why I want to take the app off the Play Store.
Thank you for all your support, wonderful comments, and awesome emails. I still visit the sub for my gunpla fix. I like to think the gunpla community helped me find a job I really like, doing something I enjoy, with people I want to work with everyday!
Feel free to email me, follow my new adventures at {{ site.url }} (non-gunpla related). I will be responding to this thread if needed. Thanks!!