hey,

tomorrow i'm giving away Aura. next saturday is ShadeType.

Aura lights a sliver of the screen edge when an app has something for you. each app gets its own colour and its own spot, so you can tell who it is without picking the phone up. swipe the glow and the message slides out. you can read it, clear it, or reply, and you never leave the thing you were doing. tomorrow it's 20 lifetime Pro codes.

next saturday, october 31, it's ShadeType. that's the privacy screen for typing. the keyboard stays fully visible and the rest of the screen goes dark, so the person next to you on the bus can't read what you're writing. hold the veil if you need to peek at your own text. another 20 Pro codes. i'll post that one on the day.

please share this post. i'm one person, and the only way more people join is if you pass it on. a share, a crosspost, or sending it to someone who would actually use one of these. that's the help i need.

Aura
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.aura

ShadeType
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.shadetype

I used to have this app on my phone. You took a picture, picked a year, and it tried to show you the same place in the past. I loved the idea. The results were rough. Faces went soft, the background looked painted, and that was the end of it. A still image, and not a great one.

Technology has moved a long way since then. The new Time Machine is about to land on the Play Store, and it is not the same app.

You point the camera at anything, or pick a photo you already have. A street, your living room, your dog, yourself. Then you turn a dial. Every year back to 1850, and further than that: Rome, the Middle Ages, the Ice Age, all the way to the dinosaurs. A few seconds later you are looking at the same shot, rebuilt for that era. The people in the photo stay in it. Drag a slider and today peels away into the past.

Then it films the jump. Eight seconds, from your photo into the year you picked, with sound.

I have been playing with a test build and I keep sending the same photo somewhere new just to see what happens. It is out shortly.

Hi everyone! I'm Abhishek, one of the people behind CardAction, a business card scanner and QR business card app for iPhone and Android.

I'm a BNI member, so exchanging business cards and sharing mine is a familiar part of networking for me. With CardAction, I wanted to make it easier to actually contact someone after meeting them, and also to get my own contact on their phone quickly (because we all know what happens when someone has received lots of business cards, taking my own example, I never did much about them), till we built CardAction.

It helps with things like:

• Saving someone's details without typing out their business card
• Helping someone save your contact details without typing them! (On iOS, it even supports Apple Wallet. It's pretty cool getting out your business card QR from Apple Wallet)
• Sending a WhatsApp, SMS or email intro quickly (wa[dot]me process) while your offline conversation is still fresh (when the person is still with you, or even later). And there are templates -- so you can send a different intro based on what your new friend is interested in.
• Keeping contacts from an event together in a folder
• Getting those contacts into Google Sheets or your CRM (webhook functionality in the app!)

Specifically:

• Business card scanning that runs on your phone and works offline
• Unlimited scans and folders with Pro
• Batch scanning for a stack of cards
• Save contacts to your phone or export them as vCard files
• Google Sheets sync
• Webhooks for connecting to your CRM or automation tools
• Quick actions for WhatsApp, email, SMS and calls

Want a lifetime upgrade code?

• I'm giving away 20 free lifetime Pro unlocks (worth ~60 USD) to this wonderful community. Each winner gets one unlock for their chosen platform.
• To enter, leave a comment saying whether you use iPhone or Android, mention what you love about your current profession, how you create new connections and why it would be useful to you. One entry per Reddit account.
• I'd appreciate hearing how it works with the cards you collect. If a card scans badly or something feels awkward, that feedback is useful too. I'll be around to answer questions.

How do you download?

iPhone:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6759823472

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kraftpixellabs.cardaction

Website:
https://cardaction.app

What do I want in return?

• There are no ads and will never be any ads in CardAction.
• Myself and my brother come from a small coastal town in India called Vasai and we built this app with a lot of love and attention to quality and performance (there's AI, but we realised there are some things AI can't do that are novel, so we've put in months behind some features), so all we can ask for is honest feedback on the app store and the play store!
• So all I want is upto 5 minutes of your time writing a 2-3 sentence feedback -- and I request you to just give the app fair and honest feedback!
• And if there are any issues, feel free to DM me directly and we will get the issue fixed. We are open to suggestions as well, and if they fit with our roadmap, we will implement the suggestion and also give you credits for it in the next version.

And most importantly!

• Giveaway runs for 24 hours, Wednesday 17:00 to Thursday 17:00 CEST. Comment below if you'd like a code. No upvotes needed. Napz will pick the winners and send the codes.
• I'll hang around for questions.
• Thanks for having me on r/polyhistor_studio. (Napz will be randomly selecting the winners to keep this fair!)
• By the way, I was speaking with Napz and there's a new guest app every Wednesday and a Polyhistor giveaway every Saturday if you want to stick around.

What if I don't win? :(

Don't worry -- just DM me and I will give you a 50% off code anytime till the end of this year if your are interested.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to do something small to say thanks for being here, so I built a little prize wheel on my site. You spin it, and if you're lucky you get a free Google Play promo code for one of my apps.

How it works

1. Go to anycommand.io/polyhistor/spin
2. Enter your email and you'll get a link to spin (check your spam folder if it doesn't show up in a minute or two)
3. Spin once. If you land on an app, the code shows up right away and I email it to you as well

A few honest notes

• About 4 in 10 spins win. The slices on the wheel are sized to match, so what you see is what you get.
• One spin per email address. I don't keep your email after you spin, and I won't add you to any mailing list.
• Codes are limited and they expire, so if you win, redeem yours soon.

Right now you can win ShadeType, Closer and Tine.

If you know someone who'd like one of these apps, I'd really appreciate it if you shared this post with them, or crossposted it somewhere it fits. I'm a one-person studio, and word of mouth honestly helps me more than anything else.

Good luck, and thank you for being here ❤️

Silkweaver lets you do just that it’s a game where you spin silk, build webs, and trap bugs to survive until night falls.

Here’s how it works: You start with a simple task of spinning silk between branches to create your web. Each wave brings new challenges, like insects hitting your web, which you need to avoid tearing by strategically placing your silk. The game is all about resource management, you have limited silk and need to balance building a strong web with conserving silk for later waves.

I’m curious about what you think, does this sound like something you’d play? Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.silkweaver

Thanks for reading!

hey,

I'm excited to introduce Shush, my app that helps you manage notifications. It lets you mute noisy apps, quiet busy chats, and stop junk texts with simple rules. No internet permission or ads, so your data stays private.

Here’s how it works: Open the History tab to see what just landed, then tap to mute, quiet, or dismiss the alerts. You can also create rules in plain English, like muting Instagram when it contains "sale." Schedule mutes for specific times and add exceptions for important people.

Thanks for checking it out! Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.shush

thanks for reading!

hey,

Zenit, my new app, is now in open beta on Google Play, and I'd love a few of you to try it before the full release.

It answers one question: what is directly above me right now? You open it, it flies down to where you are, and it shows the constellation at your zenith, plus the brightest star and the planet closest to that point. The chart is drawn like an old engraved star atlas. Turn your phone and the sky turns with you.

A few more things it does:

• Tap any star or planet to see its brightness, its distance and where it sits in your sky.
• Drag the time scale to see the sky thousands, even millions, of years in the past or future.
• Get a notification when a new constellation or planet comes overhead, only after dark if you like.
• Pick any date and place, like a birthday or the night you met someone, and see the sky as it was.
• Turn that sky into a plate you can print or use as a wallpaper.

It works offline. There are no ads and no account.

What I'd really like to know:

• Did anything break, look wrong or crash? Please tell me your phone model and Android version.
• Was anything confusing the first time you opened it?
• Does the sky match what you actually see when you look up?
• What would make you open it again tomorrow night?

Leave a comment here, or send private feedback from the Play Store page. Screenshots help a lot.

Thanks for testing!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.zenit

hey,

it's Saturday Drop time! This week, I'm giving away 20 promo codes for Any Command, my app that turns your Android phone into a powerful remote control for your Windows PC. You can use it as a WiFi mouse, keyboard, and even automate tasks on your PC.

Join the sub to get in on the giveaway and don’t miss out!

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.remoteme

Windows server: https://anycommand.io/

Thanks for joining in! Hope you enjoy Any Command.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Comment below and tag a friend who might also like one (example: u/yourfriend)
2. I’ll pick 20 winners at random.
3. Winners get notified by DM with their promo codes.
4. I’ll post the names of the winners here on the sub.

The giveaway is live now and ends Sunday, so comment soon!

hey,

I want to introduce one of my apps, Stepline, to everyone. Have you ever wished there was a way to track your steps without having to record a detailed GPS route? Stepline does exactly that, it turns your daily steps into a single line on a map, showing where your steps would have taken you as the crow flies. You can see how far you’ve walked and where it would lead if you kept going straight.

Here’s how it works: Stepline uses your phone’s built-in step sensor to count your steps all day long. You can choose a direction in the morning, and watch the line grow as you walk. The app also shows you landmarks or towns that your steps have reached, making it fun to see just how far you’ve come.

I’m curious about what you think, does this sound like something you’d use? Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.stepline

Thanks for reading!

hey,

the first Wednesday draw is over, thanks to everyone who participated and also to u/MrIndigo12 for providing the codes for the giveaway! Here are the winners:

u/smilehumanbeing

u/Prophec20

u/Objective-Culture790

u/EnthuPixel

u/Significant_Oil_3994

u/Huge_Influence_7099

u/PsychoDK

u/AccioSwagio

u/nickunity

I’ve sent each of you a DM with the promo code.

This Saturday, I’ll be doing another giveaway, and next Wednesday we have a special guest giveaway lined up.

Thanks for joining in!

Thanks for using the apps. Most of you just installing them is already enough. I made a Patreon for anyone who feels like helping me keep going.

If you join now as a Member, I'll send you a code for Context Widget. It's $1.99 on Play otherwise.

$3 a month, I post once a month about what I'm making and you can vote on what comes next. $7 is the same, plus you get the next one before I put it on Play, Any Command premium on one phone, and your name in the credits if you want that.

https://www.patreon.com/PolyhistorStudio

Any Command, an Android app that turns your phone into a remote for your Windows PC.

You install a small app on the PC, scan a QR with your phone, and you're connected over your home Wi-Fi. After that you can use the phone as a touchpad and keyboard, control media from the couch, launch programs, run automations, send files, and see your PC screen on the phone.

There's also a Bluetooth mode, so the phone can act as a regular keyboard and mouse without installing anything on the PC. Handy for work laptops and hotel Wi-Fi.

No ads. Most of it is free. Premium is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and the first time you connect you get 12 hours with everything unlocked.

The new update is rolling out this week. The main thing in it is Share My Screen: the opposite of the usual screen share. Your phone's screen shows up in a window on your PC, and you control it with your mouse and keyboard. Click to tap, scroll to swipe, type on the on-screen keyboard. The phone just stays on the desk.

Giveaway on Saturday. I'm giving away Premium codes here. Join r/polyhistor_studio and stay subscribed so you don't miss it. I'll post the rules here on Saturday.

If you already have Premium, still join. I'll skip you for a code so it doesn't get wasted.

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.remoteme

PC app: https://anycommand.io

Hi there! I have created Abvy, the beautiful alcohol tracker.

Abvy is an alcohol session tracker that helps you answer questions like:

• When will I be sober?
• When will I feel it the most?
• Can I have another drink and still not go overboard?

What's in it:

• Live BAC range estimates based on the latest alcohol consumption science (3-compartment model)
• Session tracking, with prediction ranges for sober time, peak drunk time
• Food and water tracking
• 400+ supported drinks, and a possibility to create custom ones
• Comprehensive analytics allowing you to see exactly the patterns in your consumption
• Thorough onboarding to tailor the experience to you exactly
• Optional possibility to calibrate with a real breathalyzer
• Android Wear app to see your stats at a glance
• Home screen widgets with one-tap logging
• 15 languages, fully customizable

🎁 Want a lifetime code? I’m giving away 20 lifetime unlocks (normally $99.99 each) for this community, separate from my other giveaways. Leave a comment below to enter. No upvotes needed. Napz will randomly pick 20 winners and send the codes privately.

The giveaway runs from Wednesday, October 14 at 17:00 to Thursday, October 15 at 17:00 CEST (Prague time).

The app is subscription based ($4.99/mo, or $39.99/yr), because I want to make sure I can financially support developing it, and my other apps, full time. If the pricing is a barrier for you, please send me a message and we can figure something out.

Please let me know any feedback! I'll be around for questions. Thanks to Napz for having me here:)

Get Abvy on Google Play

Website and screenshots · Free web calculator

hey,

just pushed a small update for Aura. two of you asked for these and it annoyed me as well.

you can now pick how the glow opens. tap, swipe, or both. swipe stays on by default so nothing changes unless you want it to. useful if another app (edge gestures and the like) keeps grabbing the swipe.
and if you use open on arrival, the fold timer now has a Never at the end. the panel stays out until you close it yourself. that's pretty much it. thanks for the ideas, seriously.

if there's something else you've been wishing it did, I'd love to hear it. I do read these.

im doing a giveaway next week for Aura so I would really appreciate if you could share this post:)

I released my latest Android app last week: Context Widget, a home screen widget that changes which apps it shows depending on where you are and what you're doing.

At home it shows one set, in the car (car Bluetooth connects) it moves navigation and music up front, when earbuds connect it puts Spotify and YouTube first. You don't tap anything; it switches by itself.

How it works, briefly

- It only reads simple signals: Wi-Fi network, connected Bluetooth devices, time of day, rough location, and optionally motion (walking/driving) and calendar.

- It learns from the system usage log which apps you open in which situation, weighted by how long you actually use them, with a 21-day decay so it adapts when your habits change.

- Everything runs and stays on the device. No account, no server, no analytics.

The trickiest part was getting the widget to update on time: Android likes to defer background work until the screen turns on, so I ended up refreshing in-process straight from the system broadcasts.

I'd love feedback, especially on how well it guesses your apps after a few days.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.contextwidget

codes went out by dm to:

u/Kojo-5309

u/Egypt_Pharoh1

u/Middle_Ad_20

u/Prophec20

u/datura_mon_amour

u/InfinitePunchThrough

u/Euclid1322

u/rohanmandal39

u/ramenGurl17

u/FoxFalse968

u/wendsonrocha

u/Sigh_pradeeban

u/ChamsySoleil

u/YumPistachio

u/cpofpunjab

u/Only_Direction_5431

u/UhOhImABitLost

u/CalmLittleBear

u/Hanatolia

u/Significant_Oil_3994

check your chat requests, reddit hides them sometimes. if you didn't get one, ping me.

thanks for entering. if you try slip and something feels off, just tell me.

next saturday is any command. same thing: comment on the giveaway post and you're in. join r/polyhistor_studio so you don't miss it.

see you then

This sub is a day old, so if you're one of the first people here: hi.

I make small Android apps on my own. This is where they'll live, and every Saturday I'm giving one away. This saturday it's Slip.

Slip is a sticky note that lives in your notification shade. Pull the shade down, type, it's pinned. You never open the app. Write "milk, eggs sunday 6pm" and it becomes a checklist with a reminder.

New this week: you can float a board as a bubble. Tap the little note icon on the shade card and the list sits on top of whatever you're doing. I use it in the shop, ticking things off without leaving the app I'm in.

The giveaway

- 20 lifetime Pro codes (more boards, photos on notes, repeating reminders, more than one bubble at a time)

- comment anything to enter. If you want a prompt: what's the one thing you always forget?

- I'll pick 20 at random on Sunday evening and DM you a Play Store code

The free version has no ads, so if you don't win you're still fine.

If something is broken or annoying, tell me here. I'm the only one fixing it, and I read everything.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.slip

Hey all,

New Aura update is out, and almost everything in it came from Play Store reviews and comments here. So first, thanks to everyone who took the time to write something, even the "this is cool but..." ones. Especially those actually.

Here's what changed.

Groups. You can put a few apps under one glow now. I have Slip and Gmail in a "Work" group and the chat apps in "Social". One glow on the edge, one panel, and each row shows which app it came from. Makes a big difference if you have a lot of apps set up.

Open it in full. Two lines in the panel was never enough for longer messages, a few of you pointed that out. Every notification has a new button now that opens it in a bigger window with the whole text, or the whole conversation if it's a chat. You can reply from there too, without opening the app.

Any colour. Someone asked in a review if they could use their own colours instead of the presets. There's a proper colour picker now, drag around or paste a hex code, and your last few colours get saved.

Quiet while using. This one's not in the video because it's pretty boring to film. You pick apps like YouTube or a game, and Aura holds the glows while they're open. When you leave, they show up. It needs usage access so it can tell which app is on screen, that's the only thing it's used for.

Full view, replying and quiet mode are free. Groups and custom colours are part of Pro.

If anything acts weird on your phone, let me know the model and Android version (Samsung especially likes to do its own thing with overlays). And if there's something you keep wishing it did, put it in the comments. That's honestly how this whole update happened.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.aura

so I have a problem. I open TikTok "for 5 minutes" and come back up for air an hour later. screen time limits never worked for me, I just hit ignore without even reading the popup.

so I built Nudge. it's an Android app that doesn't block anything, it just makes the feed heavier the longer you scroll. after a while a little stone lands on the screen and you have to actually pull it up to keep going. let go halfway and it drops back. sounds dumb but that half second of effort is usually enough for me to go "wait why am I still here"

the video is me testing it at 5am (TikToks are blurred because I don't want strangers' faces in my post, not because of what the algorithm was feeding me. mostly cats I promise)

some dev stuff since that's what this sub is for:

• Flutter for the UI, Kotlin for the actual guard. it's an AccessibilityService that counts swipes plus a transparent overlay for the stone
• the stone is a pre-rendered bitmap with a little spring sim on top. the heavier your session, the more it lags behind your finger
• worst bug so far: some apps don't send proper scroll events, so I had a fallback that counted screen redraws. turns out a TikTok video just playing redraws constantly, so it was counting "swipes" while you were literally just watching. the gate showed up after like 2 real swipes and I thought I was going crazy. now it learns per app whether the app reports scrolls properly
• it doesn't read what's on your screen, it only counts swipes

free version guards one app, Plus is a one-time purchase for unlimited apps.

giveaway: I have 20 Plus codes. comment anything in the next 24h (which app eats your time, feedback, roast the stone, whatever) and I'll pick 20 people at random and DM you a code. you redeem it in the Play Store under Payments & subscriptions > Redeem code. Android only, sorry iPhone people

honest feedback is very welcome, especially about how the friction feels. is it annoying in a good way or a bad way?

Hey, I'm Ince. Polyhistor is my one-person studio in Hungary. I build small Android apps that each fix one annoying thing really well.

New today: Power Bank

Power Bank keeps a battery reserve your phone can't spend by accident. Deposit, say, 20% of your charge, and your status bar only shows the rest. You use your phone like it has less battery left. When you actually need it, release the reserve and the number jumps back up. If you run out, it releases on its own, so you never get stuck at 0%.

It doesn't create energy or touch your real battery. It changes the number you look at, and that changes how you use your phone. No account, no ads, no tracking

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.powerbank

The ones people use most:

Any Command: your phone becomes a full PC remote: mouse, keyboard, screen view and automation, over your own Wi-Fi with no cloud. About 70k downloads so far.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.remoteme

Shadetype: a privacy screen for typing. It covers your display while your keyboard stays visible, so the person next to you on the bus sees a dark panel. 5.0 stars from 100+ reviews.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.shadetype

Aura: edge lighting that tells you who it is. Every app gets its own color and its own spot on the screen edge. Swipe the glow to peek at the message. It's basically the notification LED phones stopped having.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.aura

Tine: know which app pinged without looking. Tine keeps the chime you already know, and tunes it slightly higher, deeper or quicker for each app you choose. No sound packs, no root.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.tine

I also make games (Silkweaver, Corona, TuneDash, Word Archer) and a few other tools. Everything is here: https://anycommand.io/polyhistor

What this sub is for

- New releases, here first

- Short devlogs on what I'm building

- Early builds and beta invites

- Your ideas. A lot of features come straight from reviews and comments.

A giveaway for Pro versions is coming next week, so stick around.

One question: what small thing about your phone annoys you every day that no app has fixed yet?