signalReddit r/SideProject2026-10-02
I'm building a fitness tracker (yes one of the most crowded app categories), so I built something I couldn't find and actually needed + some fun quirky stuff
Kinoku is an Android fitness tracker built by a software engineer to combine lifts, runs, and steps in one history without requiring an account. It features 1,321 exercises in an explorable Exercise Galaxy, plus Journeys that map real-world routes like the Odyssey and Tōkaidō (with Hiroshige prints) onto user activity. The free plan is fully functional with no ads or caps, while Pro adds analysis and extras; Play Console shows 161 installs in the last 28 days, up from 28 on September 10, but daily installs (5) barely outpace uninstalls (3).
- for who
- Indie developers and fitness app creators facing crowded markets and retention challenges
- what changes
- They see how a complete free plan, quirky exploratory features, and a no-account approach can differentiate an app, while also highlighting the difficulty of retaining users without analytics.
- to do
- Examine Kinoku's implementation: complete free tier, Exercise Galaxy visualization, and Journey progression, and consider how such unique additions could apply to your own app.
key points
- Kinoku combines lifts, runs, steps in one accountless Android app
- Exercise Galaxy maps 1,321 exercises as stars, 4,903 muscle map lights
- Journeys include Odyssey and Tōkaidō, 55 stops with Hiroshige prints
#indie development#fitness app#Android
score
score 5 out of 10. 0-10: how dense the facts are, multiplied by how much you can do with them after reading. 8+ means the topic's evidence bar is met: benchmarks and availability for a new model, amount and investors for a funding round, revenue figures for a solo-money story. Below 5 an item does not enter the digest. A press release scores 3 or less, a reprint loses 2, anything older than 14 days loses 1, a headline that misleads loses 3.
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