Abandoning Apps

In 2013 Windows 8 was the new thing, and with it came Universal Windows Platform(UWP) and the Windows Store. I was attending a Microsoft developer competition to create a cool app and receive a Windows 8 “Surface” device.

I created a Movie Database App named Local Movie Database, based on the (then and now) excellent tmdb (https://www.themoviedb.org) api! The app lets users manually setup a database of their movies, or import it from a local “backup” folder.

The app shows images for all films, trailers, playback for local files, and even has a screensaver mode.

I released this for free, as it was my first UWP app created in a week. I had no intention or goal of earning anything from this. I had studies to attend, and this app was just one of many apps.

Somehow this one got popular though, the app has over 30 000 installs from unique users!

So… My tiny sideproject which I spent a good week on creating a tiny app, suddenly became a thing someone really liked. Real people over the world chose my thing over XBMC/kodi/plex, and built their movie collections in my app.

But the app was free, and I had studies to attend and work to do. So I kinda just left the app running.

Real users with real problems

I started getting some emails about bugs after a while.

At some point in 2017 Youtube broke their api. It was no longer possible to watch trailers in the app.

At this point I had not pushed a significant update in 4 years.

The app needed porting to a new version of UWP to submit an update (which was almost more work than a rewrite).

So I did not fix it. I left the app for dead.

And I thought that would be the end…

But no! 2013 Nils did add some error handling, so the Youtube-trailer feature silently died. If the Youtube thing crashed it would just hide the video from the page, so everything else still kinda worked. The app lost some users, but some kept using it.

So here lies the problem in this blog post: The app still works in 2023. I have not updated it at all. It has not been pulled from the app store (Kudos!). The tmdb API has (miraculously) not had a breaking change! (Kudos!)

So a recent day (in 2023), almost 10 years after the last update of the app, I got this email from a user:

Hi

This is not a problem feedback, but it is a praise feedback.

This is an excellent program!

Easy to use
Easy to operate
And no issues.

It provides all the info on the movies, Ihave recommended it to lots of people.

Thank you.

Just wondering if there will be one for TV shows?

thanks

Really fun to hear. And this is not the only feedback in the last few years!

This app is the app I have spent the least time on, and the only running code I have from 10 years ago. And its practiaclly abandoned.

What is the best way to handle this app? In the 10 years since the apps release I have graduated, worked, gained experience, and should and could use my skills for better stuff and experiences. But this old app keeps giving some people a better day.

How do you turn an app off?

Should I patch the app for tens of users?

Should I just delete the app, to end it all?

Should I just leave it running until something really breaks?

Thats my dilemma.

// Nils Henrik