Hey all, so we are just starting to design and implement ways to collect the dozens of beautiful color themes we’ve prepared for new Clear.
You might remember unlocking secret themes in Clear via achievements like clearing completed tasks late at night (or in the early morning), checking off a bunch of things quickly in a row, or even by having some cool other apps or games we like installed, etc.
We’re trying to think of other fun and interesting ways to unlock new themes. For example maybe certain themes unlock on clearing tasks on certain holidays. Maybe the Minimalist Black theme unlocks by using the Minimalist theme for 60 separate days. Maybe there’s a theme that unlocks if you enter a note or longer item at a very fast typing rate!
We’re creative people but I have a feeling our community will be able to trounce us on clever and inspired ideas, so if you have one please share below!
First of all thanks for letting me be part of the beta , im loving it so far.
I think one thing you definitely can do is unlock something with a big milestone on the app, 1k items created, 1k items completed that kind of grind reward for heavy users.
Totally, 1000 is a lot! But we have people who have been listing with Clear for over ten years. It sounds fun to include some themes that surprise you deep into the experience. I imagine we will definitely launch with some selection of themes set aside for milestones along those lines (total clears, total days you’ve used the app etc.)
I was thinking how it would be nice if the app icon for each theme was there next to the name of each theme. I’ve been on beta for a long time and had all the themes until the new build (!) and sometimes I pick a theme for an app icon — so I select a theme and then back up to see the app icon and then try another if it isn’t quite right. It also may just help users with lots of themes differentiate to see the app icon next to the name. Just a thought!
We recently tried mocking up basically this (icons in the rows), to explore collectible app icons. I think very likely we’ll show the icons in the theme list too.
I feel like Clear with subscriptions is a great candidate for a “weekly drop” model. The best example of this imo is Wallaroo (not sure if you all are/were NC based, but I seem to remember hearing that and iconfactory is in that neck of the woods too…). They drop a new wallpaper each week and it’s quite fun because they can be based on what’s happening now — like last week was a tears of the kingdom wallpaper or a month ago they unleashed a great Ted Lasso one. Snapchat does the fairly regular drop of new Bitmoji stuff and new Snapchat+ features too.
I was thinking for Clear you all could basically ship the app with all 70+ themes and typography and sound and app icon options, but only show like 5 to 10 solid themes and app icons. Then, if you’re a subscriber, you get a new theme every Thursday or whatever. It could be a new typography or sound unlock too. Swiping on a theme selects it and also shows a little alert box with what the theme is all about or what inspired it, etc.
There are some advantages to this over the current Easter egg approach:
it’s great for subscriptions!
keeps users happy and coming back for more and updating the look of the app regularly; it’s engaging
you could ping Craig/iconfactory and ask if this has been successful for them if they keep tabs on metrics
potentially this could be quite simple where each week you turn on some sort of config flag (like with split.io or something) for that week’s theme drop.
it takes the pressure off of regular app updates because users are regularly seeing new stuff appear, so who cares about an app update? And then when there is one, it’ll just be either bug fixes or some functionality addition. This is good for subscriptions as users expect regular app updates when they subscribe.
Just a thought, but I think worth considering because themes is a big part of New Clear + you all are so badass at making these themes and they can be a centerpiece of subscriptions.
I think we’ll consider some version of this as a layer on top of the RNG loot. Have to implement some cooldown so people don’t just cheat it relentlessly, but if they collect on average one every few days / guaranteed once per week we should have more than enough good collectibles to last quite a while out of the gate.
I have used clear since the start. Each time iOS
got updated I crossed my fingers the app would still work
So pleased the app is again being developed its been my bedrock for listing and also some of my lists I use reminders on for time critical stuff so please can that be reintroduced
I read a post about subscriptions for the app and I believe there is merit there. The users who need to have every feature and also need to customise the app will pay if the price is seen as reasonable
We’re going to handle the ‘subscription pivot’ a lot more gracefully than most apps do. There’s going to be a very generous (very minimal ‘nagging’ to consider membership) free to try forever tier you all are grandfathered into as past Clear customers. I think that will allow the subscription to be a much less polarizing opt-in for fans and daily listers.
, im loving it so far.