My girlfriend likes text messages. I’m not good at sending them. So “there’s an app for that?” Nope. Like any good tech guy, I made one.
How it Starts
By day, I’m, well, your typical IT consultant? I help companies design highly available systems. During my normal workday, I’m planning projects, evaluating planned methods and related, on phone calls, reviewing more plans, and, of course, in video meetings (thank you pandemic :/).
Throughout all of this, my girlfriend enjoys when I send her little text messages throughout the day. The problem I have is, like most guys, I only get really good at my work when I have 2-3 uninterrupted hours to focus on something. When I get really focused, I tend to forget other things, like the people who are important in my life, and I probably don’t take time out to communicate often enough.
So how can I make my girlfriend (and me indirectly) a little happier?
Where Are All the Text Message Automation Apps?!?
I figured there must be an app that can help me automate some of my text messaging. I mean I’m in IT and automation is king! Right? I looked, but I couldn’t find the right app for me. There are a few very popular and feature-rich automation apps, but what I wanted to do just seemed too cumbersome when using them.
How can there not be an app for this? There’s an app for everything! In looking further, I noticed Google took a hatchet to overzealous apps in 2019 (https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/01/reminder-smscall-log-policy-changes.html) and, apparently, collateral damage ensued as the app store is bereft of apps that could help me.
So, I started coding a modern Android app and, as all of its pieces started to come together, I finally had something that could start automating some of my text messaging without crashing too often.
I Told My Girlfriend I Was Automating Her Text Messages
I figured my girlfriend would be pissed. For months I’ve been dogfooding the app and now she’ll put two and two together. However, when I told her, she was surprised and, well, impressed. She wanted to know more about the app and how it worked. In the weeks that followed, I asked her why she was okay with me doing this. She told me she knew I was busy with work and the app helped make certain she was on my mind and continued to keep communication high between us.
My Dad Needs Surgery
The app was working well for my girlfriend, so why not configure it to work with more people? So, I did and then started automating my texts with my family.
I don’t consider myself a great communicator and my dad is even worse. I added my dad to the app and it started doing its thing. I enjoyed hearing more from my dad and I’m certain he felt the same. A few days went by and I sent an automated “How have you been?” My dad replied back saying he needed to have surgery.
And that was when it hit me. Had it not been for this app, I might not have reached out to my dad and he, more than likely, would not have reached out to me. This little piece of technology just allowed me to be there for my dad when he needed me most. Surely others could benefit from this!
Where to Now?
I finally polished the app to the point where it could be distributed on the Play app store and, today, it’s the only intelligent heuristics-based app to received approval from Google to fully automate the text messaging process. The app is available from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.mtc.ga&referrer=utm_source%3Dpanda and the landing page is at https://communiqai.com.
In case you were wondering, my girlfriend and I are still together.
Thank you.
More info: communiqai.com
The joys of receiving a text message…
