[Update on yesterday's Apollo SPCA Fundraiser] We raised $42,749.29 yesterday for the SPCA Animal Shelter. FORTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. We have broken the ALL TIME historic record for SPCA donations in a single day. I could cry. Thank you for the A...

How much did you HOPE you would raise?

I was really just hoping to beat the previous record by a bit, so maybe $28K if I got REALLY lucky. That was like my stretch goal, I would have been SO happy with that. In the back of my mind I was like "Okay I did this thing with Reddit last year and everyone was so generous, I bet if I do it a second year people will have already done the first and not care as much anymore." Like when you sell chocolate bars door to door in middle school or whatever, it's cute the first year but the next year you're like "dang are these people sick of me".

But then it raised 50% more than last year. wtf

That being said I honestly do think this is the peak haha, but it's an awesome peak to hit even if following years don't come close to matching it.

You may hit a peak for the day, but you could probably raise much more if you really campaigned for a week or more and marketed it more. I bet you could hit 75k if you did market it and preplan the charity event.

Definitely noted, I'm curious if that's the case too, the sales slump significantly after the first 12 hours or so of exposure, so from what I can tell the first day is by far the most important, but that would be a fun experiment to run.

I literally just went on an old iOS device I don't use just to buy the app to support you.

That being said do they have an estimate on how long this funding will last for them? Like how many animals it will save?

To make a difference in even one animals life is priceless

Yeah that's kinda my logic. The SPCA lets you donate it to a specific area of need, so I could totally donate it solely to "food", and it would honestly probably result in 10,000 lbs of cat food to feed cats at the shelter, but I always instead select "area of greatest need" that way I can trust them to use it on food (if they run short) or litter (if an influx of kittens occur) or medical bills (if animal abuse occurs), etc.

In that case I have a cat and could use $10 million to care for it. Please send in small bills.

Unmarked?

True. But I'm wondering how long the funding will last. Is it enough to fund them for a year? Or will they need more funding soon.

They will need more funding soon. Shelters almost always need money and donations. 42k is INCREDIBLE but there will always be more animals in need. And even if that covers them for the year, they could always use the “extra” for a clinic or free spay/neuter for TNR folks.

Or if it's too much to use in one year they can set it aside for a kitty college fund!

That's awesome, thank you for being so kind. And that's a very good question, I'm going over to the shelter next week I'll see if I can figure that out! I'd imagine quite awhile, but it depends at the same time because some animal cases can get expensive if humans were crappy enough. There's been a few cases in the last two years in our community where some animals have showed up in some pretty bad cases and needed a lot of medical care to be brought back to a quality of life (a cat recently lost its leg from a human shooting it for instance, don't worry the cat is doing great now!), which can get pretty expensive pretty quickly I imagine.

I still remember the first fundraiser a few months after I joined reddit. I thought $5,000 was pretty great for just one guy who made an app all by himself, but $42,000 is absolutely fantastic. I’m really enjoying all the new icons in the icon pack. Since this subreddit requires me to ask a question in my comment, what features do you plan on adding to Apollo in the future? As always, keep up the amazing work Christian and thanks again for making such a great app!

I know!! I was over the moon for $5,000. I wanted to make a donation myself and I thought to leverage the community, and the $5,000 was so much more than I could have done just by myself, so it really felt incredible. $42,000 honestly is hard to wrap my mind around.

A redesigned iPad app and a desktop app are high on my list of priorities right now. Trying to put all my focus into that. :)

Thank you :)

Any plans on making an Apollo android app? Not that I use android, but I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would love it (plus the added bonus of reaching a wider audience for more donations next year)

I'd love to one day. Rebuilding it for Android would be a massive undertaking though, and being just one guy not something I have the time for at the moment is all, but that would be a wicked fun project.

Dang it, I was waiting to upgrade until you did another one of these but I missed it yesterday! Any chance you’ll extend donations for folks who were late to the party?

I'm always donating the proceeds from the SPCA icon in the app, 24/7, if you unlock that. You can also always donate directly! https://www.novascotiaspca.ca/how-you-can-help/donate/

What is goin on with this AMA? 😳

Haha it's kind of weird, the mods are nice enough that they let me provide an update as a separate post, so it's not a traditional AMA in the sense that there's probably not a lot more to ask since I answered every comment in the original one, but if there's anything more you all want to know or talk about I'm happy to oblige haha.

Hey is there a way to change your flair on Apollo?

I know it’s not related but it’s driving me crazy.

Next update, just finished working on that today haha. Which subreddit do you want it for in particular?

It sounds like it, but are you planning to make this a yearly thing? Because you really should. The idea to add the icon unlock was great (wouldn't have noticed otherwise). I can't remember if there was a popup in the app or if I had to go to settings to see it, but if there wasn't, you should add one next year to make sure nobody misses it.

And a selfish question: Any plans to bring Apollo to macOS? I'd really love a good reddit app on the desktop and with Catalyst I guess it wouldn't be too hard to bring over the iPad app. I'd be more than happy to pay again of you did :)

And happy belated birthday!

That's the plan. :) It's like the most fulfilling day of the year and the SPCA people come let me play with kittens afterward so I can't not do it.

I definitely want to bring Apollo to macOS. Stay tuned. :) And thanky ou!

Congratulations! How is your name purple?

I made my own name purple to help prevent people impersonating me in my app haha. Plus a small bit of vanity.

Does any of this money go to lobbying against the breeders who contribute massively to the population of abandoned animals?

Yeah the SPCA here actually does a great job on cracking down on puppy mills and whatnot, they broke up a massive one here within the last year.

Fuck yes!!! So happy for you

Thank you! :D

How mamy kitties does that save????

One, if it eats as much as ours does! :-p

gets third mortgage to buy food and litter

ayooooooo

By my math at least 3

Hello! Any way we could have an Apollo for android? I would love to help!

It would be a serious undertaking, but I'd love to take a swing at it some day. :)

I have no idea if Apple would end up going for this, but have you tried reaching out to Developer Relations (and emailing some execs) to see if there’s a way they could help route the IAP revenue directly to the SPCA?

I reached out after the fundraiser last year to some employees I know at Apple to ask and from what I understand from them asking they said it wasn't possible to do that.

Congrats my man! I absolutely love Apollo and it’s great to see the community come together and make something awesome like this happen.

I do have a question for you if you don’t mind answering!

What resources would you suggest for a current software developer getting into iOS development / Swift? I’m a software engineer by trade, but iOS development is so radically different from the traditional Java and C# development I’ve been doing for the past 5 years that I’ve struggled to pick it up and run with it. Any resources or tips you can share?

I look forward to your future work! Macs with Apple Silicon make me super excited for future dev possibilities, and I’m sure you feel the same 😊

I really love Hacking with Swift, it has some excellent beginner resources, all the way up to professional resources that I consult all the time, it's just an awesome resource built by a really nice guy, I'd definitely check it out. You got this. :)

Does your client have a paid version? I would like to support it.

Yes! There's Apollo Pro listed in the Settings tab. :)