I'm writing an essay. From the angle of discovering an unknown world by searching for my own app months after release—in polite Japanese (ですます調), an essay of 3,000-4,500 characters.
For a while after release, I was staring at the dashboard every day. Whether new users had increased, whether errors were occurring, whether crash reports had arrived. Like checking a child's temperature every morning, I was chasing numbers day after day. But after a few months, that habit gradually faded. I started thinking about the next app, got caught up in other work, or simply grew tired. Just as the euphoria of release day quietly dissolved into everyday life, the frequency of opening the dashboard decreased.
That day, when I casually typed my app's name into the Google search bar, it was truly just a whim. Something like, "I wonder how it's being viewed lately," with a light feeling. But the landscape I saw there was completely different from the world Lily had imagined.
The first thing that caught my eye was a blog post I had no knowledge of. The title had my app's name written right there, with a heading that said "Impressions after one week of use."
I couldniously held my breath.
Reading the article, someone I didn't know had carefully introduced my app. They had even taken screenshots, writing honest thoughts like "this suits these kinds of people" and "this part was a bit hard to use." Lily sat frozen in front of the screen for a while, unable to find any words.
It wasn't a simple emotion like happiness or embarrassment. It was something like—the weight of the fact that something I had created was living on its own in a place I wasn't watching, slowly spreading through my chest.
That person had never spoken to Lily. They hadn't submitted an inquiry through a form, nor had they mentioned me on social media. But they quietly used it, quietly wrote their thoughts, and quietly disappeared somewhere. Lily didn't know that such a person existed until opening the search bar.
There Were English-Speaking Users
Continuing to scroll, this time an English page came up. It was a Reddit thread.
"Does anyone use this app?" with several replies attached. "I use it too, it's pretty good," "Is this made by a Japanese person?" "The font is a bit weird but overall I like it"—these kinds of conversations were being exchanged in a place Lily had no knowledge of, among people Lily had never met.
Lily had intended to make it for Japanese speakers, but it had reached the English-speaking world. And naturally, someone was telling someone else about it.
For some reason, that fact felt very strange. It had reached a place that wasn't where Lily had "intended to deliver" it. I realized for the first time that an app begins to walk toward places beyond what the creator envisioned the moment it's released.
"The Font Is Weird" Was Actually True
The comment "the font is a bit weird" honestly stung a little. But when I checked the English display again based on that comment—the font really was subtle. The English font fallback specification was loose, and depending on the environment, the system default font was being applied.
I hadn't paid attention during development. There were no problems in the test environment. But for users in different environments, "it looked weird."
A straightforward comment from an unknown user revealed a problem I hadn't noticed myself. I fixed it that week. Somehow I felt sorry, and it bothered me for a while even after fixing it.
Digging deeper into the search, this time I found a post on a forum. It was a post to a community completely separate from the feedback window Lily had set up.
"When I use this app, it freezes when I perform certain operations."
The post date was two months ago. No one had replied.
Why didn't that person report it directly to Lily? Maybe the official inquiry window was hard to find. Maybe the English support page was a hassle. Or maybe they simply thought, "There's no way an individual developer will read this anyway."
Any of those was Lily's fault.
When I tried to reproduce it, it indeed froze. It was a bug with very specific reproduction conditions—it only happened on certain device sizes when certain operations were performed consecutively. For two months, did that person continue using it as is, or did they give up and uninstall? Either way, a sense of apology remained.
I Reviewed the Inquiry Window
Right after finding that forum, I reviewed the app's support page. The path to inquiry was unclear, so I added a direct link within the screen saying "If you find any bugs, please let me know from here."
It's a small change, but I didn't want to repeat the same thing. Even if someone was struggling outside the official route, it wouldn't reach Lily—I wanted to change that situation even a little.
Through this series of "search" experiences, Lily realized something important.
From the moment of release, the app is no longer just mine—I thought I understood this obvious fact intellectually. But I truly felt it for the first time at this moment.
The impressions written on an unknown blog were about usage I hadn't intended. The Reddit comments were from the perspective of English users. The bug report on the forum was about an environment where testing couldn't find it. All of them came from outside the frame of what Lily saw as "my app."
An app begins to move within each user's context the moment the creator finishes writing code. In places Lily can't see, it becomes someone's morning habit, part of someone's work, or a memory of "it didn't work."
It was both frightening and deeply appreciated.
After that, Lily started searching for the released app's name on Google once a month. I also started checking social media searches at about the same frequency. I'm not doing anything elaborate. It's just that my perspective became a bit wider than when I was only looking at App Store reviews.
Most months I find nothing. But about once every three months, there's a trace of someone left somewhere. Every time I find that trace, my spine straightens a little. I think, "Is it working properly?" "Can I make it more understandable?"
Going Out to Collect Evidence That the App Is Alive
The purpose of searching isn't to find good comments and boost motivation (though that's certainly part of it). Rather, it's to try to know as much as possible about what's happening in places I'm not watching.
Users don't necessarily write in feedback forms. They don't always send inquiry emails. But they might write their thoughts somewhere. If the creator doesn't go out and collect them, they'll never be delivered.
When I found that bug report left on the forum for two months, the guilt Lily felt wasn't "I knew about it but left it alone," but rather "I didn't even try to know about it." That difference was surprisingly significant.
Since that day of Google searching, Lily's feelings toward the app changed a little.
While making it, I "assume" what users are like. I build hypotheses like "these kinds of people will probably use it" and "they probably have these kinds of frustrations." That's important, but after release and time passes, it sometimes reaches places completely different from those hypotheses.
The person who introduced it on an unknown blog was using it in a scenario Lily thought "they probably wouldn't use it this way." But it was still quite useful in that way of using it.
If it's being useful in unexpected places, that's not a bug—it's whitespace. In a place the creator can't control, the app was finding its own meaning. Thinking about it that way made me feel a little proud.
Individual development doesn't have large teams or marketing budgets. But there's definitely a power to quietly slip into someone's daily life. To notice that, all you need to do is open the search bar once in a while and type your app's name.
The results might be scary. You might find painful comments. But knowing something you didn't know always leads somewhere to the next step.
Lily searches for her own app from time to time even today. Because even after the creator's hand lets go, it might be living in someone's daily life somewhere. And if I find something, I want to respond as quickly and sincerely as possible.
Lily (@bokuwalily) — Individual developer. Making iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI.
