Learning and careers decision
Remember Names
A single developer can build a functional iOS-only name/quiz app and local storage plus map/reminders (multi-week effort), but reproducing the polished, cross-device App Store product (watch polish, long-term UX, discoverability and support) is non-trivial and not fully covered by simple prior-art CRMs.
View on the App Store↗Not priced
No pricing page we fetched carried a figure, so there is nothing to compare against. The build side is still real.
$100one-off200 h to build
$0/mo3 h/mo upkeep
No published price to break even against.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Remember Names alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Add a person with name, photo, location and notes → optionally tag/group them → get reminders / practice via quiz or photo-match → find people on map or via search.
What it still won’t have
- Polished App Store experience, onboarding and discoverability
- Existing user base, reviews and reputation
- Ongoing platform-level QA across many iOS/Watch OS versions and devices
- Some convenience integrations (Siri shortcuts, Home-screen widgets polish) unless explicitly implemented
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
Remember Names does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal iOS app (Swift + SwiftUI) with an optional WatchKit companion that stores people (name, photos, notes, groups, date added, location) in Core Data and syncs via iCloud. In scope: create add/edit person screens, photo upload, MapKit view showing saved meeting locations, geofenced local reminders, import/export CSV and JSON, a quiz mode (photo-match and name-recall) with accuracy tracking, local notifications, basic Unit/UI tests, error handling and secure local storage (Face ID protection). Out of scope: App Store submission assets, advanced UI polish, analytics backend, third-party paid services. Include CI for builds, automated tests, and documentation for running locally and enabling iCloud/Watch support.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score64
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productRemember Names: Name Reminder - App Store
- official pricingPrice Craft: Artist Calculator - App Store (pricing source used; no numeric plan shown)
- open sourcekrayin/laravel-crm
- open sourceDolibarr/dolibarr
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
