Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Another coincidence
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
I’m sure this is a coincidence, just like this one.
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See you at 360|iDev in Austin, TX
Monday, November 8th, 2010
In case you are attending 360|iDev, I’ll be speaking tomorrow afternoon on the 4.10pm panel, moderated by Ken Yarmosh, with David Barnard, Josh Clark and Justin Williams. Don’t be shy, stop and say hi.
Here’s a description of the panel:
Before a single pixel is created, a line of code is written, or a marketing plan is conceived, a prospective app should be looked at strategically. Questions like, “What are the app’s goals?,” “Who are the competitors?,” “How will the app be unique?,”
“What device(s) should be targeted?,” or “What is the best revenue model?,” will have direct impacts on the actual development process.
This panel will explore the often overlooked, assumed, or ignored product strategy aspects of app development, describing the science behind these concepts while showing them in practice for successful apps on the App Store.
Tags: Conference
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App Savvy: Turning Ideas into iPad and iPhone Apps Customers Really Want
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
If you are looking for a good book on how to create successful iPhone applications, whether you are a developer or not, today is your lucky day. Starting today you can find on Amazon a great book on this topic: App Savvy, by Ken Yarmosh.
The book follows the entire process of creating an iPhone application: from idea inception to realization and beyond (marketing strategies and after-launch analysis}. The whole book is also enriched by real case histories and interviews with experts of each phase of the development. I actually had the honor of being one of the people interviewed by Ken. I answered questions about hiring the right developer for your project and my experience with Get Apps Done.
Here some of the topics you’ll find in the book:
- Learn about the App Store and how Apple’s mobile devices function
- Follow guidelines for vetting and researching app ideas
- Validate your ideas with customers — and create an app they’ll be passionate about
- Assemble your development team, understand costs, and establish a workable process
- Build your marketing plan while you develop your application
- Test your working app extensively before submitting it to the App Store
- Assess your app’s performance and keep potential buyers engaged and enthusiastic
Learn more at http://getappsavvy.com
Tags: Book, iOS, iPad
Posted in Apple | No Comments »
Apple TV vs Google Tv
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
Which one of these remotes would you rather explain to your parents?
Tags: Apple TV, Google TV
Posted in Apple, Design | 4 Comments »
FaceTime is mother-proof video chat
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Last week a friend of mine was heading back to Italy, so I took advantage of the opportunity and sent my family an iPod Touch. As many of you may already know, my entire family lives in Italy, and I only get to see them once a year – when I go home for Christmas. Since the new iPhone 4 came out with FaceTime, I’ve been wanting to give one to my mother, so I could see her and my family when I talk to them on the phone. Trouble is, she really didn’t want to add an internet plan to her bill, especially considering the fact that she wouldn’t really take advantage of 3G internet on a regular basis.
Then the new iPod Touch came along and it was a perfect fit for the job. Sure I could have used Skype to video chat with my parents, but we have done that only a couple of times in the five years that I’ve been here. Mainly because they either didn’t know where the webcam was, didn’t know how to use Skype, or they had some other issue that’s common to many non tech-savvy users.
FaceTime, on the other hand, is really simple; all my mom had to do was click on the icon and call my number. No thinking involved. No complexity. It just works. In the two days that she’s had it, we’ve already used it three times. I don’t normally talk to my mom that much, but she wanted to show it to my father and grandfather (who initially thought she was showing him just a picture of me on the phone while I was talking). Thanks to the size and the dual cameras, I was able to give them a tour of my place really easily without walking around with my laptop trying to point the camera in the right direction.
Sure, video chat on a phone isn’t a new thing, but one that even my mom could use with barely no instructions definitely is.
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Thoughts about Apple’s new approval guidelines
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Last week Apple decided to change their policy regarding third-party apps – again. They also published, for the first time, guidelines developers should follow in order to pass the app approval process. Since then I’ve been thinking about the meaning of all these changes and how they will affect the development market.
Some people may wonder why Apple decided to change their position in favor of third-party tools such as Flash. Let’s face it, opening up access to Flash-made applications is simply looking for trouble. There are great Flash developers out there who can build amazing stuff, but the low-entry barrier for Flash will definitely encourage a lot of people, inspired by articles about overnight millionaires, to submit their own fart and flashlight apps. Why would Apple be in favor of such a thing?
The truth is this: opening up to Flash is just a by-product of opening to great tools such as Unity and Unreal, which are necessary to create amazing games. And, as if they didn’t piss off the FTC enough, opening the gates to everyone but Flash would have definitely gotten them in trouble. That’s also why they decided to release those guidelines, as an act of defense. Now that the tools are out of consideration, they are trying to defend the integrity of the store and the experience of their users with tighter guidelines. They made it clear that if your app isn’t “good enough” or is simply just another clone of an already common type of app, you will get rejected. They want developers to bring something to the table, so if you can’t make it better, more appealing or more useful, just don’t waste your time because your app most likely won’t get approved.
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Go the extra mile
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
A quote from the recently posted guidelines for iPhone development by Apple:
Thank you for developing for iOS. Even though this document is a formidable list of what not to do, please also keep in mind the much shorter list of what you must do. Above all else, join us in trying to surprise and delight users. Show them their world in innovative ways, and let them interact with it like never before. In our experience, users really respond to polish, both in functionality and user interface. Go the extra mile. Give them more than they expect. And take them places where they have never been before. We are ready to help.
Wouldn’t that be a beautiful mission statement for your company?
Tags: Inspiration
Posted in Apple | No Comments »
The great Fast Company crap
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
This post wants to be a response to the article posted on Fast Company “The Great App Bubble,” in which the author base all his statements on stats taken out of context.
One billion dollars in revenue for the approximately 225,000 apps is $4,444 per app–significantly less than an app costs to develop.
Sure, this would be true if those revenues were equally distributed to all developers. This statement doesn’t keep in mind that there are thousands of crappy apps out there that don’t make a dime and applications that are developed once and republished several times (think all those travel apps where they publish a different one for each city). In the latter case even if the statement were true, I wouldn’t mind making $4,444 one hundred times over.
A typical iPhone app costs $35,000 to develop.
I really really wish this statement was true, especially because that’s what we do primarily at 39 inc.; I also wish that was the typical price we charged for the applications we build. Some applications could really be expensive of course, especially if you factor some server side programming as well, but of those 250,000 applications, I can guarantee you that 220,000 of those apps didn’t cost more than $7,000 each.
iPhone users don’t find their apps very valuable. In 2009, analytics start-up Pinch Media reported that people barely use the majority of apps they download. Only 20 percent of consumers utilize a free app the day after they download it. By 30 days out, less than 5 percent of consumers are still using it. Paid apps (page 13 of the company’s fascinating 33-page slideshow) have a slightly better performance record, but they still get hit with a steep drop in usage within a period of 11 days. The value of most apps may be in satisfying the curiosity of what the app can do, not in its usefulness or relevance in a user’s daily life.
Sure, free applications are often downloaded just out of curiosity, games are usually discarded once finished and nobody is arguing that there are a great number of disposable apps. So what? I don’t see any problems with that. As a developer you can you can make tons of money building disposable apps as well as building a long lasting success like Tweetie or Instapaper.
Marketers are spending money on iDevice apps at the expense of improving their mobile Web sites that everyone with a smart phone can access. According to Ahonen and Moore, iDevice app development actually costs 10 times more and reach is 50 times worse. Sex appeal will only trump pragmatic reach for so long.
I agree, a lot of websites should definitely try to improve their mobile website or at least make sure that the mobile experience isn’t inferior to the desktop one. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t also offer a native application for iOS, with performances and experience far superior to their web counterparts.
Venture capital is flooding into the app economy in spite of the questionable ROI proposition.
Go tell that to the people who invested in Tapulous or other successful mobile development companies. That’s how venture capital works anyway, they do ten investments and maybe a couple of those will be successful enough to pay for the other investments and still make a profit.
Steve Jobs has said 15,000 apps are submitted to the App Store each week. With this many apps to sort through, finding new, useful ones to download can be a painstaking task. Then on my phone, if I want to find an app I don’t regularly use or a new one, I need to use the search function to find it. Can you think of a faster way to get information? The browser. Once mobile Internet gets faster, apps as the key to on-the-go information and tools will be on the outs..
I suppose that for the author it’s easier to find a web application between millions of pages than a useful apps between 250,000 ones. He seemingly forgot about word of mouth, blogs, social networks and all the others ways that will always let the cream raise at top.
In conclusion, I can say that building a business solely based on mobile development isn’t as easy a task as some successful stories may infer, but definitely mobile apps are not a bubble. They could be part of a cycle for sure, where at one point they will leave their place to other things, just like other things do, but there is a big difference from being a bubble.
Tags: iOS, iPhone application, Mobile
Posted in Apple | No Comments »
Tip of the day: How to multitask while listening to a video on your iPhone or iPod
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
I know, probably you are wondering why anybody would listen to videos instead of just watching them. Videos are made to be watched, possibly without interruptions. Well, if you are like me, I love to watch and listen to my podcasts at the gym, so while the video is perfect for cardio, just listening to them is enough while walking around the gym. And that’s where my problems starts. While watching videos on the iPhone, you can’t either lock your screen or multitask; but there is actually a tricky way to do it. Simply start your video than stop it using your headphones remote (click once). Then leave the iPod application and click again once on the remote and your video podcast will start behaving just like a regular audio one, giving you the ability to multitask and lock your screen.
Tags: iPod Touch, Tip of Day, Video
Posted in Apple | 4 Comments »
Apple announce App Store Volume Purchase Program
Monday, August 9th, 2010
Apple just sent to all their developers an email announcing a new App Store Volume Purchase Program that will allow educational institutions to buy applications in bulk for their students at a discounted price.
We’re pleased to announce the App Store Volume Purchase Program. Education institutions in the United States now have a new way to purchase your apps in volume for distribution to their students and faculty. You can also elect to offer special education pricing on your app when purchased in volume.
Developers will be able to choose to offer special pricing that is 50% of their list price to education institutions when they purchase 20 or more copies of their app.
Tags: App Store, Applications, Education, iOS
Posted in Apple | 2 Comments »
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