Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
On my Twitter client I always have a search running for all the names of the things I build. The other day, looking at the search for SquarePik, something caught my eyes:
So I decided to play along and I posted:
I was expecting to be either ignored or to be insulted in some way for asking money for an application like SquarePik (many people seems to have problems accepting the fact that applications could cost more than free). Instead I received these message:
And not only he’s an active user, apparently he’s also very passionate about it:
What did I learn from this? Simple. What’s done is done, so just try to make the best out if. A user is a user, no matter how he arrived to use your product. Yes, I could have made an extra $1.40 if he paid for the application, but at the end an passionate user is worth much more than that. And maybe now that he sees that there is a person behind this application, he will consider to buy it.
Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »
Goodbye bikinis, hello gambling!
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Apple recently surprised everybody, me included, with its new policy about “overtly sexual content” on the iPhone, taking down from the store all the apps with questionable content. One of these apps was Featured Pinups by PinupLifestyle.com. This is an application we built at 39, in partnership with the owners of Pinup Lifestyle, to showcase the featured pictures posted on the site itself. No doubt there were few mildly erotic pictures, but all very artistic and in a clear pinup style. We can’t help it if pinups are sexy. Geeks aren’t sexy. Pinups are sexy, it’s their thing. For sure it wasn’t one of those “Hot bikini not-technically-naked-but-you-can-imagine-the-rest” apps; pictures were very tasteful and professionally done. Anyway, our app wasn’t the only one to be taken off the store, and some of the other developers actually called Apple and found out what are these new guidelines they forgot to mention to us.
The new guidelines are that Apple will be removing all applications featuring bikinis and lingerie in the next 48 to 72 hours.
Yes, no more filthy apps on iTunes. But don’t worry guys, Apple is great, and while with one hand is taking away, with the other one is giving back. In another very recent change of their guidelines Apple cleared the way to some sort of pseudo-gambling:
3.3.17 Your Application may include promotional sweepstake or contest functionality provided that You are the sole sponsor of the promotion and that You and Your Application comply with any applicable laws.
What do I think about these changes? Well, about the “overtly sexual content” problem, we’ll clean up the app and submit it back. For sure if you have any kind of photography app that doesn’t have to do with barely dressed models, this is the right time to submit them because there is going to be much less noise in that category. About the gambling, I’m sure we will see a large use of it as a tool to promote the applications as well or to collect leads. Will I do that? Maybe.
Tags: Apple
Posted in iPhone | No Comments »
Stencils for iPhone developers
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
You can find Dean’s stencil at MobileSketchBook.com.
Tags: iPhone application, Stencils, Tools, Video
Posted in Design, iPhone | No Comments »
Christmasfy Me: case history of the freemium model on the iPhone
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
As many of you may have noticed, in the last forty days or so I promoted all over the place a simple Christmas application we published called Christmasfy Me. Not only was it a fun application that we wanted to build, but it was also our first experiment with in-app purchasing. Not too long ago, Apple opened the in-app purchase feature to free applications. I personally think this is a great tool for a lot of people to monetize their apps, and at the same time, somehow solve the problem of not being able to release demo and trial versions of their apps.
As promised, I’m going to fully disclose the results I gathered with Christmasfy Me in hopes of helping others to better understand this business model.
The application
Christmasfy Me is an iPhone application that lets you take a picture, or select an existing one from your library, and apply Christmas elements to it. You can then save or share these pictures via email, Twitter, or Facebook. You can view a video of how this application works at www.ChristmasfyMe.com. The application originally came with three unlocked items, we then unlocked an additional three items for a total of six. To unlock the remaining 20 items, the user had to pay $0.99.
Some factors we need to keep in mind
This iPhone application was built and released as a seasonal application; this means that the same kind of application (not necessarily with the same theme) may have totally different results and numbers during other periods of the year. The application was released in a period that is usually notorious for having more downloads that any other period throughout the year: between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Considering that after Christmas the sales dropped considerably, I will only take into account the sales from 11/26/2009 to 12/31/2009.
The numbers
Over a period of 37 days, Christmasfy Me was downloaded a total of 66,623 times. Of those downloads, 32,189 happened in the US while the other 34,434 account for world-wide downloads, mainly in the UK and Italy. In Italy, the application even ranked as the second most downloaded free application in the photography category and about 120th in the overall Top Free chart for a few days. I can’t hide that I was expecting to do better than this. Of course, I’m not unhappy with the results, but everything was timed in order to be included by Apple in their holidays selection and that never happened. Even on its better days, as far as downloads go, the app never ranked better than 500th in the Top Free Apps chart. This says a lot about how many downloads you need to be in the top 100, especially considering the fact that rank and number of downloads don’t usually grow proportionally.
As far as in-app purchases go, we sold a total of 2,193 “upgrades” over the same period. This is actually better than I expected, considering that this was an average conversion rate of 3.29% and, based on the results published by Riptide of their in-app purchase experience, I was expecting something closer to 2.5%. The regional results demonstrate how US customers are more likely to buy in-app content, with an average conversion rate of 4.11%, and accounting for 60.37% of the total of in-app purchases. So, if you decide to build your business on in-app purchases, forget markets like Italy, where the conversion rate was well below 1%, and focus on the US and the UK. Also, If you look at the chart, you’ll notice that conversion rate dropped after December 16th, the day we released a new version where, among other updates, the number of free elements went from three to six.
Conclusions
It might not be the most profitable business model since you need a high number of downloads to make a decent profit, but definitely less than what you would need with ads. More and more powerhouses like ngimoco, Gameloft, and Tapulous are switching to this model with many of their apps. Also, this may allow you to create complex and expensive apps while allowing your customers to pay only for the features they really need (Boxcar docet). The biggest con I found is that a lot of people expect everything to be free to download. I’ve even been accused of “stealing” money because there were only three free elements in the first version. That cost me a bunch of one star ratings in the App store.
I will definitely explore and use this model more in the future. I think there is more that can be done to improve performance and revenue. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated with our results.
Tags: Analytics, Apple, Business, Christmasfy Me, iPhone application, Monetization
Posted in iPhone | 7 Comments »
New iTunes App Store design
Friday, December 11th, 2009
I was checking as usual how my apps were doing in the store when I notice that Apple just released a redesign of the application pages in the App Store. I definitely think this is a great improvement and I think it will improve sales for everybody. Here is what’s new:
- They got rid of the huge link to your company name. Nobody was clicking on it to see your apps so it was just a waste of space and it was confusing people.
- Simple horizontal scroll to see the screenshots. This means that if you have a decent size screen you can actually see more than one screenshot at the time.
- Excerpt of the description. Developers will have to make sure that the most important stuff are written in the first part of the description.
- Links to the company site and support page more prominent.
- More importance to the “What’s New in Version…” section.
- An area with the links to few other apps from the same developer. This is great to help cross promotions of your apps. Even after they get old, this is a good way for people to find the.
- This is also helped by a new big “Customers Also Bought” area at the bottom. Of course this won’t help you on your app page, but it will help you when your app will appear on your competitors’ page
Overall I would say this is a great update by Apple, that seems doing a lot of things lately to please users and developers as far as iPhone OS apps.
Tags: App Store, Apple, Applications, iPhone application
Posted in iPhone | No Comments »
iPhone Application Sketch Book Review
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Links to the mentioned products:
iPhone Application Sketch Book
iPhone Stencil Kit
Tags: Apple, Book, iPhone application, Review
Posted in iPhone | 1 Comment »
Get Apps Done gets its app done
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
If you are an iPhone developer and you are looking for new jobs or new clients, now you don’t have to be in front of your computer to do that. We just released the Get Apps Done iPhone application (iTunes link), which will let you browse through all the job listings on GetAppsDone.com. Also, registered users will be able to favorite jobs in order to quickly find them later on their phone or computer.
Tags: Apple, Get Apps Done, iPhone application
Posted in iPhone | No Comments »
Free Codes for the US State Nicknames app
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Would you like to try one of our latest applications? It’s pretty simple but I think the interface is pretty sleek. Here’s some free codes for you to try it out. If you use one of the codes, please copy and paste the code list in the comments without the one you used, so that people won’t keep trying used codes.
TE6939MXL6L7, 7L3PF6R3Y4Y3, 694NKHAKPL44, 4MFR76P4KXAF, YE3N7997KYA7, RPX7JLXMNMPA, H93NX979X6WP, WMKX66XEEK6T, A3YTANWW9ETF, E66YW647HAKT, P7LHH7WEFHFX, NE9LPPYLPTPW, K69KJXN6KNMF, TKFJWAF49NLY, 66MXM4FKLP7A, 3YN97YEYFK3M, 4WNNRP4MMW3F, XKAJF64YHWL6, 7LTXNH3JPFAP, E6373FX6MPFY, XP74KTFTM97P, PF6PMKK99TXT, E7K7TJF9HLMJ, X7WJAXEEN993, L33HXWAFFF47, M4FHAYTJFLWP, KMJFLR3P7M3A, 9NFM6P64TR4F, NLHM6LP799WR, LF3ENJAHW7A6, R3JNKE73WRMY, RHK3NA4TX3XK, MN7YXLYE64F3, HTPM9HXAWAHT, 776ATYLLRYRT, EPJ9RN9AP4KY, AHHXJ7YWWPLL, W9RA3LHELHFH, PM7TEKRJX3E6, EK9N6KNW9KXM
Link to the app in the iTunes Store
To redeem the code you need to click on the redeem link in the iTunes homepage.
We already submitted an update to correct few little bugs.
Tags: Apple, Flash cards, Game, iPhone application
Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »
What can we learn from Tweetie 2?
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
Last Friday, Atebits launched the new version of their popular iPhone Twitter client, Tweetie 2, which in just one day dominated the Top Paid and Top Grossing charts in the App Store. What can we learn from this?
Keep your interface clean and simple.
Tweetie 2’s interface is really clean and simple, almost as if Apple themself may have had a hand in designing it. Everything is easy to access and erroneous clicks are pretty rare.
Offer what users need, not everything.
For sure, Tweetie 2 doesn’t offer as many options as other clients. Twittelator, just to name one, offers a full array of integrations and functions, but this may only serve to confuse a new user.
Keep it open.
On the other hand, Tweetie 2 gives you the option of using whatever service you want for posting pictures and shortening URLs, which is great! Now I can use my own URL shortener, and I’m not forced to use Twittelator in order to use, in my opinion, the best picture service around: Pikchur. Actually, if you want to use Pikchur as well, here’s the API ending point you need to insert in Tweetie: http://api.pikchur.com/tweetie
Create good products and people will throw money at you.
Tweetie was a great product, but Tweetie 2 is even better. And when you create such great products, people won’t mind spending $3 for your application. Of course, that doesn’t come without work. You still need great PR, and you have to ensure that your product gets in front of the right eyes (like that of a Mashable or Techcrunch writer). I must say that this doesn’t happen too often; there are several great applications buried in the App Store, but the best ones hardly stay buried forever.
Tags: iPhone application, Tweetie, Twitter
Posted in Developing, Marketing, iPhone | 1 Comment »
How to keep your idea safe on a job board
Monday, October 5th, 2009
As many of you may know, about three months a ago I co-founded a job board for iPhone developers. Since then, the question I get asked most often (aside from “how are you going to monetize this?”), is “is there a way to protect my ideas?” Well, yes, there is. It’s common sense.
Let’s assume for a minute that you’re looking for an attorney via an ad on a job board, would you post a very detailed ad explaining your exact situation and why you’re in need of an attorney? Or would you simply list the requirements or area of expertise needed to handle your particular situation? I’m assuming you’d leave out the details. So why not do the same when looking for an iPhone developer (or any developer for that matter)? If you are planning to develop an amazing 3D game, there’s no need to disclose details of the game. You can simply create an ad listing the skills and expertise needed. In this case, a listing for a developer with gaming experience, 3D animation and other similar skills may be helpful. And, if you’re uncertain of the skills that would be needed or the technological terms, keep it general and be creative; I’m sure you can come up with a good way to describe you’re idea without disclosing too much. Chances are, if you wouldn’t tell anyone about certain details before making them sign an NDA, then you may not want to include those details in your ad on a job board.
Also, in my opinion, we shouldn’t be afraid to share our ideas. Often, an idea by itself is worth almost nothing. However, what will really make your idea successful is your marketing strategy, network, passion, dedication and hard work. Besides, most developers are too busy to stop everything they are working on and go after your idea. If they do have that much time on their hands, you worrying about them stealing your idea may not be warranted.
Posted in iPhone | 1 Comment »
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