Posts Tagged ‘Apple’
« Older Entries |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 »
What I think the new Apple device will be
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
I have been thinking about posting my thoughts about the upcoming new Apple device for a while. Because I didn’t have the time to do so, I will just make a list of features I think this device will have:
- It will be shipped in a single size, with 10″ screen
- It will have touch screen and, more important, touch recognition on the back of the case, where the fingers naturally rest when you hold the device
- It will use a dual-core ARM processor produced by Semi PA, an ARM licensee acquired by Apple.
- The OS will be a modified version of iPhone OS, so the final user will only have a superficial access to the device.
- Non optimized iPhone applications will work in iPhone size windows while the optimized one will run in full-screen mode. The device will support multi-tasking.
- It will be offered mobile operator free but it will be mobile operator ready. You will be able to pick the provider of your choice.
- Apple will offer free unlimited wireless connectivity with a MobileMe account to access to limited content like iTunes, iDisk, Mail and other Mobile Me services.
- It will offer unlimited connectivity for subscription applications like magazine and newspapers
- It will have GPS .
- It will not support Adobe Flash.
- It will have a front facing camera, with facial recognition for the users (remember that new feature in iPhoto?)
Tomorrow will find out the truth. I know I will get one no matter what, what about you?
Tags: Apple, Table
Posted in Whatever | 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 »
Two weeks of Magic Mouse
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
It has been about two weeks since I received the Magic Mouse I won thanks to Mobclix, so I thought I’d share with you my impressions.
First of all, the object is beautiful. It could sit on my coffee table in the living room, and my guest would never guess it’s a mouse. As far as functionality, I think we are facing an evolution jump as big as switching from a mouse with a track ball (do you remember them?) to a laser mouse. No more cursing when the page doesn’t scrool, no more experimenting with new ways of cleaning the scroll-ball, it just works… Beautifully and flawlessly. When you first start using the mouse, the shape could make it a bit uncomfortable; it’s significantly flatter than its predecessor, and the movement to scroll the pages could feel awkward, but after a few days you won’t notice it anymore, and you’ll soon wonder why no one thought of this earlier.
On the downside, Apple decided to remove two of the four buttons: the middle and the “squeeze” buttons. Honestly, if I didn’t win the mouse I wouldn’t buy it for that exact reason. Button 3 and 4 were my access to Exposè, and I just couldn’t live without it. As far as multi-touch control, Apple only gives you two buttons (left and right), the 360 degrees scroll and a double swipe left and right to control the browser history and other stuff, like iChat tabs or to scroll through your e-mail messages in Mail. I was actually surprised Apple didn’t take more advantage of some functions they already enabled for the Macbook’s touchpad, such as multiple-finger movements to trigger Expose and Spaces. But luckily, just a couple of days ago, I found an awesome software that lets me set up all sort of multi-touch gestures and now I fully control Expose and more simply by “caressing” my mouse. I’m sure Apple will release an official driver to do all these things soon, but for now I’m happy with how Magic Mouse and BetterTouchTool are working together.
Tags: Apple, Magic Mouse, Multi-touch, Review
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
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 »
Thirtynine’s first flash cards app
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
Here’s a quick demo of Thirtynine’s latest application, a flash cards application.
We really wanted to keep it as simple as possible. This is going to be just the first one of a series of educational applications.
Tags: Apple, Applications, Education, iPhone application
Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »
What will change with the new App Store?
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
With the introduction of iTunes 9, Apple also presented a new version of the App Store.
A lot of people complained, for a long time, about the App Store structure, and how it was driving the developers to price their applications as low as possible in order to appear in the top 100 lists, which is the only way to be easily discovered in the store.
I’m uncertain whether or not this change will help solve that specific problem, but Apple added a new chart in the home page, “Top Grossing.” This chart shows pricey apps that did well and cheap apps that did extremely well. Aside from that, the number of apps featured in the App Store’s home page is still the same, and the application categories are relegated in a drop menu – a menu that I didn’t even realize was there until after 10 minutes. My guess is that with this change, the number of visits in the category pages will slightly decrease in favor of the Top 100s from the home page.
Another disparity is that only the apps in the home page top charts can take advantage of the sharing feature to post a link on Facebook and Twitter, while the others are still stuck with only the e-mail sharing feature.
On a positive note, Apple increased the top 100 for each category to top 200, giving visibility to a few more apps (and I’m glad to see that some of my apps may take advantage of that).
The “genius” feature on the iPhone version of the App Store is an interesting concept, but except for gaming, I don’t see a great use for it. It probably will take a while before it will collect enough data to be reliable (for me, it’s suggesting to use Grocery iQ based on Qik and Xbox Achievements based on DukeMobile). Also, it often offers you replacements for apps you already have; what’s the point of suggesting another to-do list? To help me find a better substitute for what I already have? And how are they going to pretend to do that, by offering me apps with a lower average rating than the app I already have?
Do you want the secret to be successful in the store now? Market outside the store, and if you happen to end up in the home page charts, you’ll bank even more than before.
What’s your opinion on the new App Store?
Tags: App Store, Apple, iPhone application, iTunes, Marketing
Posted in iPhone | No Comments »
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