Posts Tagged ‘iPhone application’
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Go big or go free: how to price your iPhone application
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
One of the most common questions from new iPhone developers releasing their first application is what price they should sell their application for. Well, my answer is simple: go big or go free.
And here’s why.
If you decide to sell your application, I don’t believe $0.99 is the best price in most cases. Usually, the $0.99 applications are perceived as being simple, not very well done and cheap-looking. Users will question how much time and effort was really put into such a cheap app. Once the user has passed the invisible barrier between free and paid, the difference between $0.99 and $1.99 isn’t a major one for them, but it could be a significant difference for you, the developer.
While going from $0.99 to free may mean going from 100 sales/day to 5,000 downloads/day, going from $1.99 to $0.99 may increase your sales as little as 10%. So, if your app is currently priced at $1.99 and you average 100 sales/day, if you were to go from $1.99 to $0.99 you would earn $77/day instead of $140/day (after Apple has deducted their commission). And, if your application isn’t crappy of poor quality, don’t be afraid to charge even more, you would be surprised by how much money you could be missing out on by not doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I have a few $0.99 applications myself, but it’s because I don’t think they are worth more than that or because that’s the price tag people are generally expecting for those kind of applications.
On the other hand, free applications, if well marketed, can pull huge numbers. My application iShotty was downloaded about 80,000 times because it was free and didn’t cost a dime to try it out; there was no risk involved. Keep in mind that free applications with a good retainer rate can generate significant income from ads.
So, if you want to distribute a very cheap application, give it away for free, and find different revenue streams for it. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to charge what your iPhone app is really worth.
Tags: Applications, iPhone application, Making money
Posted in Apple | 2 Comments »
My take on Apple’s ban of the 3rd-most prolific iPhone developer
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
As most of you might have read on several blogs, Apple banned the 3rd-most prolific iPhone developer, Khalid Shaikh, from the App Store. Khalid has published 943 applications in less than 9 months. That’s an average of 5 apps per day, every day, for 250 days.
From reading the comments on these blogs, you can easily divide them into two different typologies: “thanks, Apple, for removing part of the cancer from the App Store” and “why is Apple banning applications they approved in the first place.” I won’t hide that I agree with the former.
There are few considerations I’d like to make:
- Having an abundance of apps is not a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with publishing 100 apps if you have the content for them. I know, it would be ideal if all the travel guides and similar apps would just release a $0.99 “container app,” and then sell all the different variations inside that app, especially now that that’s possible thanks to the iPhone OS 3.0′s in-app purchase feature. Because having more apps increases your visibility in the App Store, I can’t see that happening anytime soon, unless, of course, Apple forces them to do so.
- Apple isn’t at fault. At least in this particular situation. Yes, more than 900 apps should have raised a red flag, but Apple can’t afford (and honestly, as developer, I can’t either) to thoroughly check every single application; it would take forever! When we signed up for the developer program, we agreed not to publish applications we don’t have permission or the right to publish. Just to give you an example, I partnered with PetMD to publish all their PetMD applications. If instead of creating an ad hoc developer account, we decided to use mine, how could Apple have possibly known whether I had permission to use PetMD’s content?
- iPhone developers are very rare. This case just confirmed my theory that iPhone developers don’t exist in large numbers; good developers are even rarer. This one guy basically owned approximately 2% of 50,000 apps in the store.
- It’s time for a few significant changes. There are two things that can be changed: the way people look at the App Store (as a distribution tool and not as a marketing tool) and the way in which people find apps (or the App Store in the way it showcases these apps). There absolutely has to be a more effective way to ensure that the better apps rise from the masses of
crappynot-so-great apps than Apple’s current system, which is based on user ratings or average number of recent downloads.
I’d like to hear from you. What’s your take on this?
Tags: App Store, iPhone application
Posted in Apple | No Comments »
Mega64 + iShotty = Awesome!
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
After noticing an unexpected spike in traffic on iShotty.com, I did some research, and I found out that Mega64 made a very funny video about iShotty (and similar apps). 
Tags: iPhone application, iShotty, Video
Posted in Apple, Whatever | 2 Comments »
Integrating Facebook Connect in your iPhone app
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
For the June South Florida iPhone Meetup Ben Bloch, gave a very interesting presentation about the integration of Facebook Connect and iPhone applications.
I personally believe that the integration between iPhone apps and existing social networks, like Facebook or Twitter, could really play an important role in your marketing strategy for your applications. Some of my applications already let you post your scores on your Facebook wall and I’m planning to integrate Facebook Connect on almost all the remaining ones.
A special thanks to Mobuilt for sponsoring again our meetup.
Tags: Facebook Connect, iPhone application, Meetup
Posted in Apple, Developing | 1 Comment »
SoFla iPhone Meetup: Eat Will Grow (I know it will)
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
Last week (yes, I know, it took me a week to upload the videos, mea culpa), at the South Florida iPhone Meetup Group we had the pleasure to have Ben Hopkins present his iPhone game, Eat Will Grow (iTunes link).
Ben, who has been writing software for 14 years on a variety of platforms ranging from game consoles to desktop to mobile.
In his presentation, Ben also spill a couple of very good tips that I personally didn’t know, like places where to submit Apple related press releases or applications to check your daily rank.
I also had a chance to announce my next project, Get Apps Done, a no-frills job board where iPhone developers and people/companies who need iPhone applications developed can meet each other. If you in one of those two categories or you are just curious, please sign up at www.GetAppsDone.com to find out when we’ll go live or read our blog blog.getappsdone.com for more information.
If you are in South Florida and you are interested in iPhone developing (you don’t need to be a developer), don’t be shy and join us.
(more…)
Tags: iPhone application, Meetup
Posted in Developing | No Comments »
Analytic tools for your iPhone application sales
Friday, May 15th, 2009
UPDATE: since I wrote this post AppFigures managed to add review downloading from all 77 app stores around the world, automatic rank trending from the four major app stores, and show your app’s rank inside both daily and weekly email reports. Good job guys!
I always say that the iPhone applications business is all about downloads, so being able to track your sales is key.
So far I’ve been using three tools to track my sales: AppSales, AppViz and AppFigures. AppSales isn’t developed anymore and they suggest to use AppViz so I won’t even bother reviewing it. Too bad cause it still has few features I wish AppViz and AppFigures had.
Let’s start with AppViz.
AppViz is a desktop application for Mac, it costs $29.95, but after the month of trial i decided it was worth the money. Apple only provides those ugly and unreadable spreadsheet files and I really don’t have time every morning to go thru the to see how much I made in sales. AppViz can download all the reports with just a click, and it organizes the informations in easy-to-read graphs. It also let you download all the reviews, a great way to keep track of your users’ feedbacks.
PRO:
- One click reports download
- Easy-to-ready graphs
- It let you download and track reviews
- Great customer service
CONS:
- $29.95 (it is worth the money but free is always better)
- You can’t directly compare different applications
AppFigures on the other hand is a pretty recent web application, and it’s completely free. AppFigures imports reads the text-file reports that Apple provides developers through iTunes Connet and transforms them into structured data. Reports can be uploaded manually, by syncing with iTunes Connect, or automatically on a daily schedule using Auto Import. While is missing some of the functions that AppViz offers, it has what is my most favorite feature: email reports. Every morning when I wake up I just need to reach my phone and check my emails to see how many sales I made the day before. You can choose between daily and weekly reports, and if you want the stats about all your iPhone applications or only some of them. You can also choose multiple recipients. Pretty damn sweet I’d say.
PRO:
- It’s completely free
- Automatic reports download twice per day (in case the first attempt fail)
- Easy-to-ready graphs
- Email reports (daily or weekly)
- It shows profit by region
- You can compare different applications in the same graph
- Quick response to the community feedback
CONS:
- Sometimes it is buggy and doesn’t handle very well too many applications at the same time
Tags: Analytics, iPhone application
Posted in Marketing | 5 Comments »
How to build an iPhone application in 20 minutes
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Auston Bunsen, founder of Mobuilt, gave a great presentation at South Florida iPhone developers’ April meetup on how to build an iPhone application in 20 minutes using frameworks like or Safire, builded by Auston, or PhoneGap.
Safire should be released in the next couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to trying it myself.
Check out also my presentation “Marketing thoughts about the iPhone apps business” from the same meetup
Tags: Developing, iPhone application, Presentation
Posted in Developing | 35 Comments »
iPhone applications: where to start?
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Last time (a couple of posts ago) I talked about the possible revenue models for an iPhone application, but what it’s the real first step? Very simple answer: the Idea.
The answer is actually simple, but having the right idea is the hardest part of the all process. You can pay somebody to program your application, you can pay somebody for the design and maybe somebody even to market it, but to be successful it’s need to be a good idea.
I know, tons of fart applications making thousands of dollars might induce you you think that the function of an application isn’t important, but even the most stupid application to be successful need to answer to a demand. Fart applications, even if stupid, like iBeer applications fill the need of showcasing the iPhone with friends.
Also it’s important to research the competition. Once a friend asked my opinion about an idea he had for an iPhone application: a weather app. These are some of the questions I immediately asked him: do you really think you can make a better weather application than the other 100 already existing? Are you going to tap a specific niche (big enough to guarantee you some profit)? Are you sure you’ll be able to collect all the informations you need to “feed” your application? Can you compete with the big players in your niche?
If you can’t answer yes to all this maybe you need to re-think you application.
Third, and very important thing you need to consider is your budget. Are you going to code the application yourself or are you going to hire a team? My suggestion is always to start small. It’s a new market, it’s really eclectic and hard to predict. On top of that you are at Apple’s mercy, so don’t invest thousands of dollars in an application Apple might not even approve. Not all the applications will make $40,000 in 2 days. Actually probably you’ll never be able to do that.
Go small and safe, even if sounds too little $5-10 per day isn’t a failure if you only spent $400 to build your application. Build few small application to create a constant revenue stream, and then, once you build a small capital, you can try something bigger and more risky.
Do you want to know what I think is the best way to create a revenue stream? Cloning.
Build an app, something that could be easily cloned and reused with a different theme or topic. In this way you can pay once for the developing process and multiply your income.
Easy, isn’t it?
Tags: iPhone application, Making money, Micro-developing
Posted in Apple, Developing | No Comments »
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