0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
0:00:04news of notes in iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm
0:00:08an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia. This is show number 173, and today
0:00:14is Wednesday, February 5th. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's
0:00:19get started. All right, so first a quick note. I'm trying something a little different with
0:00:23the show notes for this episode. I want to just give you some feedback on it, whether
0:00:27like or not, I don't like it.
0:00:29I'm making it kind of more like a half blog post, half podcast
0:00:32episode in the hopes of kind of making it a bit more searchable
0:00:36by myself and others later on.
0:00:37So just that's kind of what's going on there.
0:00:39That's why it's this very long form, more prose, verbose kind of thing
0:00:43than what I've done in the past.
0:00:44So let me know if that works for you.
0:00:46All right, so the topic I'm going to talk about today is naming.
0:00:50I think something I've talked about a few times before.
0:00:52This is coming-- this is at the forefront of my mind
0:00:54as a result of the sort of the paper on paper on paper on paper battle that has been raging
0:01:00where Facebook had an app called Paper that then the other app called Paper said was their
0:01:05name and then there's other apps that are related to that both into the name itself
0:01:11in the app store versus and also the company name for it's like I had to draw a big like
0:01:15a flow chart to try and keep track of what on earth was actually going on. And that isn't
0:01:20quite as interesting or as useful for me to talk about, I think. But I was curious about
0:01:24kind of trying to unpack what's going on there and some of the realities of the store, some
0:01:29of the considerations you have in naming in the app store for an application development,
0:01:33and kind of just generally some guidelines that I've learned from dealing with this.
0:01:38And so I'm not specifically going to talk about their situation. And the funny thing
0:01:41is I've actually been in very much the same situation they've been for one of my apps,
0:01:45which I'll talk about in the middle of the show. But it's a tricky thing. And it's very
0:01:49it mostly difficult because the name of a something is very often-- it's what you associate
0:01:56with something. It's very hard to develop something and not get attached to the name
0:02:00of it to have that name have an extra value and an extra meaning beyond what some other
0:02:08parts of your application might do. It's UI, while it's something you might want-- you
0:02:13might feel a sense of ownership with. The name and what you call it is even more so
0:02:17so, something that you will value and feel
0:02:21personally associated with.
0:02:22And so it gets tricky when people
0:02:23start-- you start getting people who are using the name,
0:02:26or when you feel slighted or sort of taken advantage
0:02:31of in that way.
0:02:32It can be even trickier than a lot of other areas.
0:02:35And the name is important, too.
0:02:36It's not just something that's important for you.
0:02:38It's also important for your customers,
0:02:39because it's how they're going to relate to your application.
0:02:42It's how they're going to tell their friend, hey,
0:02:44I got this great new app.
0:02:46And then they're going to tell their friend the name.
0:02:48They're not necessarily going to tell them the App Store ID
0:02:50number or the URL or something like that.
0:02:52They're going to give it its name.
0:02:53And so it's important for the application
0:02:55to have a name that is recognizable, that is useful,
0:02:58that is something that you can really
0:03:00tie people around to.
0:03:01And so it's an important topic.
0:03:03And I think that's why it always is a little bit hot button.
0:03:08A quick disclaimer, as always-- it's important to mention,
0:03:11but hopefully it comes without saying-- I'm not a lawyer.
0:03:15So some of the things I'm going to talk about here have legal ramifications and please don't
0:03:19believe base legal or branding decisions solely on the recommendation of a 15 minute podcast
0:03:23by a guy sitting in a cupboard.
0:03:25So on we go.
0:03:27So first I'm going to talk about just some general high level considerations about choosing
0:03:31a name.
0:03:32And really you and your name when you're when you're naming something you can kind of can
0:03:35fall into two broad categories.
0:03:38It can be a very unique, contrived or invented name, something that you're just kind of making
0:03:44up. And the advantage of these is that it makes it they're typically very easy to much
0:03:48easier to defend or protect because you've made something up. And so if someone else
0:03:52uses the same name, they're very clearly copying what you're doing. So an example of some of
0:03:56these things we like group on YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, things that are not actual words,
0:04:03you're not going to be able to go to the dictionary, at least when you first create it, and look
0:04:07something up, because it's a made up word, you invented it. And so the advantage of that
0:04:12is, you know, it's unique and it's, you know, it's very defendable in that way. It's your
0:04:17name, you made it up. If someone else uses it, they're like, "Hey, you copied what I
0:04:20did."
0:04:21And the other general class of names are things that are more generic terms or partially generic
0:04:25terms. And so there's some examples of this or things like, for example, I have an audiobooks
0:04:29app and the paper that motivated this whole thing, flashlight, camera, you know, things
0:04:33that have very generic terms in them that are great in terms of being recognizable and
0:04:39being having sort of a native built in search optimization characteristic that if people
0:04:44are looking for something, you know, if someone's searching for a newspaper, they might search
0:04:48for paper. But that's might just be what they refer to as a newspaper or they, you know,
0:04:53like canvas or whatever it is like people are going to easily search for the exact name
0:04:57of your application potentially, which has a lot of value to it, but are typically much
0:05:01more tricky to defend or to lay claim to. For example, some of these things might not
0:05:06be able to be trademarked. You know, it's just a tricky thing when you start heading
0:05:10down that road. But generally, those are kind of the two ways that you can name an app.
0:05:14You can give it a very contrived name or a more generic name. And there's pros and cons
0:05:18to both. Increasingly, I think I'm heading down the path of favoring the more contrived
0:05:23and invented names. I've had some success with generic names. But because the nature
0:05:29of them is always going to, it's going to invite and create this collision and this
0:05:33conflict. It's very often sort of more trouble than it's worth to actually go with. And so
0:05:38generally, I'd recommend heading more in the contrived invented name route or taking a
0:05:43word that is, you know, potentially a dictionary word, but applying it in a very different
0:05:48way. You know, for example, an app like Vesper by Q branch is a good example of where, you
0:05:54know, Vesper is a word. It's, you know, it's a word you'll find in the dictionary, but
0:05:57it's being applied in a very different context than where it was actually, you know, it's
0:06:01It's not like if you look up Vesper in the dictionary, you're going to find task management
0:06:04or note taking or those types of things.
0:06:07So you can apply a generic term in a very different way as one approach to this, or
0:06:12you can completely just invent a word.
0:06:14And generally that works fairly well.
0:06:17The App Store is a funny place though with names.
0:06:19And there's a couple of things that I've found sort of just having been existing in the store
0:06:23for a while.
0:06:24Some of them are awkward and some of them are just plain realities of being in the store.
0:06:29And the first thing I wanted to talk about is App Store name squatting, which is basically
0:06:35when someone goes into iTunes Connect, creates an app, gives it a name, and then lays claim
0:06:40to that name, even if they're not necessarily going to use it to sell an actual product
0:06:44or if they're just sort of going to hold it hostage or whatever.
0:06:46This is a classic problem with domain registration years ago.
0:06:52And generally, it's not as big of a problem as it is now because of what I'll talk about
0:06:55in a minute.
0:06:56Apple generally has a variety of policies in place to prevent this.
0:07:00I think once you register a name, you have to at least have submitted an app and had
0:07:06that go through the review process within, I can't remember if it's 60 days or 90 days,
0:07:10but you have a window where you have to actually try and make use of it.
0:07:14Otherwise you'll lose rights to that.
0:07:16But it still happens, and that's not to say someone couldn't just create a junk app and
0:07:22put it out in the store to, you know, sort of to lock up the name, which is something
0:07:25that happens. But even more of an issue with that at this point is that as of today, I
0:07:31went to App Shopper and I looked and they said that there's been basically one and a
0:07:34half million apps have been approved over the life of the App Store. And with a pool
0:07:38of names that large, it's very likely that almost all of the basic short, you know, sort
0:07:43of nouns and verbs in the App Store have been used at this point. You know, it's not something
0:07:48that, you know, with a pool of possibilities that that's that large, you're almost certainly
0:07:52going to have a lot of, you know, the basics pulled up in the same way that with domains,
0:07:56you know, all of the four or five, six letter, you know, dot com domains have long since
0:08:00been claimed and used. And that same thing is fairly true in the App Store, that there's
0:08:04not a there's fewer and fewer kind of dictionary words that are going to be available just
0:08:08simply based on the volume of the App Store. And another thing that's also probably worth
0:08:13pointing out is, initially, I always thought that it was impossible to duplicate exactly
0:08:19a name of something else from another app in the App Store. That essentially who claimed
0:08:23it first got it, you know, it's sort of, it's like the old colonial model where all the
0:08:28different countries are going out and they go out and they put their flag on the island
0:08:31and say, you know, I claim this flag. I claim this island for Britain, I claim this island
0:08:35for France, and they're kind of going through in that way. And I thought that was the way
0:08:39it worked in the App Store. But the reality is, that isn't always true. And there's a
0:08:42a variety of mechanisms that I don't really want to get into, whether by guile or glitch,
0:08:47it's possible to duplicate exactly a name in the app store. And that's a little bit
0:08:52tricky and can be often surprising if you're on the receiving end of that, where you thought
0:08:56you had claimed a name, and then suddenly another app with exactly the same name exists
0:09:01in the store. So just keep that in mind. It is possible, and it isn't one of these things
0:09:05that you should be like, "Oh my goodness, what happened?" It's like, it happens. It's
0:09:07It's not necessarily supposed to happen, but it can happen.
0:09:11And beyond even just that direct duplication,
0:09:13where someone copies exactly the name of your app,
0:09:16it's also possible for them to basically do it indirectly,
0:09:19where you take the core name and then you add characters
0:09:21to the end of it.
0:09:22So you'll often see this sometimes
0:09:24will be like an app name, dash, and then
0:09:25like a tagline or a subtitle or those types of things.
0:09:29Or you'll see it where they just add a character to the end.
0:09:31And the poster board example for this
0:09:34is if you ever go to the App Store and search for flashlight,
0:09:37You'll see tons of these where it's like it's flashlight,
0:09:40and then every possible symbol you could imagine.
0:09:43Flashlight period, flashlight comma, flashlight exclamation
0:09:45mark, question mark, question mark, emoji.
0:09:48And sometimes this is done to improve search optimization
0:09:52where you'll take the name of the application,
0:09:54you'll add a tagline to the end, and those
0:09:56are free keywords in terms of you're typically
0:09:59limited to only 100 characters of keywords in your App Store
0:10:03search keyword box.
0:10:04But you can take extra characters
0:10:06and put them in your name, which is also
0:10:08included in your keywords.
0:10:09And so that's why some people do it.
0:10:11And some people do it just to essentially
0:10:13to try and create that confusion where
0:10:15if you can make the core part of your name
0:10:18look very similar to someone else's name
0:10:20and then add a bunch of characters to the end
0:10:22so that you can easily submit it to the App Store, that
0:10:24can create this kind of-- that tension and that duplication.
0:10:28Another thing that's also probably worth mentioning
0:10:30in that is that your search engine optimization--
0:10:33and by that I mean the App Store search--
0:10:36is a very important part of the branding of your application
0:10:38and the marketing of it.
0:10:39And so the name you choose is certainly part of that.
0:10:43Because like I said, you only get 100 characters of keywords,
0:10:46and then you have the app's name.
0:10:47Those are the only components, really, that get driven
0:10:50into search as far as we know.
0:10:51And so being very careful about what you put as your name
0:10:55is an important part of this.
0:10:56Because that's why a lot of apps, for example,
0:10:59in the camera category have camera actually in the name.
0:11:02Camera Plus, Camera Awesome, Camera Plus with the symbol,
0:11:05camera plus with the word, whatever it is, because that's a huge part of how people are
0:11:10going to be actually able to find it. So you have to be thoughtful about it when you're
0:11:13building it because you can't just name it anything and assume people are going to be
0:11:17able to find it. All right. The next thing I wanted to talk just a little bit briefly
0:11:20about is what I'm going to call appealing to higher powers. And the fact that trademarks
0:11:27are the legal means of which you can protect a name. And a trademark is basically a legal
0:11:31or whatever you want to call it, to allow you to trade under a particular name and to
0:11:35prevent other people from doing commerce under that same name. And typically trademarks are
0:11:41focused around preventing customer confusion. Their goal is to say that if someone has trademarked
0:11:47a product name that they're the only person who's going to be able to use that. And so
0:11:52that way customers aren't going to get confused when they are making, you know, so sort of
0:11:56-- they think they're getting one product and they're actually getting another one.
0:12:01trademarks aren't a panacea. They don't solve this problem necessarily in that, you know,
0:12:05and as with anything involving lawyers, it is only really, it's only sort of a part of
0:12:09a question of who is the who's right in a trademark dispute, you know, who actually
0:12:13has the right, the appropriate trademark, who's been using it for the longest time,
0:12:16who's been using it in the correct way, etc. You know, more often than not, it's going
0:12:20to come down to who can fight the longest fight, who can fight the best fight, and who
0:12:23can convince the highest power, whatever that may be, to take their side. And so, you know,
0:12:28being the little guy getting kind of trampled on by somebody with a bigger budget is certainly
0:12:31going to feel unfortunate. But that's just sort of the reality that we have to understand
0:12:35as you know, as an independent developer, that's just something that I understand that
0:12:39if somehow I ended up in a fight against Facebook, I'm unlikely to win that on a legal front,
0:12:44even if I may be in the right for whatever right means. And generally, I'd say with Apple
0:12:48and the sort of there the in some ways the canonical higher power in the in all this,
0:12:52they seem to have a very reasonable sort of two tier approach, that I would commend them
0:12:57for the way that whenever there is a clear violation of a simple, valid trademark, they're
0:13:01very quick to act. I've seen a lot of people make claims to a trademark or a copyright
0:13:05thing and they'll tell Apple about it and within a few hours it's taken down. That happens
0:13:10all the time and it's a very good process in that way. But Apple generally seems to
0:13:15take the approach that when things get gray, as they get more complicated, they'll start
0:13:19taking steps back and let the parties work it out themselves, which can be a little frustrating
0:13:23you're in that fight. But ultimately, it seems like that's sort of what has to happen because
0:13:27otherwise Apple's in a very awkward place of sort of picking winners and things and applying laws,
0:13:32you know, across the world and all these types of things and interpreting things and trying to
0:13:36arbitrate things that would get very complicated very quickly and require a lot of, you know,
0:13:40a lot of time and energy for things that I'm not sure they would necessarily be an appropriate
0:13:44venue for. And so things ultimately have to be, you know, get sorted out between arbitration,
0:13:47between your lawyers, between just, you know, gentleman conversations, that type of thing.
0:13:52And generally, I think that approach works pretty well.
0:13:53But just keep that in mind that don't think that if you just
0:13:56tell Apple about it, it'll always immediately
0:13:59be dealt with.
0:14:00That sometimes you're going to have to work this out yourself.
0:14:03So anyway, where does that leave us?
0:14:06And so the thing that I would say generally
0:14:08to most independent developers is try and have a unique name.
0:14:12Just go as unique as possible and you
0:14:15avoid a lot of this problem.
0:14:16You can incorporate generic terms as part of that.
0:14:18So for example, an app like Fantastical
0:14:20is a great way to do it where you put the word Cal inside of your calendar app and that'll
0:14:24help. And then just use your keywords to work on the search engine optimization part of
0:14:28it and not worry about it. Otherwise, you just kind of have to trademark that, you hope
0:14:33for the best, and just see what happens.
0:14:35All right, that's it for today's show. As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns,
0:14:39or complaints, I'm _DavidSmith, David@DevelopingPerspective.com. Otherwise, I hope you have a great week.
0:14:44Happy coding and I'll talk to you later. Bye.