Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing

00:00:06 ◼   ► news of note in iOS, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm an independent

00:00:10 ◼   ► iOS and Mac developer. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's

00:00:15 ◼   ► get started.

00:00:16 ◼   ► All right, so today I'm going to be talking a little bit of a follow-up to my previous

00:00:22 ◼   ► show, which was about the process I go through when trying to ship an app. And sometime I'm

00:00:27 ◼   ► going to talk about what do you do when you're ready to ship and what that process is like

00:00:32 ◼   ► for me. I've been doing this for a while so hopefully it will be helpful to some other

00:00:35 ◼   ► people to see how that process goes from when you say, "Hey, I'm going to draw a line and

00:00:42 ◼   ► say ship it, this is it. I'm going to take this and put it in the store." And then we

00:00:46 ◼   ► walk through the process. This would probably apply fairly well to a new app as well as

00:00:51 ◼   ► a major update, probably not as well for just a minor bug fix release, but this is talking

00:00:55 ◼   ► about when you're doing something big that you want to get some attention for.

00:00:59 ◼   ► So first thing you're going to do is you're going to go into iTunes Connect, you're going

00:01:02 ◼   ► to submit the application, you're going to hit all the right boxes, get our provisioning

00:01:07 ◼   ► profiles stuff correct so that you actually have an app that you can submit.

00:01:12 ◼   ► But when you're doing a major update, you're probably going to want to do tweaks to both

00:01:16 ◼   ► the app description, the app screenshots, and potentially the app icon.

00:01:21 ◼   ► three things and pretty much just those three things. Are the things that your users are

00:01:28 ◼   ► going to see or your potential customers are going to see when they go into the App Store,

00:01:33 ◼   ► they see your app, someone recommends it, they come across it in a list, search, whatever.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Those are really the only three things that they have with the only exception perhaps

00:01:43 ◼   ► of the user reviews but those you don't really have direct control over so you can't worry

00:01:47 ◼   ► about them too much

00:01:48 ◼   ► uh... and so you're a seer your icon this is going to want to make

00:01:52 ◼   ► and i still good

00:01:54 ◼   ► yes sir p i catching and

00:01:57 ◼   ► grabbing the user i'd just a major

00:01:59 ◼   ► you've got a new one done by the end great folks over at the icon factory who

00:02:02 ◼   ► do excellent work i can highly recommend them if you

00:02:06 ◼   ► uh... you are looking for someone to do an icon for you did a great job and i

00:02:10 ◼   ► could be happier

00:02:11 ◼   ► inside the house are going up in my new

00:02:13 ◼   ► uh... icon which at this point it looks like i can't disconnect is starting to

00:02:16 ◼   ► you allow attend twenty four by ten twenty four pixel

00:02:20 ◼   ► icon

00:02:21 ◼   ► it requires that's the current require up to five to five twelve pixel

00:02:26 ◼   ► icon for the app store but i would just think just mentioning that is saying

00:02:29 ◼   ► that i noticed that they don't get a lot of attention

00:02:32 ◼   ► but my guess is especially with the red nine pad they're wanting that extra

00:02:35 ◼   ► flexibility

00:02:37 ◼   ► uh... because the five twelve five twelve icon they could only ever

00:02:39 ◼   ► display it at 256 by 256 on a retina iPad which may not actually be as large as they'd

00:02:45 ◼   ► like.

00:02:46 ◼   ► So you know, you put in your icon and then you want to write a description.

00:02:52 ◼   ► And I've tried probably everything you could imagine for different description approaches

00:02:58 ◼   ► in the App Store.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I've done just super short and sweet where you're just saying, "Okay, I want..."

00:03:03 ◼   ► It's like, "This is what it does.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Buy me."

00:03:05 ◼   ► done the paragraph form where I'm writing an essay about what the app does, how it does

00:03:14 ◼   ► it, kind of appealing to the user on a more literary prose kind of approach.

00:03:23 ◼   ► And then I've done the bulleted list of here's the six things the app does, boom boom boom

00:03:29 ◼   ► boom boom.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And at this point I'm kind of settling more on the short and sweet description.

00:03:37 ◼   ► I think in my experience both talking to people, talking to reading different surveys from

00:03:41 ◼   ► App Store customers and things like that, you get the impression that most users never

00:03:47 ◼   ► read the description.

00:03:48 ◼   ► They may read it if they have a problem with your app.

00:03:50 ◼   ► They may have a few people who actually read it, but if you put stuff in there that you

00:03:59 ◼   ► need people to read, that is not a place for help text.

00:04:02 ◼   ► That is not a place for something that you need--

00:04:04 ◼   ► if a user needs to know something,

00:04:07 ◼   ► that's not where you're going to want to put it.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Because most people just don't read it.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I think-- it seems like in my experience--

00:04:11 ◼   ► and I know this is what I do, and so I can only

00:04:13 ◼   ► expect other people in the App Store to do a similar thing--

00:04:16 ◼   ► is you look at the app, like title, icon, you kind of--

00:04:21 ◼   ► then you could just flip up on your phone

00:04:24 ◼   ► to look straight to the screenshots.

00:04:27 ◼   ► And so what I've ended up doing is making my app

00:04:29 ◼   ► description as short and as terse and focused as I can.

00:04:33 ◼   ► You have to have a good one, you know, you're trying to have it good, but it's more kind of like you're

00:04:36 ◼   ► kind of targeting it as

00:04:38 ◼   ► it's maybe it's your app in two or three hundred words

00:04:41 ◼   ► that kind of a thing rather than

00:04:44 ◼   ► your app in a thousand words or whatever. Like you're really trying to just focus that down into

00:04:48 ◼   ► like I don't give a feature list anymore, I don't

00:04:51 ◼   ► do a lot of those things, I'm just trying to say, "Hey,

00:04:53 ◼   ► this is what the app does."

00:04:56 ◼   ► want to know, if that sounds good and interesting to you, buy it. It's 99 cents.

00:05:01 ◼   ► You know, buy it. It's $1.99.

00:05:03 ◼   ► You know, you're trying to sort of whet their appetite and make them interested in it

00:05:08 ◼   ► rather than necessarily trying to sell them this whole long thing because I think moreover

00:05:11 ◼   ► or not they're going to be like, "Oh, man,

00:05:14 ◼   ► that's a lot of reading. I'm just looking for something fun."

00:05:17 ◼   ► And so, you know,

00:05:18 ◼   ► that's kind of where I've been heading on that.

00:05:20 ◼   ► And then the last thing you're going to add is screenshots. And screenshots, first

00:05:24 ◼   ► and foremost always use retina screenshots

00:05:28 ◼   ► that's just what you want to do. So if you're on an iPhone

00:05:31 ◼   ► or if you're on an iPhone or an iPad either way you just want to either do them from the simulator

00:05:37 ◼   ► or from the device it's kind of up to you for

00:05:39 ◼   ► depending on what makes most sense. If you're using the simulator the

00:05:43 ◼   ► simplest way to do it is

00:05:44 ◼   ► do command S or file save

00:05:47 ◼   ► and it'll do a screenshot of the

00:05:50 ◼   ► the current screen in the simulator

00:05:52 ◼   ► and then on the flip side on the device I usually do that via Xcode, where if you go to the

00:05:57 ◼   ► organizer device screenshots you can take screenshots there

00:06:01 ◼   ► you don't sort of mess up, you can do it on the device if you hold the home button

00:06:05 ◼   ► and then hit click the sleep/wake button

00:06:08 ◼   ► but if you do that you'll

00:06:09 ◼   ► sort of put what goes into your camera roll and you have to deal with it there whereas

00:06:12 ◼   ► if you do it via Xcode it's kind of all separate which is nice

00:06:17 ◼   ► and then you're gonna want to take the

00:06:20 ◼   ► status bar of your screenshot just because it kind of looks cheesy otherwise

00:06:24 ◼   ► and I think technically in the app description

00:06:27 ◼   ► or in the app

00:06:28 ◼   ► programming guide

00:06:29 ◼   ► for screenshots they recommend that you do that so you just kind of want to keep

00:06:33 ◼   ► Apple happy.

00:06:34 ◼   ► I've seen a bit of a trend recently where people do crazy things with their

00:06:38 ◼   ► screenshots. Like for example they're building

00:06:42 ◼   ► you know they have it's actually like eighteen screenshots

00:06:45 ◼   ► of like different phones overlaid between the different images and like

00:06:48 ◼   ► you know, it's kind of like a mosaic or a triptych or something like that.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Personally, I think that, while I think it

00:06:56 ◼   ► can be effective, it feels kind of cheesy. And it feels

00:07:00 ◼   ► like you're not following the app rule, as it's

00:07:04 ◼   ► sort of described by Apple, and that always makes me nervous. I'd rather

00:07:08 ◼   ► you know, sort of, just do sort of the simple obvious thing, and hopefully my app

00:07:12 ◼   ► screen is interesting enough that I don't need to embellish it with

00:07:16 ◼   ► tricks to

00:07:18 ◼   ► bring people into that.

00:07:21 ◼   ► I think the only place that I can think of recently that I've seen it that I

00:07:24 ◼   ► thought it made sense

00:07:26 ◼   ► was I think with the screenshots for Clear, which is a gesture-based

00:07:30 ◼   ► to-do manager.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Their screenshots have kind of...

00:07:33 ◼   ► are actually

00:07:35 ◼   ► pictures of people,

00:07:36 ◼   ► mostly just the app, but you have essentially a picture with someone's

00:07:39 ◼   ► fingers

00:07:40 ◼   ► doing various gestures to kind of

00:07:43 ◼   ► indicate what sort of something that you wouldn't get from the app itself because the app itself doesn't have any buttons.

00:07:48 ◼   ► It's a very flat app and so much of the actual experience that you're trying to convey in the screenshot needs to have a sense of

00:07:55 ◼   ► gesture to it.

00:07:56 ◼   ► But generally I just do sort of straight

00:07:58 ◼   ► screenshots and often I'll try and

00:08:01 ◼   ► work on if I have one or two screens that are most visually interesting, I'll kind of push them to the left.

00:08:07 ◼   ► You can have five screenshots, but my guess is, you know,

00:08:10 ◼   ► most of your users are probably only going to see maybe the first two or three in terms

00:08:15 ◼   ► of, you know, you're not saying it's not a universal thing, but a lot of people I think

00:08:18 ◼   ► are just kind of like flipping up to make sure that the app doesn't look like junk.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Because I think there's a lot of apps in the store that people kind of are burned on. You

00:08:28 ◼   ► can look at the app description, you're just like, this app's junk. It's just not well

00:08:33 ◼   ► put together and you can kind of tell that from the screenshot. Or the screenshot has

00:08:35 ◼   ► nothing to do with the app, which is kind of like, I think it was TempleJump, which

00:08:40 ◼   ► was a Temple Run scam app a little while ago that the only screenshot was just like a picture

00:08:47 ◼   ► that had nothing to do with the app.

00:08:49 ◼   ► And so you just kind of want to be mindful of that and make sure you put your best foot

00:08:53 ◼   ► forward.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Some people say you should kind of tell a story with your screenshots.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I think screenshots really are just kind of a demonstrating quality rather than necessarily

00:09:01 ◼   ► telling a story because that story can often be difficult to sort of put across to somebody

00:09:07 ◼   ► and you're also then you're only able to tell one story. So if you're, you know, say for

00:09:12 ◼   ► example in my app which it has is about books, you know, if I have us tell a story of someone

00:09:17 ◼   ► discovering and then listening to Pride and Prejudice, if you're not interested in Pride

00:09:20 ◼   ► and Prejudice, if you're, you know, want to listen to Sherlock Holmes or Treasure Island

00:09:24 ◼   ► or an adventure story, that may actually turn you off. So I always try and kind of split

00:09:28 ◼   ► it up between different concepts and things.

00:09:32 ◼   ► And so that's kind of your apps at that point, your app is ready for submission, you can

00:09:35 ◼   ► put it in the store.

00:09:36 ◼   ► So now you kind of start this next sort of phase, which I'll talk through briefly, and

00:09:40 ◼   ► I'm by no means an expert on this phase, but it's something that I think is important.

00:09:45 ◼   ► This is sort of the marketing side of things.

00:09:47 ◼   ► I would say generally, marketing in the App Store is not as, you know, it's definitely

00:09:52 ◼   ► a black art.

00:09:53 ◼   ► There are some people who, like Phil Ryu, who seems to just be a wizard at it.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And then there's a lot of apps that are successful with no marketing.

00:10:03 ◼   ► So it's not exactly one of those things where you can say like, "Do this, this, this, and

00:10:08 ◼   ► this," and you'll be awesome.

00:10:10 ◼   ► You'll be set.

00:10:11 ◼   ► You can sort of have a runaway success.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It's kind of one of those things that you kind of do a bunch of things in the hopes

00:10:16 ◼   ► that maybe they'll pay off, and you're doing things that you're pretty sure won't hurt

00:10:22 ◼   ► So for example, you would want to often do what I call a landing page for the app.

00:10:28 ◼   ► I'm typically not someone who does a lot of sort of a very rich, complicated website for an application

00:10:34 ◼   ► because it's very difficult often to really give a solid impression of an app.

00:10:42 ◼   ► And really what you want is you want people to be going to the app store when they are talking about your app,

00:10:46 ◼   ► when they're recommending it rather than a cool page that you made

00:10:49 ◼   ► because you're gonna drive more sales that way, I think. So like for

00:10:53 ◼   ► you know, for me, I have just a landing page. And so you know, you can say you go to

00:10:57 ◼   ► audiobooksapp.com

00:10:58 ◼   ► for audiobooks. It is an app, it is a web page

00:11:02 ◼   ► that's just sort of a big icon with a little bit of a drop shadow

00:11:06 ◼   ► effect to make it look nice. Really quick, just like, you know, free

00:11:10 ◼   ► classic audiobooks for your iPhone or iPad.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Like, this is what it is, this is what it does, and then if you click, you know,

00:11:17 ◼   ► a big, you know, available on the App Store badge.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And just so you know, you get the available

00:11:23 ◼   ► on the App Store badge, you go into the developer area,

00:11:27 ◼   ► so developer.apple.com/ios, and then on the right side

00:11:31 ◼   ► in the column, there's a thing called marketing resources,

00:11:33 ◼   ► and you click there and you can get access to the PSD

00:11:36 ◼   ► of that image at a high quality that you can resize

00:11:38 ◼   ► to fit your exact things, and there's a whole bunch

00:11:40 ◼   ► of sort of branding guidelines and things Apple gives

00:11:42 ◼   ► that you wanna follow.

00:11:44 ◼   ► But, you know, so that's all I kinda do

00:11:46 ◼   ► landing page and mostly I do that so that I can just provide an option for either reviewers

00:11:53 ◼   ► or for a marketing campaign where you're going to want to be able to send someone to your

00:11:58 ◼   ► app.

00:11:59 ◼   ► So ideally, for me, I would say, "Oh, just search audiobooks in the App Store."

00:12:02 ◼   ► But if you do that, there are a couple of different audiobooks apps in the App Store

00:12:07 ◼   ► and so you may not necessarily find it or hit it upon mind.

00:12:13 ◼   ► But if I say, go to audiobooksapp.com and click the icon,

00:12:18 ◼   ► and you'll go there, I can be pretty assured at that point

00:12:20 ◼   ► that you're going to be finding exactly the app I'm doing.

00:12:24 ◼   ► That's all that's served.

00:12:25 ◼   ► That app is almost just a redirect.

00:12:27 ◼   ► That page is just something that I'm trying to have a URL

00:12:31 ◼   ► that I can send people to, to send them to my app.

00:12:34 ◼   ► It's more like a business card in that way or something

00:12:35 ◼   ► where it's just, here's this token that you can take

00:12:38 ◼   ► and maybe assure that you're going to find my app.

00:12:41 ◼   ► And so I do that, and then I'll kind of reach out to the press.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I'll kind of talk to different people I know.

00:12:47 ◼   ► This is the kind of thing where, as a developer,

00:12:49 ◼   ► you kind of want to have at least a little bit of--

00:12:51 ◼   ► it feels weird to call it your online brand.

00:12:54 ◼   ► But you want to have relationships

00:12:56 ◼   ► with people who have platforms into people,

00:12:59 ◼   ► or a platform from which to talk to potential customers.

00:13:03 ◼   ► It just sort of makes sense.

00:13:05 ◼   ► And this is something that you're not doing because it

00:13:07 ◼   ► means that you may be able to get a promotion for your app.

00:13:09 ◼   ► hopefully those you you're being an active member of the community because

00:13:13 ◼   ► you're an active member of the community and you kind of helping the community

00:13:16 ◼   ► out and you're kind of talking to

00:13:18 ◼   ► uh... different people because you're enjoying it and this is what you do

00:13:21 ◼   ► and you know this is an appropriate time to reach out to those people to

00:13:24 ◼   ► given screenshots to or sorry to to tell what's going on

00:13:27 ◼   ► i've given the news they send a bill with test flight

00:13:31 ◼   ► and just kind of huge let alone if they're interested grade

00:13:34 ◼   ► and if we would be pushy but that kind of thing because

00:13:36 ◼   ► you know you've got to be your try to be friends with these people you're you

00:13:39 ◼   ► don't feel like, I'm sure they don't want to feel like they're being sold all the time.

00:13:44 ◼   ► But one thing I definitely put together for them is for a press kit.

00:13:47 ◼   ► And a press kit isn't anything more than just a collection of kind of resources that will

00:13:52 ◼   ► make them, their life easier as I'm trying to put together a review.

00:13:56 ◼   ► So it'll include screenshots, it'll include rounded versions of the icon, and it'll include

00:14:01 ◼   ► some text that they can not necessarily put in their review, but just be helpful.

00:14:05 ◼   ► A long description, a short description, a list of features, links to everything that

00:14:09 ◼   ► you want ideally maybe a promo video just a quick like 60 second hey here's

00:14:13 ◼   ► the app here's what it does they just kind of try to make their life a little

00:14:15 ◼   ► easier if you know when they're trying to write a review if that is something

00:14:19 ◼   ► they're gonna do and then you you just kind of wait hope that it gets approved

00:14:24 ◼   ► but doesn't get rejected hope that everything goes well and you know then

00:14:29 ◼   ► it launches and so that's kind of my process hopefully that's helpful and

00:14:33 ◼   ► that's it for today's show if you have any questions comments concerns always

00:14:37 ◼   ► As always, hit me up on Twitter. I'm @_davidsmith. Otherwise, if you like the show, please tell

00:14:44 ◼   ► a friend, tell two, tell three. The more people who listen, the more likely I am to do the

00:14:49 ◼   ► show and otherwise, have a good week, happy coding, and I'll talk to you later. Bye.

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