0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective.
0:00:02Developing Perspective is a near-daily podcast discussing the news of Note and iOS, Apple
0:00:06and the like.
0:00:07I'm your host, David Smith.
0:00:08I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia.
0:00:11This is show number 22 and today is Tuesday, September 6th, 2011.
0:00:17The format of Developing Perspective is that I'll cover a handful of links, articles, things
0:00:20I find interesting in the first part of the show and then move over to a more general
0:00:24discussion towards the end.
0:00:26This show will never be longer than 15 minutes.
0:00:28Let's get started.
0:00:30All right, the first slide I have today
0:00:32is just a really interesting thing.
0:00:34I think it was linked by Louis Mantilla and his Twitter feed.
0:00:37But it's a fascinating Tumblr that someone
0:00:39has put together that basically walks
0:00:41through a variety of products.
0:00:42At this point, it's mostly Apple products and things like that.
0:00:45But there's a whole other kind of other things.
0:00:47And it essentially analyzes them in terms of the golden ratio,
0:00:51which if you're not familiar with,
0:00:52is this kind of magical 1 to about 1.6 ratio
0:00:57that seems to crop up all over in nature
0:00:59and is very, very aesthetically pleasing.
0:01:01And it's just kind of fascinating.
0:01:02Like when they look at the Mac OS Lion logo even,
0:01:06like the icon with the lion in it, it fits that.
0:01:09And the iPhone 4 in a variety of ways.
0:01:11Just kind of fascinating to watch and look at.
0:01:14Next, there's just kind of a funny little joke
0:01:17that I saw that I thought would appeal to most developers.
0:01:20And I'll link to it, but I'll just read it right here.
0:01:23This is called the six stages of debugging.
0:01:25And basically, the first one is that can't happen.
0:01:31The second one is that doesn't happen on my machine.
0:01:34The third is that shouldn't happen.
0:01:37The fourth, why does that happen?
0:01:40The fifth, oh, I see.
0:01:43And the sixth, how did that ever work?
0:01:45So just a little bit of a humor to start the week off.
0:01:49I've definitely experienced personally all
0:01:51of those stages of debugging and can
0:01:54vouch for the veracity of that.
0:01:56And next, I have a little certificate repository
0:02:01that is something that will be helpful for certain people.
0:02:04Hopefully many of you don't have to run into this,
0:02:06but it's something that I personally needed
0:02:08and so I figured I'd share.
0:02:10And it's to a project that allows
0:02:12you to easily set up Microsoft Internet Explorer
0:02:17virtual machines on Mac OS.
0:02:20And essentially, it uses--
0:02:23if you're not familiar, Microsoft
0:02:24publishes these little virtual PC instances
0:02:27whose primary purpose is to be Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9,
0:02:33which is great.
0:02:34But you have to have Microsoft Virtual PC, which
0:02:37I don't believe runs on Mac.
0:02:38And so it's kind of a bit of a pain.
0:02:40And so this essentially configures and converts
0:02:43them to work with VirtualBox, which is an open, free,
0:02:47virtual environment, which you can also
0:02:49for all kinds of other cool things.
0:02:50Like, you can run a Lion instance in there
0:02:52and all kinds of cool stuff.
0:02:54But basically, it's just a nice way,
0:02:55if you ever need to do-- if you have a website
0:02:57for your application or you're doing website testing,
0:02:59it's a way that you can kind of spin up instances
0:03:01and try out all the different versions of IE
0:03:03without having to actually have a Windows machine kicking
0:03:06around.
0:03:08And lastly, I was just going to point out--
0:03:12which many of you probably saw over the weekend--
0:03:14but is over on TechCrunch, they had a big thing where--
0:03:21I guess, let's see.
0:03:22They had a big exclusive where MG Siegler
0:03:26was able to get his hands on the upcoming Amazon Kindle tablet.
0:03:30And basically, it's a seven-inch tablet
0:03:32that runs a forked version of Android.
0:03:35It's very focused on using the Amazon ecosystem
0:03:38to buy books and movies and all those types of things.
0:03:42And it's not necessarily news in the sense
0:03:45that it's a lot of things that we've been speculated
0:03:47about before, sort of in the past.
0:03:50The thing that I'm most interested in and why I'm bringing it up
0:03:53is I think for me, who is someone who has apps in the Amazon App Store,
0:03:56I think knowing for sure at this point, OK, it's coming.
0:03:59It's going to be $250.
0:04:01It'll probably do pretty well.
0:04:02It's like, all right, the Android apps that I have in the Amazon App Store,
0:04:06I think I'll make sure work nicely on a seven inch screen in a way
0:04:10that for a while I'd written it off.
0:04:13I'd find the Amazon App Store to be very low volume,
0:04:16low traffic, not very good.
0:04:18Maybe it's worth checking back into.
0:04:19So just something that I wanted to put on people's radars
0:04:22just in case you have a similar situation that you
0:04:24have some Android apps.
0:04:26The Amazon App Store may actually
0:04:27be a worthwhile thing rather than a bit of a waste of time
0:04:30than it was before.
0:04:31All right.
0:04:32And that's it for the links today.
0:04:34And I was going to move over into our general discussion.
0:04:37Today I was going to talk about--
0:04:39So this is sort of the third part in our series
0:04:41about submitting apps to the App Store, where
0:04:44we talked about the provisioning and setup part.
0:04:46Then we talked about the second phase, which is actually
0:04:50the submitting of the app.
0:04:51And I'm going to talk a little bit of what
0:04:53happens once you've submitted, once your app's approved
0:04:55and released and in the store, some of the things
0:04:58that you can expect there and what to look at.
0:05:00If you've released an app before,
0:05:01this is probably a fairly old hat to you.
0:05:03But if you're thinking about it or you're just curious,
0:05:05this is my experience having launched dozens and dozens
0:05:08apps for how that process goes and things to keep in mind.
0:05:12All right, so firstly, immediately
0:05:14after you launch an app, it'll go
0:05:16into a couple of different spots in the App Store itself.
0:05:21And see, these are the different places
0:05:23that your users can find you.
0:05:25One, obviously, they could search for you.
0:05:27They can do direct links.
0:05:28So if you create a link directly to your app,
0:05:31someone can click on that and take you to there.
0:05:34They could find you in the app sorted by release date list,
0:05:39which is very prominent on the devices themselves.
0:05:42It's a little less prominent in iTunes itself,
0:05:44but I think most people get apps from the device itself.
0:05:46So it works fairly well there.
0:05:49The challenge is that is less helpful than it used to be.
0:05:52It used to be when you first launched an app,
0:05:54you'd have a nice big bump at the beginning.
0:05:57And it was really quite nice because you kind of
0:06:01have a day or two where people would be seeing you a lot,
0:06:03because you're right at the top of the recently released list,
0:06:07which is sort of given equal listing versus top apps.
0:06:14And so you get a lot of traffic.
0:06:15I found recently, though, that that's very, very muted now.
0:06:18It used to be very strong.
0:06:21But at this point, the number of apps
0:06:25that are released every single day
0:06:27is so high that that number just-- in the first day,
0:06:33in the first hour, you'll likely be overrun
0:06:35by a whole other page of apps.
0:06:37And so that's just something that's not really especially
0:06:39helpful.
0:06:41So for example, and if you're curious about how many apps
0:06:46are submitted, the best place to go, I would know,
0:06:50is 148apps.biz, which is an app review site primarily.
0:06:56But the best part about it is it has a stats area.
0:06:59And in here, you can see the number
0:07:01of apps that were submitted per day overall and so on.
0:07:06As of August, so for the whole month of August,
0:07:08it averaged out to 782 apps per day.
0:07:13And so you can kind of get a sense for why the new release
0:07:16doesn't really help nearly as much as it used to.
0:07:20Because if you're looking at something like 32 apps being
0:07:22released every hour, your app would be at the top of overall
0:07:28for a very short period of time, especially
0:07:30because apps are typically reviewed in batches.
0:07:33And so anyway, so then the primary way
0:07:35that people will find your app is in the top paid or top free.
0:07:39These are generally speaking volume-based in terms
0:07:41of if you have a very expensive app
0:07:43and you're doing very well, you'll
0:07:45do high on sort of the top grossing list.
0:07:47But you may not necessarily do well on the top paid or top
0:07:50free, which are more based on just actual units sold.
0:07:53So this is why the race to the bottom happened
0:07:55and all those types of things.
0:07:57because a $0.99 app is more likely to have a higher
0:08:01volume than a $10 app.
0:08:03So that's just something to keep in mind.
0:08:05Something to-- I think it shouldn't necessarily
0:08:09drive your pricing, but it's making sure
0:08:11that if you're trying to be successful from visibility,
0:08:14then visibility is based on volume and so on.
0:08:16So that's why most of the top grossing apps, even now,
0:08:19are free with in-app purchases to make money in it,
0:08:22or advertising.
0:08:23They're primarily in-app purchase.
0:08:24because taking that approach allows you a lot of visibility
0:08:29in the App Store.
0:08:31And so once you're in the App Store,
0:08:33one thing I would always recommend that you do
0:08:36is that you need to check your app
0:08:38description, your screenshots, on a couple
0:08:41of different devices.
0:08:42Ideally, a retina and a non-retina display,
0:08:45those types of things.
0:08:46And just be looking for things that you weren't expecting.
0:08:49So for example, I've had problems
0:08:50where things don't display quite right, awkward breaks in my
0:08:57sort of description text where you get awkward line breaks,
0:09:01those types of things, things that you want to edit.
0:09:03Something else you can look at is how long your app's title is
0:09:07and making sure that it doesn't break at an unfortunate point.
0:09:10You can end up with sort of strange, misleading words being
0:09:13shown at the end because it's cut in half,
0:09:14those types of things.
0:09:15Just be mindful of that right after launch
0:09:17to make sure that you don't have any of those sort of biting
0:09:20in the butt.
0:09:21And let's see, the last-- let's see, other things about once you're in the App Store
0:09:26is that in there, there's always going to be-- your app will get a star rating.
0:09:30Your star rating is based on reviews.
0:09:32As a developer, I would say it's worth initially taking a look at that and making sure that
0:09:37there's no immediate big problems, especially looking at your one-star reviews.
0:09:42But overall, after a period of time, I found that it's very kind of-- it's just demoralizing
0:09:47to look in that. Because you have such a variety of users. You have some people who are, you
0:09:53know, it's like, "Oh my goodness, this app is amazing. It changed my life and I'm a better
0:09:58person because of it." And then the next, you know, five stars. Next review, one star.
0:10:02I can't believe this developer even considers themselves a developer. They should be ashamed
0:10:06of themselves. And it's just kind of non-constructive, I find, typically, to look through, spend
0:10:12too much time looking through your reviews,
0:10:14just focus on making your apps better.
0:10:17And probably more constructive is
0:10:19to focus on responses that you get from users in email
0:10:22or those types of support forms.
0:10:24Those users have made a bit more of an effort,
0:10:26and so they tend to be at least somewhat constructive.
0:10:28You've still got a few flaming trolls coming in saying,
0:10:31oh, it's terrible, oh, it's terrible.
0:10:33But you get a little less of that
0:10:35than you do just in the App Store reviews.
0:10:37So just something I'd recommend, because for a while
0:10:39I used to get really depressed and, oh, I
0:10:41wish I could contact this person.
0:10:42What's going on?
0:10:42But ultimately, there's just people who like being grumpy,
0:10:45and they feel entitled to--
0:10:47I mean, especially to say, I have a free app, right?
0:10:49So they've got something for free,
0:10:51and they're making it sound as though I've just robbed them
0:10:53of their life savings.
0:10:56So anyway, so that's sort of how you--
0:10:59so now you've launched your app.
0:11:00You're hopefully ranking fairly well.
0:11:02Kind of funny little notes from a ranking perspective
0:11:05is you'll notice distinct breakpoints
0:11:07in terms of revenue you'll get at different points in ranking.
0:11:12And it's kind of a funny thing.
0:11:13But basically, obviously, if you're the number one app,
0:11:15you'll do very well.
0:11:16Then there's sort of a level below that,
0:11:19which is sort of the one through five of the App Store, which
0:11:23is the first screen that shows up in your category
0:11:27or in any of the lists if you just open it up.
0:11:30And so that's without any scrolling, you're visible.
0:11:32So it's all about visibility.
0:11:34Then there's a slight drop for the one
0:11:36on the bottom of that, which I think is the fifth, which is
0:11:39half shown.
0:11:40And then the first 25 is another break point.
0:11:43We are kind of getting another sort of--
0:11:45I'm not saying these are consistent.
0:11:46Like you're making the same at each of these levels.
0:11:49But there's kind of these very distinct sort of stair steps.
0:11:51So rather than just sort of being a linear fall off
0:11:54with rank, it's like you have these very sort of abrupt
0:11:56jumps at these various points.
0:11:58And then the next break point runs
0:12:00to the 25, which is the first page.
0:12:02And then for each page thereafter,
0:12:04there's a fairly similar rank.
0:12:06So that's just something to keep in mind.
0:12:08And you can often end up-- sometimes it's worth--
0:12:10Overall it's probably not worth in the long run playing these games, but it's sometimes
0:12:14something that I found helpful is if you're at launch and you find yourself right on a
0:12:19cusp and say your app's $2.99, maybe it's worth for a weekend or two, like stay on a
0:12:25Friday right before weekends.
0:12:26For my apps I get best traffic on Sundays, so my Sunday rank is very important.
0:12:32Sometimes on a Friday I'll drop the price a buck just to kind of get over that hump
0:12:38so that for my profitable days, I've
0:12:41sort of ranked slightly higher.
0:12:42You'll often find that you'll lose money initially
0:12:44with that, obviously, because you probably
0:12:46won't make up the difference in volume for what you
0:12:48did from the price change.
0:12:50But it's just a little trick that you can sometimes
0:12:52play with just to kind of help that process out a little.
0:12:55But generally, like I said, don't do that too much.
0:12:58But sometimes it's very helpful, and sometimes it's worth doing,
0:13:01especially just at launch when you're
0:13:02trying to get traction.
0:13:04All right, so that's it, I think, for the App Store.
0:13:06The only other thing that you'll have to do once your app's
0:13:09launched is update it.
0:13:10The process is very straightforward.
0:13:12You go into iTunes Connect, say I have a new version,
0:13:14give it a new version number, say it would change,
0:13:16submit the update.
0:13:17But otherwise, that's it.
0:13:18And that's it for this kind of three episode arc,
0:13:21talking about submitting an app.
0:13:22Hopefully that was helpful.
0:13:23If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, complaints,
0:13:27either hit me up in my contact form on the website,
0:13:29or just developing perspective.com/contact.
0:13:34Or you can hit me up on Twitter.
0:13:36I'm @_davidsmith.
0:13:38Otherwise, I hope you like the show.
0:13:40If you like it, tell a friend, tell two, tell three.
0:13:42It's the best way to say thanks to me.
0:13:45And otherwise, have a good Tuesday.
0:13:48Happy coding, and I will talk to you later.