Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is a near-daily podcast discussing the news of Note and iOS, Apple

00:00:06 ◼   ► and the like.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I'm your host, David Smith.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia.

00:00:11 ◼   ► This is show number 22 and today is Tuesday, September 6th, 2011.

00:00:17 ◼   ► The format of Developing Perspective is that I'll cover a handful of links, articles, things

00:00:20 ◼   ► I find interesting in the first part of the show and then move over to a more general

00:00:24 ◼   ► discussion towards the end.

00:00:26 ◼   ► This show will never be longer than 15 minutes.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Let's get started.

00:00:30 ◼   ► All right, the first slide I have today

00:00:32 ◼   ► is just a really interesting thing.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I think it was linked by Louis Mantilla and his Twitter feed.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But it's a fascinating Tumblr that someone

00:00:39 ◼   ► has put together that basically walks

00:00:41 ◼   ► through a variety of products.

00:00:42 ◼   ► At this point, it's mostly Apple products and things like that.

00:00:45 ◼   ► But there's a whole other kind of other things.

00:00:47 ◼   ► And it essentially analyzes them in terms of the golden ratio,

00:00:51 ◼   ► which if you're not familiar with,

00:00:52 ◼   ► is this kind of magical 1 to about 1.6 ratio

00:00:57 ◼   ► that seems to crop up all over in nature

00:00:59 ◼   ► and is very, very aesthetically pleasing.

00:01:01 ◼   ► And it's just kind of fascinating.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Like when they look at the Mac OS Lion logo even,

00:01:06 ◼   ► like the icon with the lion in it, it fits that.

00:01:09 ◼   ► And the iPhone 4 in a variety of ways.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Just kind of fascinating to watch and look at.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Next, there's just kind of a funny little joke

00:01:17 ◼   ► that I saw that I thought would appeal to most developers.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And I'll link to it, but I'll just read it right here.

00:01:23 ◼   ► This is called the six stages of debugging.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And basically, the first one is that can't happen.

00:01:31 ◼   ► The second one is that doesn't happen on my machine.

00:01:34 ◼   ► The third is that shouldn't happen.

00:01:37 ◼   ► The fourth, why does that happen?

00:01:40 ◼   ► The fifth, oh, I see.

00:01:43 ◼   ► And the sixth, how did that ever work?

00:01:45 ◼   ► So just a little bit of a humor to start the week off.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I've definitely experienced personally all

00:01:51 ◼   ► of those stages of debugging and can

00:01:54 ◼   ► vouch for the veracity of that.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And next, I have a little certificate repository

00:02:01 ◼   ► that is something that will be helpful for certain people.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Hopefully many of you don't have to run into this,

00:02:06 ◼   ► but it's something that I personally needed

00:02:08 ◼   ► and so I figured I'd share.

00:02:10 ◼   ► And it's to a project that allows

00:02:12 ◼   ► you to easily set up Microsoft Internet Explorer

00:02:17 ◼   ► virtual machines on Mac OS.

00:02:20 ◼   ► And essentially, it uses--

00:02:23 ◼   ► if you're not familiar, Microsoft

00:02:24 ◼   ► publishes these little virtual PC instances

00:02:27 ◼   ► whose primary purpose is to be Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9,

00:02:33 ◼   ► which is great.

00:02:34 ◼   ► But you have to have Microsoft Virtual PC, which

00:02:37 ◼   ► I don't believe runs on Mac.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And so it's kind of a bit of a pain.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And so this essentially configures and converts

00:02:43 ◼   ► them to work with VirtualBox, which is an open, free,

00:02:47 ◼   ► virtual environment, which you can also

00:02:49 ◼   ► for all kinds of other cool things.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Like, you can run a Lion instance in there

00:02:52 ◼   ► and all kinds of cool stuff.

00:02:54 ◼   ► But basically, it's just a nice way,

00:02:55 ◼   ► if you ever need to do-- if you have a website

00:02:57 ◼   ► for your application or you're doing website testing,

00:02:59 ◼   ► it's a way that you can kind of spin up instances

00:03:01 ◼   ► and try out all the different versions of IE

00:03:03 ◼   ► without having to actually have a Windows machine kicking

00:03:06 ◼   ► around.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And lastly, I was just going to point out--

00:03:12 ◼   ► which many of you probably saw over the weekend--

00:03:14 ◼   ► but is over on TechCrunch, they had a big thing where--

00:03:21 ◼   ► I guess, let's see.

00:03:22 ◼   ► They had a big exclusive where MG Siegler

00:03:26 ◼   ► was able to get his hands on the upcoming Amazon Kindle tablet.

00:03:30 ◼   ► And basically, it's a seven-inch tablet

00:03:32 ◼   ► that runs a forked version of Android.

00:03:35 ◼   ► It's very focused on using the Amazon ecosystem

00:03:38 ◼   ► to buy books and movies and all those types of things.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And it's not necessarily news in the sense

00:03:45 ◼   ► that it's a lot of things that we've been speculated

00:03:47 ◼   ► about before, sort of in the past.

00:03:50 ◼   ► The thing that I'm most interested in and why I'm bringing it up

00:03:53 ◼   ► is I think for me, who is someone who has apps in the Amazon App Store,

00:03:56 ◼   ► I think knowing for sure at this point, OK, it's coming.

00:03:59 ◼   ► It's going to be $250.

00:04:01 ◼   ► It'll probably do pretty well.

00:04:02 ◼   ► It's like, all right, the Android apps that I have in the Amazon App Store,

00:04:06 ◼   ► I think I'll make sure work nicely on a seven inch screen in a way

00:04:10 ◼   ► that for a while I'd written it off.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I'd find the Amazon App Store to be very low volume,

00:04:16 ◼   ► low traffic, not very good.

00:04:18 ◼   ► Maybe it's worth checking back into.

00:04:19 ◼   ► So just something that I wanted to put on people's radars

00:04:22 ◼   ► just in case you have a similar situation that you

00:04:24 ◼   ► have some Android apps.

00:04:26 ◼   ► The Amazon App Store may actually

00:04:27 ◼   ► be a worthwhile thing rather than a bit of a waste of time

00:04:30 ◼   ► than it was before.

00:04:31 ◼   ► All right.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And that's it for the links today.

00:04:34 ◼   ► And I was going to move over into our general discussion.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Today I was going to talk about--

00:04:39 ◼   ► So this is sort of the third part in our series

00:04:41 ◼   ► about submitting apps to the App Store, where

00:04:44 ◼   ► we talked about the provisioning and setup part.

00:04:46 ◼   ► Then we talked about the second phase, which is actually

00:04:50 ◼   ► the submitting of the app.

00:04:51 ◼   ► And I'm going to talk a little bit of what

00:04:53 ◼   ► happens once you've submitted, once your app's approved

00:04:55 ◼   ► and released and in the store, some of the things

00:04:58 ◼   ► that you can expect there and what to look at.

00:05:00 ◼   ► If you've released an app before,

00:05:01 ◼   ► this is probably a fairly old hat to you.

00:05:03 ◼   ► But if you're thinking about it or you're just curious,

00:05:05 ◼   ► this is my experience having launched dozens and dozens

00:05:08 ◼   ► apps for how that process goes and things to keep in mind.

00:05:12 ◼   ► All right, so firstly, immediately

00:05:14 ◼   ► after you launch an app, it'll go

00:05:16 ◼   ► into a couple of different spots in the App Store itself.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And see, these are the different places

00:05:23 ◼   ► that your users can find you.

00:05:25 ◼   ► One, obviously, they could search for you.

00:05:27 ◼   ► They can do direct links.

00:05:28 ◼   ► So if you create a link directly to your app,

00:05:31 ◼   ► someone can click on that and take you to there.

00:05:34 ◼   ► They could find you in the app sorted by release date list,

00:05:39 ◼   ► which is very prominent on the devices themselves.

00:05:42 ◼   ► It's a little less prominent in iTunes itself,

00:05:44 ◼   ► but I think most people get apps from the device itself.

00:05:46 ◼   ► So it works fairly well there.

00:05:49 ◼   ► The challenge is that is less helpful than it used to be.

00:05:52 ◼   ► It used to be when you first launched an app,

00:05:54 ◼   ► you'd have a nice big bump at the beginning.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And it was really quite nice because you kind of

00:06:01 ◼   ► have a day or two where people would be seeing you a lot,

00:06:03 ◼   ► because you're right at the top of the recently released list,

00:06:07 ◼   ► which is sort of given equal listing versus top apps.

00:06:14 ◼   ► And so you get a lot of traffic.

00:06:15 ◼   ► I found recently, though, that that's very, very muted now.

00:06:18 ◼   ► It used to be very strong.

00:06:21 ◼   ► But at this point, the number of apps

00:06:25 ◼   ► that are released every single day

00:06:27 ◼   ► is so high that that number just-- in the first day,

00:06:33 ◼   ► in the first hour, you'll likely be overrun

00:06:35 ◼   ► by a whole other page of apps.

00:06:37 ◼   ► And so that's just something that's not really especially

00:06:39 ◼   ► helpful.

00:06:41 ◼   ► So for example, and if you're curious about how many apps

00:06:46 ◼   ► are submitted, the best place to go, I would know,

00:06:50 ◼   ► is 148apps.biz, which is an app review site primarily.

00:06:56 ◼   ► But the best part about it is it has a stats area.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And in here, you can see the number

00:07:01 ◼   ► of apps that were submitted per day overall and so on.

00:07:06 ◼   ► As of August, so for the whole month of August,

00:07:08 ◼   ► it averaged out to 782 apps per day.

00:07:13 ◼   ► And so you can kind of get a sense for why the new release

00:07:16 ◼   ► doesn't really help nearly as much as it used to.

00:07:20 ◼   ► Because if you're looking at something like 32 apps being

00:07:22 ◼   ► released every hour, your app would be at the top of overall

00:07:28 ◼   ► for a very short period of time, especially

00:07:30 ◼   ► because apps are typically reviewed in batches.

00:07:33 ◼   ► And so anyway, so then the primary way

00:07:35 ◼   ► that people will find your app is in the top paid or top free.

00:07:39 ◼   ► These are generally speaking volume-based in terms

00:07:41 ◼   ► of if you have a very expensive app

00:07:43 ◼   ► and you're doing very well, you'll

00:07:45 ◼   ► do high on sort of the top grossing list.

00:07:47 ◼   ► But you may not necessarily do well on the top paid or top

00:07:50 ◼   ► free, which are more based on just actual units sold.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So this is why the race to the bottom happened

00:07:55 ◼   ► and all those types of things.

00:07:57 ◼   ► because a $0.99 app is more likely to have a higher

00:08:01 ◼   ► volume than a $10 app.

00:08:03 ◼   ► So that's just something to keep in mind.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Something to-- I think it shouldn't necessarily

00:08:09 ◼   ► drive your pricing, but it's making sure

00:08:11 ◼   ► that if you're trying to be successful from visibility,

00:08:14 ◼   ► then visibility is based on volume and so on.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So that's why most of the top grossing apps, even now,

00:08:19 ◼   ► are free with in-app purchases to make money in it,

00:08:22 ◼   ► or advertising.

00:08:23 ◼   ► They're primarily in-app purchase.

00:08:24 ◼   ► because taking that approach allows you a lot of visibility

00:08:29 ◼   ► in the App Store.

00:08:31 ◼   ► And so once you're in the App Store,

00:08:33 ◼   ► one thing I would always recommend that you do

00:08:36 ◼   ► is that you need to check your app

00:08:38 ◼   ► description, your screenshots, on a couple

00:08:41 ◼   ► of different devices.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Ideally, a retina and a non-retina display,

00:08:45 ◼   ► those types of things.

00:08:46 ◼   ► And just be looking for things that you weren't expecting.

00:08:49 ◼   ► So for example, I've had problems

00:08:50 ◼   ► where things don't display quite right, awkward breaks in my

00:08:57 ◼   ► sort of description text where you get awkward line breaks,

00:09:01 ◼   ► those types of things, things that you want to edit.

00:09:03 ◼   ► Something else you can look at is how long your app's title is

00:09:07 ◼   ► and making sure that it doesn't break at an unfortunate point.

00:09:10 ◼   ► You can end up with sort of strange, misleading words being

00:09:13 ◼   ► shown at the end because it's cut in half,

00:09:14 ◼   ► those types of things.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Just be mindful of that right after launch

00:09:17 ◼   ► to make sure that you don't have any of those sort of biting

00:09:20 ◼   ► in the butt.

00:09:21 ◼   ► And let's see, the last-- let's see, other things about once you're in the App Store

00:09:26 ◼   ► is that in there, there's always going to be-- your app will get a star rating.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Your star rating is based on reviews.

00:09:32 ◼   ► As a developer, I would say it's worth initially taking a look at that and making sure that

00:09:37 ◼   ► there's no immediate big problems, especially looking at your one-star reviews.

00:09:42 ◼   ► But overall, after a period of time, I found that it's very kind of-- it's just demoralizing

00:09:47 ◼   ► to look in that. Because you have such a variety of users. You have some people who are, you

00:09:53 ◼   ► know, it's like, "Oh my goodness, this app is amazing. It changed my life and I'm a better

00:09:58 ◼   ► person because of it." And then the next, you know, five stars. Next review, one star.

00:10:02 ◼   ► I can't believe this developer even considers themselves a developer. They should be ashamed

00:10:06 ◼   ► of themselves. And it's just kind of non-constructive, I find, typically, to look through, spend

00:10:12 ◼   ► too much time looking through your reviews,

00:10:14 ◼   ► just focus on making your apps better.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And probably more constructive is

00:10:19 ◼   ► to focus on responses that you get from users in email

00:10:22 ◼   ► or those types of support forms.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Those users have made a bit more of an effort,

00:10:26 ◼   ► and so they tend to be at least somewhat constructive.

00:10:28 ◼   ► You've still got a few flaming trolls coming in saying,

00:10:31 ◼   ► oh, it's terrible, oh, it's terrible.

00:10:33 ◼   ► But you get a little less of that

00:10:35 ◼   ► than you do just in the App Store reviews.

00:10:37 ◼   ► So just something I'd recommend, because for a while

00:10:39 ◼   ► I used to get really depressed and, oh, I

00:10:41 ◼   ► wish I could contact this person.

00:10:42 ◼   ► What's going on?

00:10:42 ◼   ► But ultimately, there's just people who like being grumpy,

00:10:45 ◼   ► and they feel entitled to--

00:10:47 ◼   ► I mean, especially to say, I have a free app, right?

00:10:49 ◼   ► So they've got something for free,

00:10:51 ◼   ► and they're making it sound as though I've just robbed them

00:10:53 ◼   ► of their life savings.

00:10:56 ◼   ► So anyway, so that's sort of how you--

00:10:59 ◼   ► so now you've launched your app.

00:11:00 ◼   ► You're hopefully ranking fairly well.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Kind of funny little notes from a ranking perspective

00:11:05 ◼   ► is you'll notice distinct breakpoints

00:11:07 ◼   ► in terms of revenue you'll get at different points in ranking.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And it's kind of a funny thing.

00:11:13 ◼   ► But basically, obviously, if you're the number one app,

00:11:15 ◼   ► you'll do very well.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Then there's sort of a level below that,

00:11:19 ◼   ► which is sort of the one through five of the App Store, which

00:11:23 ◼   ► is the first screen that shows up in your category

00:11:27 ◼   ► or in any of the lists if you just open it up.

00:11:30 ◼   ► And so that's without any scrolling, you're visible.

00:11:32 ◼   ► So it's all about visibility.

00:11:34 ◼   ► Then there's a slight drop for the one

00:11:36 ◼   ► on the bottom of that, which I think is the fifth, which is

00:11:39 ◼   ► half shown.

00:11:40 ◼   ► And then the first 25 is another break point.

00:11:43 ◼   ► We are kind of getting another sort of--

00:11:45 ◼   ► I'm not saying these are consistent.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Like you're making the same at each of these levels.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But there's kind of these very distinct sort of stair steps.

00:11:51 ◼   ► So rather than just sort of being a linear fall off

00:11:54 ◼   ► with rank, it's like you have these very sort of abrupt

00:11:56 ◼   ► jumps at these various points.

00:11:58 ◼   ► And then the next break point runs

00:12:00 ◼   ► to the 25, which is the first page.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And then for each page thereafter,

00:12:04 ◼   ► there's a fairly similar rank.

00:12:06 ◼   ► So that's just something to keep in mind.

00:12:08 ◼   ► And you can often end up-- sometimes it's worth--

00:12:10 ◼   ► Overall it's probably not worth in the long run playing these games, but it's sometimes

00:12:14 ◼   ► something that I found helpful is if you're at launch and you find yourself right on a

00:12:19 ◼   ► cusp and say your app's $2.99, maybe it's worth for a weekend or two, like stay on a

00:12:25 ◼   ► Friday right before weekends.

00:12:26 ◼   ► For my apps I get best traffic on Sundays, so my Sunday rank is very important.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Sometimes on a Friday I'll drop the price a buck just to kind of get over that hump

00:12:38 ◼   ► so that for my profitable days, I've

00:12:41 ◼   ► sort of ranked slightly higher.

00:12:42 ◼   ► You'll often find that you'll lose money initially

00:12:44 ◼   ► with that, obviously, because you probably

00:12:46 ◼   ► won't make up the difference in volume for what you

00:12:48 ◼   ► did from the price change.

00:12:50 ◼   ► But it's just a little trick that you can sometimes

00:12:52 ◼   ► play with just to kind of help that process out a little.

00:12:55 ◼   ► But generally, like I said, don't do that too much.

00:12:58 ◼   ► But sometimes it's very helpful, and sometimes it's worth doing,

00:13:01 ◼   ► especially just at launch when you're

00:13:02 ◼   ► trying to get traction.

00:13:04 ◼   ► All right, so that's it, I think, for the App Store.

00:13:06 ◼   ► The only other thing that you'll have to do once your app's

00:13:09 ◼   ► launched is update it.

00:13:10 ◼   ► The process is very straightforward.

00:13:12 ◼   ► You go into iTunes Connect, say I have a new version,

00:13:14 ◼   ► give it a new version number, say it would change,

00:13:16 ◼   ► submit the update.

00:13:17 ◼   ► But otherwise, that's it.

00:13:18 ◼   ► And that's it for this kind of three episode arc,

00:13:21 ◼   ► talking about submitting an app.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Hopefully that was helpful.

00:13:23 ◼   ► If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, complaints,

00:13:27 ◼   ► either hit me up in my contact form on the website,

00:13:29 ◼   ► or just developing perspective.com/contact.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Or you can hit me up on Twitter.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I'm @_davidsmith.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Otherwise, I hope you like the show.

00:13:40 ◼   ► If you like it, tell a friend, tell two, tell three.

00:13:42 ◼   ► It's the best way to say thanks to me.

00:13:45 ◼   ► And otherwise, have a good Tuesday.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Happy coding, and I will talk to you later.