NSConference 5: Day Two

Thriving in an App Store World

Michael Jurewitz @jury

Jury used to be an Apple Developer Evangelist. He is now Director of Product Development at Black Pixel.

work well with apple

• need to be looking forward - focusing on future (tech/features/hardware)
• stay on the radar of apple contacts
• Apple looks at devrel as “animal husbandry” :-)
  • Apple wants to sell devices & make customers happy
  • so apps should feed into that
• Apple has laser focus on future and simplicity
  • expecting & embracing change
  • they force themselves to keep going forward
  • won’t look at apps that don’t fit in to that
  • must stay current
• no secret agenda, but often hard choices
• can get featured by taking advantage of new OS features
  • but it’s a time limited offer…
• example:
  • Eventbrite getting featured on Passbook feature page increased new user sign up by 664%…
  • got in right at the beginning – only 15 apps on the feature page
• “if users aren’t upgrading their OS, they probably aren’t buying your software either” - Wil Shipley
• Gatekeeper vs App Store: e.g. Kaleidoscope
  • if you buy Kaleidoscope on Mac App Store then you can also download direct
  • app will notice that it’s already been purchased
  • will check receipt and unlock automatically
  • useful for sending customers beta builds when testing fixes
• file bugs
  • also for requesting to open APIs that are currently private
• localisation:
  • Apple sales in China increased 400% last year
  • Germany has a strong software market, even though it’s limited in size
• accessibility creates loyalty

properly value your work

• Jury did some research over the past weeks…
• top paid apps have much lower mean & median prices than top grossing apps
  • mean: paid $12.46 vs grossing $49.13
  • median: paid $6.99 vs grossing $29.99
• two separate markets going on here
• top grossing has:
  • 200% more Finance apps in top grossing at the moment
    • because it’s tax season at the moment in the US
  • Utilities drop by 25%
  • 22% more Games
  • 50% more Graphics
  • Social drops in half (and would be nothing without Tweetbot)
  • No Weather apps
  • 3-5 Business apps vs none in Top Paid
• four free apps in Top Grossing
  • in-app purchases
  • freemium can work
  • talk to Kevin Hoctor who did in-app purchases in Moneywell Express
• cheap apps get downloads, but higher priced apps pay the bills
  • which would you rather have…?

economics 101:

• price elasticity of demand
• how does adjusting the price of a product affect the number that you sell?
• elastic (e.g. social apps):
  • there’s a common price that people expect
  • if you increase the price beyond that, then demand massively decreases
• inelastic (e.g. drugs… or photoshop…):
  • people will pay pretty much whatever you ask
  • keep increasing the price and maximise revenue
• demand curves can move due to marketing campaigns…
• if you double the price, and you lose less than 50% of your customers, you’ve just made money
  • and fewer users means less support costs
  • also increases perceived value
• don’t be a commodity — charge what your software is worth

price your app intelligently

• market segment:
  • lots of basic research
  • category prices
  • start research before starting developing
• research competitors
  • do you have a big enough differentiator?
• make a guess
• then try an experiment
• example: Kaleidoscope 2
  • developer tool segment: avg price $30.11
  • other apps $70-100
  • app is useful but not crucial
  • lots of alternatives
  • guessed $34.99 intro and $69.99 ongoing
  • 
  • got various peak sales that affected average
    • great for recouping costs, but not for calculating ongoing revenue
  • evaluation:
    • elasticity = % change price / % change in quantity
    • with a couple of price changes, you can work out the ratio
    • then apply to price changes to predict quantities and therefore revenue
    • (real world demand curves aren’t linear, so elasticities aren’t actually constant)

Talking to Hardware

Alasdair Allan, Babilim Light Industries @aallan

• Apple’s External Accessory Framework is missing most of the useful stuff
  • rest is protected by Made for iPhone program
  • which is protected by massive ranks of lawyers
  • because Apple want to protect their platform

crazy stuff

• jailbreaking
  • average time between a jailbreak release and Apple shutting the hole is about 7 days…
  • can’t release an app to the store
• MIDI
  • iPad camera connection kit supports MIDI
  • https://github.com/bjepson/iPad-MIDI-Simple-Demo
  • can subvert MIDI to support serial, but it’s horrible
• simulate capacitance touch using a piece of foil stuck to the screen
  • it looks nuts when you experiment
  • but http://misfitwearables.com does exactly that to sync its data
• PeerTalk: using the USB sync cable
  • uses TCP sockets
  • same protocol as iTunes and Xcode

less crazy stuff

• wifi is possible, but getting setting up is a pain
  • and there’s lots of support issues for different network situations…
• acoustic coupling via the headphone jack
  • Square does this for a card reader
  • can even use the audio to provide 7.4mW of power (see Hijack board)
• Redpark cable
  • dock connector to RS-232
  • comes with an SDK
  • but won’t let you put apps in the store — have to approve the app and the hardware
    • you can approach Redpark and ask them to request approval
    • a lot less expensive than going through MFi program
• XBee & Zigbee (802.15.4)
  • mesh networking for low data rates
  • dock connector to XBee adapter soon available from redpark
• bluetooth 4 (low energy)
  • can run for months with bluetooth active powered by a coin cell
  • introduced with the iPhone 4S
  • lots of boards available with Android & iOS SDKs
  • e.g. red bear labs
  • use CoreBluetooth plus board’s SDK
  • easy integration:
    • Alasdair did a live demo in just a few minutes
    • connected to arduino over Bluetooth 4 from iPhone and toggled an LED

TouchDB

Matias Piipari @ms2

https://github.com/couchbase/couchbase-lite-ios

• CouchDB has been renamed as CouchBase Lite
• TouchDB is document db with CouchDB-like API
  • but uses SQLite under the hood
• sync & share with CouchDB (or TouchDB)
• concurrency controlled like git
  • when you’re saving you have to be up to date first
• lightweight
  • < 500Kb in app binary
  • 0.1s startup
• Document <=> Model, with versions
  • can also contain attachments
• use Views to define queries by property
• once you’ve configured the replication it will keep going
  • don’t need to worry about network availability
  • do need to think about conflicts
  • do need to think about concurrency with data changes (get notifications on changes)
• can create push and pull separately and to/from different destinations
  • e.g. combine pull from bundled with pull from remote
• sync handles https with basic auth or OAuth
• can combine db from iCloud/Dropbox with TouchDB

Step away from the screen

Nathan Error, Empirical Development @neror

nathan@empiricaldevelopment.com

• your body is a tool too: improve your coding by improving your body’s effectiveness
  • exercise, diet & sleep…
• scientometrics
  • measuring rate of change in science
  • rate of output increases by 7% each year
  • output doubles every 10-15 years
  • so whatever we think now will probably change several times over the next 10-15 years
• maybe start looking at meat more as a side dish rather than a main
• recent research has linked high intensity aerobic exercise to increased brain performance
• missing one hour of sleep for a week is equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.2%

Subscription pricing

Manton Reece @manton on ADN

manton@manton.org

• in 1999 working on a Mac app that cost $199
  • actually considered pretty cheap for the time
• benefits of subscriptions
  • happy customers:
    • unhappy customers can cancel at any time
  • automatic paid upgrades
    • everyone is on the latest version
    • paying for the service
• to justify subscription, app and service need to be one
• examples:
  • adobe: switching to creative cloud monthly subscription
  • microsoft: office is now $9.99/month (or $99.99/year)
  • billings pro:
    • free for 1 invoice/month
    • 5 invoices/month = $10
• focus on the consistent predictable part of the graph rather than the spikes
  • even if you don’t make more sales, the revenue is consistent
• billing periods
  • payment percentages affect revenues: charging less often means less percentages to payment provider
  • Manton found that 57% of customers preferred yearly billing
• hosting costs
  • use Amazon reserved instances if you’re committing to a year (saves money)
• Stripe is leaps and bounds better than paypal…
  • but only available in US and Canada
  • beta coming to the UK this week!
• Apple in-app purchase types:
  • non-renewing subscriptions: cancel is the default — will probably lose a lot of people
  • auto-renewable subscriptions: better, but more restrictions on review — including privacy policy & description
    • Apple are very cautious about letting non-magazine apps do this

The “Simple And Intuitive” Fallacy

Why we need standards for complex UX, too

Joerg Schweider @cooliopenguin

iPeng

• iPhones & iPads are not just accessory devices — they are becoming the main device in a lot of cases
• apps need to be feature complete
• if you simplify and cut out features then a lot of users will be left out in the cold
• what makes a more intuitive UI?
  • can’t always find out by getting people to compare UIs
  • they will rate familiar schemes higher

Being Naive

Rob Rhyne @capttaco http://martiancraft.com/

• “just build something so I can show it to the client”
• users don’t care about engineering
• iterate and test
• at martiancraft, within three weeks of a new project you’re going to see something
  • it won’t be finished, but you can play with it
• brent simmons: anatomy of a feature
  • the feature is the smallest part
  • it’s all the edge cases and polish that take the time
• the naive implementation
  • demonstrates the feature
  • most obvious solution
  • takes the least amount of time to develop
• example: histogram of live video
  • can use Accelerate framework to get histogram data from an image buffer
  • what about drawing the graph?
    • 3rd party charting lib: not obvious; little work; may demo but might not animate
    • OpenGL vertex buffer: not obvious; lots of work; will demo
    • CoreAnimation: obvious (when experienced!); little work; will demo
  • used CAShapeLayer
    • had used previously in Minds of Modern Mathematics
    • 14,000 pixel wide scroll view on an original iPad
    • can set up style once and draw separately
    • path was animatable property
• http://giveabrief.com
  • codeless prototypes

Working on Sketch

Pieter Omvlee, Bohemian Coding

• Sketch: vector art app
• have to persuade users to try us rather than Adobe
• don’t want a public feature list with voting
  • sets unrealistic expectations
  • there will always be business goals or technical issues that mean that highly requested features remain unfixed at the top
• listen to your customers, but only to a certain degree
  • sketch run a tenderapp discussion board
• started giving away beta versions of app
  • got lots of testers & feedback
  • keep the fans happy
  • they’re very vocal and will do marketing on your behalf
• don’t leave refactoring until the next big update
  • you’ll want to focus on new visible features to justify the upgrade price
  • customers don’t care about engineering
• be practical with your time
  • don’t spend time on rewriting git history
  • focus on pricing, attracting the right customers, etc
• put in crash reporting early
• videos are excellent promotion & support
  • they take time and lots of takes
• try and keep in contact with your customers
  • Apple gives you no way of getting in touch with App Store customers
  • but you could ask for details within the app
  • if no newsletter, then Change Logs are your only communication medium
  • “bug fixes” is a waste of an opportunity
• try and contact bad reviewers

Introducing CoreValues

Scott Morrison (Chief Cook & Bottle Washer), Indev Software @smorr

smorr@indev.ca

• Indie developer, less Independent, more Individual
• but not just single person
• instead individuality & personal
  • personal investment, principles, impact, payoff & risk
• personal & professional roles are mixed
• indie company has the heart of the indie developer
• values are important and define you
  • but sometimes not thought through
  • can lead to inefficient decisions
• Edward de Bono: if you want an out of the box solution, get out of the box first
  • PO statement — an unconventional (silly) idea used to generate ideas
• introducing CoreValues: an objective-c framework for describing and defining personal and professional values…
• interfaces:
  • personal ≠ private
  • professional ≠ public
• (there was much more in this vein: thought-provoking metaphors, but I didn’t write them down)

Slightly Unsupported — Finder Code Injection

Steve Flack, Bromium UK

• wanted to add icon badges & contextual menus
  • not based on file type
  • animated
• used class-dump, x86 disassembler plus lots of trial & error
• inject code with mach_inject
• Finder has four methods to swizzle for icon badging
  • one for each view (desktop is fourth)
  • talk gave code specifics for each
• only two methods to swizzle for contextual menus
  • desktop & grid view share
  • again, talk gave specifics

The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Startup

Emily Toop @fluffyemily

emily@emilytoop.com

• Tiny Ears 2011-2012
  • app to teach reading to 4-6 year-old children using speech recognition
• Emily and her partner Ian both got startups accepted to Start-Up Chile
• had to get speech recognition
  • Google Voice API was best accuracy by far
  • PocketSphinx with OpenEars was only option with no network
  • but all were bad for children
• can improve recognition with a better model
  • 20 hours to customise a model
  • no existing models for children
  • 20,000 hours to create a new model!
• Startup Weekend
  • pitch your product
  • then recruit audience to work on it for 48hrs
  • make an MVP
  • really useful
• talk about your product
  • to everyone
  • until you bore everyone
  • even yourself…
• used AVAnimator to play movies with alpha channels
• …but speech recognition model would cost $100,000 and take 18 months
• then animators didn’t want to continue without speech recognition
• make your partnerships sound!
• don’t go alone
  • guides recommend that you have a hacker and a hustler
• mothballed Tiny Ears
• joined another startup to learn how startups work
• getting more involved in education
  • joined Code Club
  • applying to be a reading assistant
• approached by dreamthinkspeak to help with their “large-scale, site-responsive theatre production inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci, The Book of Revelations and the world of Mechatronics”
  • go see them while they’re still in London (until March 30th at Somerset House)
• nothing you learn is ever wasted