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
- 200% more Finance apps in top grossing at the moment
- 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
- 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
- happy customers:
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
