It’s a transitional season
It’s frustrating being a licensed iPhone developer sometimes, it really is. For the past few weeks i’ve been debating whether or not I should even continue and i’m sure some of you are interested in what’s in store for Kiloton Applications. Unfortunately, it’s not all good. While most of my experience working on the iPhone platform has been positive, some of it hasn’t… and they really stand out.
Long approval times. The reason why my first app, Breakaway Fantasy Hockey, released over a month before the NHL season started was because the wait to gets apps approved was all over the place. While I was developing the app I was hearing anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks to get approval… and that’s if Apple doesn’t reject it. So, to make sure the app released on time for the October 1st start of the season, I finished and had it submitting at the beginning of August. In the end, it took about three weeks to get Breakaway approved and all seemed well… until I discovered a crash bug that slipped through the cracks on the same day it launched, which brings me to the second part of this issue. The bug itself took about 5 minutes to find and 30 seconds to fix, but the app had to go through the approval process all over again. The second time was quicker, coming in at about a week and a half, but I ended up having a broken app on sale for that time and I think it ended up hurting my image.
Costs and uncertainties. A Macbook, some web hosting, and an iPod touch… not a bad way to start a business, i’d say. Oh, and time. Coming from a programming background, Objective-C wasn’t that hard to grasp (I ended up enjoying it quite a bit, actually) but there’s always a time investment when you’re learning the ropes on a new platform. The App Store is one tough nut to crack, though. To be blunt, it’s rotten. It’s very, very hard for an independent developer to establish itself and make themselves noticed. The only real way to become visible on the App Store is to sell a lot and be at the top of one of Apple’s lists. As I mentioned before, it makes no sense at all that in order to be visible on the App Store and be in a position to have great sales you need to have great sales. Especially in an environment where $2 is suddenly a horrendously large sum of money, it’s difficult to make consistent income.
Apple’s review policies. People have a right to voice their opinions, and I love constructive criticism. However, the App Store is a horrible place for it. That little box where people can leave reviews for apps they’ve bought is not a place to leave bug reports. Saying “it doesn’t work” and giving me one star does nothing to help me know what your problem is. Apple doesn’t help here, either. If someone leaves me a bug report in a review, Apple gives me absolutely no way to get in touch with that person, start a dialog, and fix whatever problems they were having. If I point out a “review” to Apple that clearly isn’t a review or is spreading misinformation, they don’t do anything and just ignore it. How is any of this supposed to help me make my apps better? Or figure out what issues those specific people are having? All it does it hurt my apps, sales, and image.
Politics. I’m finding myself becoming extremely irritated and annoyed by Apple’s policies and politics. I want Flash on my iPod, with a handy little setting to turn it on and off when I please. I want an iPad with OSX and USB ports. I want free and open software like Ogg/Theora in HTML5. That’s just scratching the surface, but on a whole boat load of issues i’m finding myself completely at odds with Apple and the people who blindly eat up anything that comes out of Steve Job’s mouth. It’s annoying and I hate being a small part of what fuels that machine.
With all that said, I feel that I can no longer continue working as a licensed iPhone and iPod touch developer. Does this mean the end for Kiloton Applications? Absolutely not, it just means i’ll be going about things differently. How differently, you ask? Here’s the basic plan, consisting of exactly one step:
- Transition to webapps. This will be a huge change and have some very good benefits. For myself, it makes development a lot easier as I can work on webapps from virtually any operating system with a text editor and browser. I won’t be tied down to a Mac. It also makes testing much quicker, I can just save and refresh the page to see my changes instantly. It’ll save me some money, too, as I won’t have to pay Apple or give them a cut of any of my earnings. For users, it means my apps will be available to anyone with a Webkit-based mobile browser, including Android. Any bugs I fix or features I add can be pushed immediately with no fears of getting rejected, censored, or delayed. Freedom!
More details will be coming in the next few days and weeks, stay tuned!
Ideas to fix the App Store (a new developer’s perspective)
In this past week my first paid app (and it’s free version) launched and i’d been noticing a trend when it comes to sales that I don’t think other developers make clear enough, and it’s an opportunity for Apple to give more exposure small developers as well as pad their own pocketbooks.
Exposure on the App Store is everything!
Being visible on the App Store is better than any marketing you do yourself, it’s as simple as that. Case in point, most of my sales to date of Breakaway Fantasy Hockey (let’s just call it BFH) came before I did any promotion for the app at all, while it was still on the first page of the sports section’s release list. After I started spreading the word on Digg/Reddit and the free version of BFH became available, i’ve seen my sales actually decline steadily. Now, low sales aren’t entirely unexpected in my case. My app is for managing NHL hockey pools and the NHL season hasn’t started yet (it’s a month away), so I wasn’t expecting to sell gangbusters in August (why it was released in August is another topic altogether). The fact remains that most of the attention my app’s gotten so far came from being new and visible on the App Store itself.
What can Apple do?
We, as developers trying to make something decent in this business, shouldn’t have to resort to selling our hard work for $0.99 so we can maybe make it to the top of an App Store list because that’s the only way to get great sales. Apple needs to be part of the solution and help as many people as possible get exposure. Here are some very basic, simple ideas they could implement that I think would help tremendously:
1. “If you like [app name], you might also like…”
A recommendation system would be a great addition to the App Store. If someone’s searching for hockey apps it’d be nice to have mine recommended to them in some way. Amazon does this to great success, even YouTube does a good job of recommending videos I might like based on what i’ve watched before. It almost sounds crazy that the iTunes Store doesn’t offer it in some way or another, and it’s hardly a new concept.
2. Randomized ‘Featured’ list
To get to the front page of the App Store you either need be a big corporate entity, or… have lots of sales. Does that sound off to anyone else? You need to get a lot of sales to get on the front page to get a lot of sales? I think there should be a section of the front page that just let’s people know certain apps even exist. Just pick a random handful of 32 apps (that’s how many the “What’s Hot”, “New and Noteworthy”, and “Staff Favourites” sections show) and leave them there for a day or two. Every couple of days swap those out for another 32 apps. It’d be simple to write an algorithm to prevent the same apps from showing up too often, and it would give some much needed exposure.
These are just two ideas but I feel like these are very basic things that should already be there. Developers shouldn’t have to play the $0.99 game to be successful on the App Store, they should be comfortable in selling their apps for what they’re worth and getting a healthy return for their efforts. Apple has their 30% stake in our efforts as well, they should be doing everything possible to help everyone get a fair shake.
Our success is their success, after all.