The history of one android application


For almost two years now, I have been developing a small android application . I must say right away: you won’t recognize any miracles and secrets of development (promotion) here. I just want to share interesting, in my opinion, moments in the development of a public open source application.
Who cares how it was and what I ended up with, I ask for a cut.

What for


At first, my main motive was a simple desire to try writing for android, although later it turned into something more. In addition, at that time, there were very few analogues and indeed applications for Belarus. And then there's another currency crisis . So the idea was born.

Idea


Make a widget to get up-to-date information on exchange rates in Belarus. At that time, one resource of semi-legal currency exchange was still popular. It all started with downloading this information. Then, of course, different banks of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine were added, and the original source, with the stabilization of the foreign exchange market, has sunk into oblivion.

Mechanism


Considering my desire to write for android, and not for the backend server, it was decided to use publicly available sources of information with low traffic consumption. No matter how hopeless it may sound, it turned out to be quite real. You just need to spend time on correspondence and agree with the owners of the resources, as well as adjust the application code for each resource.

Sources


Each source of downloadable information is a different story. Someone wants money, someone forbids the use, although he doesn’t even plan to develop an android version, someone after my appeal quickly cooks up their application, others drag out correspondence for several weeks with a zero result, but there are positive examples: some they immediately allowed and even changed their own API for my convenience!
To summarize, Ukrainian resources turned out to be the most responsive: I found several integration options at once, with an explicit link on the site and acceptable documentation. The second place - Belarus - although with difficulty, often with the help of tracking AJAX requests, one could also find a way. Well, and, unfortunately, the worst thing is Russia - not only a complete lack of documentation and acceptable methods of integration, but even a banal answer to letters. If someone shows me an acceptable Russian source of information, I will be very grateful.

Estimated market assessment


At least somehow this article helped to estimate the volume of the target audience before publication . Well, rebuilding statistics for Belarus was not so difficult. Then it turned out about 500k devices. Even 5% of this market seems sufficient to publish the application.

Community


I did not expect such a high activity, really! Reviews on the market, letters to the developer's box with suggestions for improvement, most importantly, a live forum with responsive participants. Thank you so much! This helps a lot and motivates for further development .

Competitors


Soon after the launch, the first competitors appeared (the topic was still relevant). Developers pushed unassembled html into the text output field or loaded web-informers for sites through WebView. Now, of course, these applications are no longer relevant. However, there was something to learn from them: they prompted me to expand the functionality with a search screen for the best courses - that is, not only show the current rates of specific banks, but also choose the best courses from those offered in the city.

Analytics: a turning point


From the very beginning, there was a lack of information about user behavior. Therefore, Google Analytics was connected and it gave an interesting result: it turned out that only a third of users use the basic functionality (widgets), the rest only open a screen with the best rates. So you need to change the development vector : pay more attention to the screen of the best courses. The major improvements since then have focused mainly on the more requested features.

Another turn: courses on the map


One evening, standing on the street and convulsively thinking which of the nearest grocery stores to go in time to close, and not to carry the nets too far, and not to lose prices, I suddenly realized that a person who wants to exchange currency is tormented by almost those the same questions.
So why not implement a certain map of exchangers tied to the area with the ability to see courses in them (for example, like on the scoreboard in the exchanger itself)?
How to find, bind, collect, update data - this is the topic for another article, I can only say that in the end everything turned out.
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Competitors again


A few months after the publication of new android applications at one of the contests (that is, my application did not fit in the time of creation), one work with very close functionality flashed and even won a prize.
Yes, and a fairly large local portal decided to write a similar native application.
I’m not going to blame anyone for plagiarism (the idea lies on the surface), on the contrary, I’m even pleased to realize that I was the first to see a niche and implemented a solution for it.
Moreover, despite the fairly strong competition, the application has remained in the top ten in the “Finance” category for quite some time, possessing, at the same time, chips that have not yet been implemented by competitors.
Honestly, when it became known about the appearance of competitors, I was even a little happy: it means the idea is worthwhile and will develop.

Promotion and statistics


There is nothing special: several unique articles have been written, there is a forum, a wiki article. The unobtrusive dialog box asking to rate the application on the market helped a lot to increase the number of reviews.
The only noticeable jump in downloads was only after the publication of the review on w3bsit3-dns.com under the developer support program (then it was still free).
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Development cycle


After some time I have developed the following process.
Comments, suggestions, error messages are collected from the Google Play Store and the forum. The active phase takes 2-4 weeks. When all the planned functions are implemented, the assembly must go through the following steps:
  • Small smoke junit test
  • Energy and traffic consumption control
  • Alpha test
  • Beta test on the forum and in the G + group
  • Publish to Google Play Store

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Waves of new versions: not all users periodically update their applications, and some never do. About 50% of devices are updated in the first 2 weeks after the release of the new version, then the update rate is significantly reduced.

Source


If anyone is interested, it is open and located on Google . I would be grateful for the review and recommendations.

conclusions


Without claiming to be the ultimate truth, I will summarize briefly that I know six hundred and forty fish later
  • Know your user : what is he doing in the application? how long? how often There are enough tools for this. Perhaps you are moving the wrong way.
  • Do not underestimate the community : among users there are those who want to help you - just like that, especially if you are careful.
  • Do not be afraid of competition. This is what will make the application better and possibly show that it is better than you thought.
  • Ask (help, access, permission) and perhaps you will get what you want. After all, if you do not ask, there will definitely be nothing.

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