December 1, 2012 at 03:08Back to Dublin - continued application development history
Hi, a
little over a year ago I wrote an article on Habré: From Dublin to Singapore: the history of the development of iPad applications .
Over the past time, the application has earned some money (beer money :), but I managed to quit my job and move back to Dublin, devoting myself completely to developing applications for iOS. Oh yes, I also managed to release Colorific 2.0 a couple of days ago.
Under the cut, I’ll talk about the evolution of the application, about some of its achievements (including sales schedules, which few articles can boast of), as well as about the difficulties encountered and the rake that I managed to step on :)
Also, I’ll give out some promotional codes as a reward those who read such a long post.
In terms of material costs, the application paid for itself in about the first month. In terms of time costs ... well, if it paid off, then only end-to-end.
Since most articles do not include specific numbers, it is difficult for a novice developer to estimate the amount of income from applications. Therefore, I decided to attach my sales schedule, and explain some points on it:
The first couple of days I was more than satisfied. Initially, I was counting on pocket money, but then the profit was like from a full-fledged job. But it only lasted a couple of days. Then the profit fell to $ 40. The second surge (almost immediately after the first) I am inclined to attribute to the result of my article on Habré. True, the difference between the article and the surge is 2 days.
By the way, about the article. After the article on the application website there was a “habroeffect” in the good sense of the word. There were several thousand visits per day. As for the conversions, there were almost none. That is, of these 2-3 thousand people a day, 2-3 people moved to the AppStore. Perhaps people then drove the name of the application into the AppStore with their own hands, but there were negligible clicks on the “Available in AppStore” link.
Most likely the audience of Habré has little overlap with my target audience.
But based on this, I concluded for myself:
The application site is being done more for the press than for users.
Maybe someone wants to argue with this - I will listen to other experiences with pleasure.
But analyzing my behavior, I realized that I didn’t buy a single application using the link from the desktop browser. Usually I bought either applications from Top, Featured, etc., either according to recommendations from sites, or on the recommendation of friends.
When the daily income dropped to 20, I thought about the Lite version. I released the Lite version on September 21, 2012.
I can’t say that the Lite version somehow strongly understood me on the charts, but I collect some statistics. Here is the data for the last month from the Lite version:
The diagram shows the displays of the Buy Colorific window. Over the past month, it has been shown 31,403 times for 9,428 unique users (the window pops up when you click on the buttons to send to email and Facebook, or by the application’s launch counter itself).
The red sector in the chart is the click on the Buy in AppStore button, which of course throws the user to the AppStore.
Means transitions in the AppStore was 5,362. Unfortunately, the conversion cannot be tracked, but definitely a small part of the conversions (maybe about 1%) are converted into purchases.
Conclusion: Given that the Lite application requires a minimum of costs, I believe that the idea of releasing it fully paid off.
Colorific has been mentioned several times in resources dedicated to children with autism. Moreover, the reviews were very good, moreover, I sent several dozen promo codes to the school in the states for kids with special needs. In March, I learned that April 2 is Autism Awareness Day and decided to make the application free for 2 days (point 3), announcing this through the few resources that I contacted.
As a result, on the first day I received a letter from AppAdvice that they wrote about me, and after a few hours I received a report from AppAnnie:
Over 2,000 people installed Colorific in 2 days. Did it affect sales afterwards? It seems to me that yes. Prior to this, the average daily income was about $ 10-15, after the end of the distribution they jumped to $ 60 and stayed at around 30 for a long time.
A little later in April, another large resource wrote about me. In August 2011, I wrote a request for a review on iphones.ru, but, like most of the requests, it was ignored. After AppAdvice wrote about me, the review appeared on iPhones.ru, though on April 13 (and judging by the comments with information that the application is free for 10 days).
On the chart are sales in Russia from 1.03 to 30.05. The red line is the day of writing the article on iPhone.ru. As you can see, sales rose somewhat after the article.
One more story is connected with this article, rather unpleasant. Before the release of Colorific 2.0, I wrote to iphones.ru about the proposal to make an exclusive review before the application was released and referred to the old review. As a result, the editor-in-chief Arthur replied that I didn’t write anything in the comments, that I’m not interested in the application and will not write about it. The fact that I did not receive a notification about this and google alert did not affect the solution.
Conclusion : The review is not always reported and google alerts are not so reliable. How else to track reviews, I honestly do not know. MB reader what prompts?
I don’t know whether the update 1.2.1, which is indicated by the number 5, or the fact that the application was downloaded by 25,000 people, affected it, but in the summer sales increased slightly. Then, due to the lack of advertising and updates, they rolled down to the usual beer money - $ 10-20 per day.
Back in December 2011, I decided that a major update should be released. It all started small - I wanted a new icon to immediately catch my eye. I ordered the icon and rendered. Here's what happened:
Looking at the icon, I decided that it would be nice to change the interface. spent several days looking for a designer on Dribbble , threw wireframes and ordered a design. By the end of January, we finished work on the design, and in early March I released the first beta.
In the beta process, it turned out that the pencil draws unnaturally, and the children don’t like the standard toolbar proposed by the designer. I had to order a rendered toolbar with icons.
Ordered:
Received:
In general, I was very pleased with the result of working with the designer. True rendering of the toolbar took us longer than the rest of the design (including due to the large number of requests for edits from my side). As a result, when the design was finished, I was no longer up to the application - I left Singapore to Paris to complete my business with the company and quit. Then there was a move, etc. As a result, work on the application was resumed only in October and finished in early November.
It turned out here is such an application:
A new version was released the day before yesterday.
I'd like to share one find. My application is localized in 11 languages and for each I wanted to take screenshots. I wrote an Automation script that bypassed the entire application and took the necessary pictures, but I could not switch the language of the simulator. The kind man Jonathan Penn helped me with his utility: github.com/jonathanpenn/ui-screen-shooter
If you need to take screenshots in different languages - she must have!
In my opinion, when I released the update, I made a huge mistake. Instead of a new application, I decided to release an update. I really did not want the current users to “break off” and release a new paid application. As a result, a day after the release, nothing changed in sales ... Something tells me that when releasing a new application it would be easier to get into the charts.
I will be glad if the information in the article is useful to someone.
Promised Promotional Codes:
JF6EXM69KLJ6
FNA9TFYH6A9X
6MX4F46XJTNY
M9RW6FEEW793
Application in the AppStore The
description of the application on my site is Appuchino
If you download and your child likes it, don't be too lazy to write a review :)
Thank you.
little over a year ago I wrote an article on Habré: From Dublin to Singapore: the history of the development of iPad applications .
Over the past time, the application has earned some money (beer money :), but I managed to quit my job and move back to Dublin, devoting myself completely to developing applications for iOS. Oh yes, I also managed to release Colorific 2.0 a couple of days ago.
Under the cut, I’ll talk about the evolution of the application, about some of its achievements (including sales schedules, which few articles can boast of), as well as about the difficulties encountered and the rake that I managed to step on :)
Also, I’ll give out some promotional codes as a reward those who read such a long post.
Some results of Colorific 1.x
In terms of material costs, the application paid for itself in about the first month. In terms of time costs ... well, if it paid off, then only end-to-end.
Since most articles do not include specific numbers, it is difficult for a novice developer to estimate the amount of income from applications. Therefore, I decided to attach my sales schedule, and explain some points on it:
1. Launch the application
The first couple of days I was more than satisfied. Initially, I was counting on pocket money, but then the profit was like from a full-fledged job. But it only lasted a couple of days. Then the profit fell to $ 40. The second surge (almost immediately after the first) I am inclined to attribute to the result of my article on Habré. True, the difference between the article and the surge is 2 days.
By the way, about the article. After the article on the application website there was a “habroeffect” in the good sense of the word. There were several thousand visits per day. As for the conversions, there were almost none. That is, of these 2-3 thousand people a day, 2-3 people moved to the AppStore. Perhaps people then drove the name of the application into the AppStore with their own hands, but there were negligible clicks on the “Available in AppStore” link.
Most likely the audience of Habré has little overlap with my target audience.
But based on this, I concluded for myself:
The application site is being done more for the press than for users.
Maybe someone wants to argue with this - I will listen to other experiences with pleasure.
But analyzing my behavior, I realized that I didn’t buy a single application using the link from the desktop browser. Usually I bought either applications from Top, Featured, etc., either according to recommendations from sites, or on the recommendation of friends.
2. Lite version release
When the daily income dropped to 20, I thought about the Lite version. I released the Lite version on September 21, 2012.
I can’t say that the Lite version somehow strongly understood me on the charts, but I collect some statistics. Here is the data for the last month from the Lite version:
The diagram shows the displays of the Buy Colorific window. Over the past month, it has been shown 31,403 times for 9,428 unique users (the window pops up when you click on the buttons to send to email and Facebook, or by the application’s launch counter itself).
The red sector in the chart is the click on the Buy in AppStore button, which of course throws the user to the AppStore.
Means transitions in the AppStore was 5,362. Unfortunately, the conversion cannot be tracked, but definitely a small part of the conversions (maybe about 1%) are converted into purchases.
Conclusion: Given that the Lite application requires a minimum of costs, I believe that the idea of releasing it fully paid off.
3, 4. AppAdvice
Colorific has been mentioned several times in resources dedicated to children with autism. Moreover, the reviews were very good, moreover, I sent several dozen promo codes to the school in the states for kids with special needs. In March, I learned that April 2 is Autism Awareness Day and decided to make the application free for 2 days (point 3), announcing this through the few resources that I contacted.
As a result, on the first day I received a letter from AppAdvice that they wrote about me, and after a few hours I received a report from AppAnnie:
Over 2,000 people installed Colorific in 2 days. Did it affect sales afterwards? It seems to me that yes. Prior to this, the average daily income was about $ 10-15, after the end of the distribution they jumped to $ 60 and stayed at around 30 for a long time.
A little later in April, another large resource wrote about me. In August 2011, I wrote a request for a review on iphones.ru, but, like most of the requests, it was ignored. After AppAdvice wrote about me, the review appeared on iPhones.ru, though on April 13 (and judging by the comments with information that the application is free for 10 days).
On the chart are sales in Russia from 1.03 to 30.05. The red line is the day of writing the article on iPhone.ru. As you can see, sales rose somewhat after the article.
One more story is connected with this article, rather unpleasant. Before the release of Colorific 2.0, I wrote to iphones.ru about the proposal to make an exclusive review before the application was released and referred to the old review. As a result, the editor-in-chief Arthur replied that I didn’t write anything in the comments, that I’m not interested in the application and will not write about it. The fact that I did not receive a notification about this and google alert did not affect the solution.
Conclusion : The review is not always reported and google alerts are not so reliable. How else to track reviews, I honestly do not know. MB reader what prompts?
5. Small growth
I don’t know whether the update 1.2.1, which is indicated by the number 5, or the fact that the application was downloaded by 25,000 people, affected it, but in the summer sales increased slightly. Then, due to the lack of advertising and updates, they rolled down to the usual beer money - $ 10-20 per day.
Colorific 2.0
Back in December 2011, I decided that a major update should be released. It all started small - I wanted a new icon to immediately catch my eye. I ordered the icon and rendered. Here's what happened:
Looking at the icon, I decided that it would be nice to change the interface. spent several days looking for a designer on Dribbble , threw wireframes and ordered a design. By the end of January, we finished work on the design, and in early March I released the first beta.
In the beta process, it turned out that the pencil draws unnaturally, and the children don’t like the standard toolbar proposed by the designer. I had to order a rendered toolbar with icons.
Ordered:
Received:
In general, I was very pleased with the result of working with the designer. True rendering of the toolbar took us longer than the rest of the design (including due to the large number of requests for edits from my side). As a result, when the design was finished, I was no longer up to the application - I left Singapore to Paris to complete my business with the company and quit. Then there was a move, etc. As a result, work on the application was resumed only in October and finished in early November.
It turned out here is such an application:
A new version was released the day before yesterday.
I'd like to share one find. My application is localized in 11 languages and for each I wanted to take screenshots. I wrote an Automation script that bypassed the entire application and took the necessary pictures, but I could not switch the language of the simulator. The kind man Jonathan Penn helped me with his utility: github.com/jonathanpenn/ui-screen-shooter
If you need to take screenshots in different languages - she must have!
In my opinion, when I released the update, I made a huge mistake. Instead of a new application, I decided to release an update. I really did not want the current users to “break off” and release a new paid application. As a result, a day after the release, nothing changed in sales ... Something tells me that when releasing a new application it would be easier to get into the charts.
I will be glad if the information in the article is useful to someone.
Promised Promotional Codes:
JF6EXM69KLJ6
FNA9TFYH6A9X
6MX4F46XJTNY
M9RW6FEEW793
Application in the AppStore The
description of the application on my site is Appuchino
If you download and your child likes it, don't be too lazy to write a review :)
Thank you.