My client’s app just got accepted by Apple! First try, too – cool. Good luck David
My client's app just got accepted by Apple! First try, too – cool. Good luck David.
— J.J. Rohrer (@jjrohrer) March 28, 2011
My client’s app just got accepted by Apple! First try, too – cool. Good luck David
My client's app just got accepted by Apple! First try, too – cool. Good luck David.
— J.J. Rohrer (@jjrohrer) March 28, 2011
Finding good software poses a challenge. Here are some that I use in the course of developing and maintaining mobile apps. I can generally recommend these…
Recently, Apple posted, for the first time, app store submission guidelines. They are pretty specific, informative, and useful. Apple has been fairly opaque, in the past, regarding what would get your app rejected, so independent developers and producers, like myself, always lived at risk as to whether or not their new app idea would be summarily rejected. The new guidelines increase transparency and should help lower the Apple-related risks involved in creating new apps.
Ever since Apple introduced the App Store for their iPhone, there have been stories of apps being rejected. In the beginning, shunned developers would post their rejection letters on the Internet, and we would all commiserate and learn from each other’s experiences. Later, these rejection letters themselves were put under NDA, so the specific reasons for rejection became even murkier, and the fear factor rose. Some rejections clearly violated the developer terms and conditions, so there wasn’t much sympathy going around. Other rejections were genuinely surprising, and sometimes, even nuanced. These were scary. Every developer had to judge for themselves whether the time and money was going to be summarily flushed into the bit bucket. I noticed that my clients, even when developing innocuous apps, were concerned about the Apple risk.
So, to protect my apps and my clients, I have spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of years tracking the news sites, talking to fellow developers, and just generally keeping a finger on the pulse of the shifting rejections winds. I don’t think this will still be necessary…at least not to the same degree. For the first time, we have a document to read, and it is readable by actual humans, too. This frees up my time and lowers the risk of rejection. Largely now, I believe, rejected apps will be from software bugs, honest mistakes, and willful belligerence, but not random fate.
Some rules are funny:
Apple is a funny company. They have a history, mostly pre-iPhone, of being slightly indifferent towards their development community. This reputation has carried over into the iPhone age, largely because of the overwhelming influx of new developers to the Mac platform. However, in my experience, it is largely undeserved. I see them making missteps, like when the original SDK was under a tight NDA gag-rule that forbade developers from talking to each other unless they worked in the same company, and the long lack of specific app submission guidelines. So far, though, they have always, even if very belatedly, addressed those missteps. The gag rule was lifted. The submission guidelines were eventually posted. This impresses me. Their reputation should be modified to: “Will do bonehead things to developers in the short run, but the right thing in the long run, and will always try to protect the end-user.” It could be worse. The company’s DNA seems good, which for Independent Developers and Producers, makes the iPhone and iPad good platforms to invest in.
Must reads for Independent App Producers:
* Apple App Submission Guidelines (Requires Developer Account)
* PR Press Release
* HI Guidelines
I recently upgraded this website. This post is about how well things went, and how this might apply to independent application developers. I had set up the products pages of my original site using Joomla, but I later added a blog to the site, which I powered using WordPress. The product pages highlight the apps that I’ve developed. As time continued, I realized that the schizophrenic origins of my site, having some parts powered by Joomla, while others were powered by WordPress, made some basic things, like tracking usage, ridiculously difficult. So, I’ve finally united the two sides of the site into a single WordPress backed site. Some aspects of the upgrade went well, like unifying on WordPress and making lists of existing urls for easy testing; other things, like forgetting certain urls, could have gone better.
When I published the original site, mostly in Joomla, I knew that I might upgrade to a different Content Management System (CMS) at some point, and so I tried to plan ahead for that eventuality. It really paid off. The problem with changing CMSs is that the different systems represent their pages using different URL schemes. I, of course, wanted search engine results to still work after I upgraded to the new software because search engine rankings are always hard won and are important to marketing efforts, so I wanted the URLs to stay constant. I did that by using permalinks for each product page, like ‘/aboutwalletzero’ for the Wallet Zero product page, instead of Joomla’s default scheme that looks something like ‘/page.php?id=234’. So, when I moved to WordPress and when I had to recreate a Wallet Zero product page, I simple gave it an identical permalink url, instead of sticking with the WordPress’s default scheme, which looks something like ‘/page.php?page=123’. Now, search engines and anyone that has bookmarked a page, will see the right results because the url ‘aboutwalletzero’ that went to the product page on Joomla also goes to the product page on WordPress.
For mobile browsers, I used the WordPress plugin iqTouch (???). This tool pretty much automatically made the site nicely available for iPhones and other mobile devices by reformatting the look and feel appropriately for such a small screen. I had to do a little tweaking, but it was still quite easy. Plugins like this make my heart sing with glee. It would have taken Herculean efforts to make my old set-up mobile friendly. I had experimented with the neat mobify.mo (???), which isn’t a WordPress plugin, but will handle any website by doing the reformatting on their own servers. Mobify.mo is a good service that offers a lot of flexibility for the non-WordPress site, but iqTouch is working better for me. I can now mention my site at conferences and feel happy if an attendee looks at my site right then and there on their mobile phone.
I forgot to create a list of urls from my old blog, and also forgot to put in re-directs from old blog posts on the old WordPress to new blog posts on the new WordPress. I was so focused upon the Joomla product pages that I forgot about the blog pages. I eventually remembered to fix it, but it was an embarrassing oversight.
I mainly wish I had made the upgrade sooner. All in all, it probably took several days of effort to upgrade the site, but I could have easily made the change happen a long time ago. It is the type of activity that usually doesn’t require your undivided attention, so you can accomplish most of the work when you need a short break from other projects, say, over your lunch break, or sitting on the couch during family reading time. It is hard to justify putting off upgrades that improve your brand and give your venture increased capabilities, like using the mobile plugin and visitor tracking.
Now, none of these observations are unique or insightful, but it underscores the importance, I think, for planning ahead for structural changes. For example, let us say you have developed several apps that are all listed under your company name, but if you hope to re-sell the app to another company, say, to eBay, then you need to know whether or not Apple will let you transfer the rights from a single app to another company. Technically, how would that work? Perhaps it would be smarter to list each of your apps under different accounts in order to facilitate the transfer. You need to plan ahead for these structural changes. Maybe your apps talk to your servers? Do they use a common domain name, or do they each have their own domain that could be transferred to a separate company? How about the name of your app? It might be available in the Apple app store, but what about for Blackberry and Android? If you ever want to branch out to those devices, you had better plan ahead.
The upgrade went well enough and I got a nice new look with a unified infrastructure. Planning ahead for these upgrades was the real key to success, but next time I’ll try to do a better job of remembering to track all of the urls that need to move. Planning ahead for infrastructure upgrades is also an important concept for independent application producers, for both technical changes, such as changing SDKs, and for business changes, like selling an app to another company. I just wish that I made the these changes sooner.
I’m quite interested in learning the impact of different distribution channels on the bottom line. Elegant Words was my first Web App and was a staff pick by Apple. Since it was listed in the Apple directory, I’ve been continually impressed by the number of users funneled through there versus organic discovery.
openappmkt.com is a new distribution channel for webapps on iPhone. 30 minutes to push Elegant Words as test. http://bit.ly/ewOnOpenAppMktThu Aug 19 14:11:24 via webJ.J. Rohrer
jjrohrer
We’ll see what happens here. The screen shots below got a little messed up, not sure why.
Oh, I need to add another 15 mins for this write up.
The iPhone 4 comes out on Thursday, and a few lucky folks have already gotten theirs. As a developer, I’ve been using the upgraded iOS4 operating system for a few weeks now (but I’m still waiting for my iPhone 4 to ship) and Apple is now allowing official reviews. So here is the only thing you need to know. The most useful feature of the new operating system is the addition of Folders. This is the one features that has impacted my day-to-day usage the most.
Now, I know everyone is excited about multi-tasking, which is cool. I added it to PowerNap and Nightlight, and am working on Time-to-Read, Meeting Timer, and Time-to-Eat, since they all have timers in them. I’m just added the first round of Retina-display graphics to Wallet Zero and added iAds to start recuperating some of my investment in that app. But, these features in my apps, and others, are not really that big of deal, compared to Folders. Those other features are simply nice improvements, but Folders have dramatically improved my daily iPhone experience.
Folders do a great job of letting me get to my apps and data faster. I can now put every app I need on the first three pages, making most of them about two away, or, at most, two taps and two swipes. That isn’t bad. Since I group apps by activity, like news sites that I read regularly, then they are typically only one tap away as I switch from one app in the group onto the next app. It is good enough that I now prefer reading on my iPhone over reading on my iPad, simply because my iPad is tending to get a little cluttered.
Folders also makes it way easier to share my phone with kids. My seven year old son hoards games, which tends to scatter icons over several screens, but I can now tell him, “These last three screens are yours, the rest are mine,” and have it work out fairly well.
So, what does this mean for the independent application publisher? This brings into focus the concept of app refinement. For apps, the devil is in the details, and little refinements that impact workflow create a big payoff in user experience. From a technology perspective, folders just are not that big of a deal, but it makes everyday tasks, like finding my app, more pleasant, more refined. Your app might have the coolest technology in the world, but those ‘hard-to-do’ things are not necessarily the most important. So pay attention to how people use your app and focus on adding refinements that improve their user experience. Sometimes the biggest payoffs are the easiest to do.
I recently had my 10 year business school reunion. Being the business nerds we are, we had additional classes. Here are some thoughts from one of those:
Behavior Finance by Professor Malcolm Baker
From the session summary:
“At the foundation of finance theory is the idea that investors and managers act rationally… behavioral finance proposes a broader role for social, cognitive, and emotional biases”
Think of it as a bridge between psychology and economics. Economists, basically, work to find the underlying models that best describe how we make decisions in our lives. They don’t believe that we actually do complex math when deciding whether to buy the Tall vs. Grande, but they say, that on average, we all behave as if we were actually doing the the math. Do you wake up and think about your “Expected Utility”? You act like it. Psychologists focus more upon the times when individual act against their best interests. In other words, when their emotions or biases make them behave against the economists model. The press likes to point out the gap between the economists and psychologists, but it isn’t as wide as they paint.
My 2.0G 15″ Macbook Pro is getting a little long in the tooth. I went to the Apple store yesterday to replace an unexpected failure in the external Mag-Safe power supply. I’m now on my fourth power supply – yikes. It wasn’t covered by AppleCare – the guy behind the counter pitifully reminded me that my laptop was now over four years old. That’s at least 28 years old in computer-hardware years, and in dog-years. So it is probably time to upgrade. But I don’t think I’ll replace this laptop with another – I’ll get a desktop instead. Unlike times past, the arrival of the iPad releases me from the laptop upgrade cycle.
Happily, unlike in my old Windows days, my computer isn’t slowing-down, per se, but I’m asking a lot more of it than I used to ask. I’m doing a lot of cross device smartphone development lately, which involves running multiple simulators – tough work for any computer, let alone a laptop. The recent upgrade to Snow Leopard breathed new life into my old beast. Also, my recent upgrade to a SSD hard-drive helped, too. But my hard limit of 2Gig of RAM is killing me.
I’ve written about how my iPad is proving to be a fairly useful portable computer. I find myself writing blog posts, catching up on reading long articles using Instapaper, and writing presentations and business plans using Keynote. I can even do some emergency SSH’ing to manage basic server maintenance. I plan to eventually do app requirements development and wireframe moch-ups, too, once I get around to building those apps.
So the thing is, even good laptops don’t perform as well as good desktops. I’m realizing that my next computer might last a long time, longer than I’m used to in the Windows world. My single biggest desire, other than more horsepower, is a large screen with letters big enough to let me avoid reading glasses. I also know, from experience, that a very high quality monitor can last many, many years. So my need for an upgraded laptop just isn’t too pressing. My old laptop will probably serve my increasing occasional heavy-usage mobile needs. My iPad will probably serve my lite-usage mobile needs. My new desktop will likely serve my big screen and big cpu needs. My spectrum of needs (I’m needy), will get met.
I’ve been relying upon laptops since I got a Dell Latitude in 1998. I just need to last the two years of business school. That is about how long it lasted, too. The thought of moving away from laptop-land is weird. Scary. Exciting. Visions of three 30″, side-by-side, monitors are dancing through my head. Home office utopia might be near. Ahh, peace is settling across my being.
Good bye laptop upgrade cycle. Thank you, iPad.
[Guest Post by my father-in-law, William Haueisen, PhD., CEO of Sterling Research Group (SRG). William agreed to share his recent experience with the iPad touching the older generation that has been sadly overlooked by recently technology innovations. That older generation is rapidly growing and sometimes referred to as the silver-market because of their under-addressed needs and under-tapped purchasing power.
About SRG: SRG designs and executes high-quality, and high-volume, customer satisfaction surveys.]
Gavin and Maddie’s great grandmother, aged 86, has suffered from macular degeneration for a decade. In earlier times she was an avid reader, sometimes with multiple books “under process” at the same time. But the macular degeneration has robbed her of any ability to read. She “reads” now only by sitting under a bright light and holding a fairly strong magnifying glass. That is until a week or two ago.
Great Grandmom lives in a retirement center so meals are always a big social time. Recently she’s been hearing her friends talk about Kindles. And while she hadn’t actually seen one, she had a feeling that it might be something that could help her read again. So we took her on a shopping trip, first to Best Buy to look at Kindles. They were interesting and she was fascinated with the idea of the thing, but unfortunately, even with the text enlarged to its maximum, she couldn’t read from a Kindle except with the ubiquitous magnifying glass. Part of the problem was the lack of contrast. But, even though it didn’t help her, she sure liked the basic idea of the thing.
Next we took her to Barnes and Noble to see a Nook. No dice, not enough real estate, and otherwise the same problem with lack of contrast.
The killer app for X. Everyone always wants to know, when a new widget is built, what it really does well. Often, it seems, it isn’t what was advertised. The killer app for the iPhone was suppose to be, according to Jobs, Making-Phone-Calls, with a heavy emphasis visual voice mail. The killer app for the personal computer, for those of us that can remember back that far, was supposed to be Cooking-Recipes (OMG!). The killer app for the iPad, again, according to Jobs, is Media-Consumption. All wrong.
The iPhone, although it needs to make phone calls, is only so-so good at it – but it is great for always-within-arms-reach-apps. Granted, there are lots of other uses for it, like games, web surfing, etc, but the Unique thing about the iPhone (and other smart phones) is that it is a little computer that you carry in your pocket that is connected to the Internet – and it does it Good-Enough(tm). I used to carry a Palm Treo 650 – which was also in your pocket and connected, but not it didn’t quite do it good-enough. It arguably did it better than others, but key functionality was really crippled if you weren’t employed by a company that could afford the Good e-mail back-end server. The Good software made the Treo very Blackberry-like. Apps were relatively difficult to install – more difficult than for a normal PC. The killer app for the Treo was the e-mail. Same thing for Blackberries. Maybe the twist for the iPhone is the ease of app installation and their security – you really can’t screw up your phone by downloading hack-apps. You could screw up your Treo, and you can still screw-up your Android phones.
So, what does the iPad do that is unique and awesome. Sure, you can read books. Sure, you get most of the benefits of the iPhone. But that isn’t unique. Browsing the web while I lounge in the living room, without having to fumble with a a mouse is truly awesome. Watching Netflix and ABC is, without a doubt, a game changer for media consumption. The Wall Street Journal app is within spitting distance of demonstrating how newspapers will survive. But, those are all, oh, how to say it, too obvious. However, when I attach my Bluetooth keyboard to my iPad, I roam to where there are no distractions, and write like I haven’t written in years (though, still, badly).
My desktop, for me, is for programming, and spreadsheets, and sort of serious endeavors. Writing, for me, is one of those things that is important to do, but never urgent. How could I ever justify writing? If I’m sitting at my computer, how can I allow myself to write when I should be programming? Well, nobody programs directly on the iPad. Nobody does serious spreadsheet work on the iPad. You get the idea. But an iPad with an external keyboard provides a wonderful, portable, low-distraction, writing environment.
I’m drafting this post at my kitchen table. I probably won’t add the links and pictures until I get back to my desktop, because rapid switching between programs, image uploads, etc., are a bit of a pain on the iPad – which is great – because I should be writing, not cropping images! The value is in the content, and thought, not the links and eye candy.
My 1st grade son and I have a semi-regular routine of going to a coffee shop, before his school starts, and we both write. Frankly, grabbing my laptop, the mouse, maybe the power supply, ejecting the external drive, grabbing the backpack, is just a bit too painful. Grabbing the iPad and keyboard, is cake. Not much bigger than my son’s composition notebook. I can grasp those two with one hand. He gets a the good influence of seeing a parent write. I get good writing time and good quality time. He gets to practice his writing and gets to see that an otherwise dull homework activity can be spiced up by just changing locations. We wrap-up by reading our creations to each other. His are more interesting.