Touch Code Magazine

Following my article “10 tips to successful apps” I wrote also 10 mistakes that developers would do. These are based on my experience as a programmer and already quite some time on the App store, so I really hope these will be useful to you on your way to success on the App Store.

1. Not Follow news and developers’ blogs

The best thing about the developers’ community is that is a very supportive one. If you are one of those lone wolves out there who code all night long and needs to battle every little coding problem by himself – give yourself a break! There’s a ton of quality people on the net who are happy to share their wisdom with you. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, there’s a high chance somebody already found the solution and released an open source library, which you need to only include in your project and your problem is solved. Do follow fellow developers- being a social animal will help you a lot in your work.

Another angle on this issue is reading trough news and rumor announcements about iPhone and iPad. Imagine you are reading a website which publishes rumors about the upcoming apple product line. I have to tell you those people really know their thing – they’ll go beyond the call of duty to guess what Apple’s next step will be. If they say next iPad could feature a camera – that’s a good lead! Don’t just start coding a camera support yet, but do consider how your app could make use of this feature and be ready for the time this rumor gets confirmed.

2. Not spending money on tools

As I said there are a lot of quality iPhone developers out there and some of them have also Cocoa background on the Mac; so they are very keen on creating great tools which support the development of iPhone apps along the process of their own development work. I’m not talking spending 800$ (or as much as it costs) on an adobe photoshop, I’m talking a particle designer for under 10$ or a level designer for under 20 bucks.

Believe me these tools are created by people who MAKE iPhone apps and they know what you need, so they’ve created a solution for that specific issue you are having. If you are still not convinced let me put it this way – you can define the shapes of your game objects by hand – not a problem; but it’ll take you let’s say 30 hours of additional work, multiply that amount by your normal hourly rate and compare that to 15 dollars worth tool which can minimize the amount of time needed to say 5 hours.

Anyhow… if a total of 120$ cost for the whole range of tools you would need to buy would hurt so much your profit from the app you are developing – I’d say sit down and reconsider developing the app at all.

3. Supporting old OS versions

It is of course generally good to support old OS version, because there will always be those people who would just not upgrade their devices. However consider this – Apple themselves  won’t support old releases, they are even not much into supporting their old hardware. And so … why would you? If OS 4 just came out – yes! do support 3.x if you want to have any sales. But at the time the current version is 4.2 there is absolutely no sense to support 3.x anymore except if you are really after those 10% or so who would really not upgrade. Plus you’ll get the benefits of refactoring your app code when you drop 3.x support, easier to support code – bigger ROI.

I want to give an example here which might be of some relevance – imagine that currently internet explorer 6 is 10 years old and web developers would still support it. And that’s not an easy task – 10 years in web time is like you’re supporting technology from the ice age. But the thing is there are users who would because of various reasons never upgrade, and the developers and the rest of the users who have the latest browsers are the ones paying for that. Just don’t go that way

4. Not make thorough research on iTunes

By now the App Store is really packed with very smart and skilled people. And we are all trying to ride the same trends and grab the same potential customers’ attention. So chances are if you are having a great idea – there already are a bunch of apps out there in the App Store which do pretty much the same. Now that’s not bad at all. There’s big value in existing competition- this definitely means that there’s demand in the given area. If the App Store is not flooded with apps like the one you wanna make, it means there’s demand, there’s competition already: it’s a healthy market to step into.

Be aware there might be different reasons to having a lot of competition on the same basic idea or for that matter – not having competition on the idea you have. First of all – try to judge really HOW much competition there is – if it is too much, there might not be space on the market for another player. Do check your competitors’ ratings – it is all out there on the App Store – read what people think about those apps, if everyone hates them, no sense for you to release another app like that. On the other hand- if everyone is really excited about those type of apps- hurry up and start coding yet, there’s definitely some $ to be made in that area.

If there’s no competition – there’s two basic options – no-one came with your idea yet (yes that’s still possible) or there’s no interest/demand or there’s an impediment to creating such an app. I think this is the more complicated case where you need to be really cautious about developing your idea- do research, ask friends – it pretty much might be either a gold mine or a waste of time.

5. Commit to service you wouldn’t want to support long term

When you are a good developer you would tend to go into developing great functionality as well. An app which is well connected to all kind of online services is definitely much more valuable to the users. If it provides regularly fresh content or other kind of benefits of being connected to the cloud users will definitely love it. Also – if you have inapp purchases which unlock new content, which is downloaded from the Internet – your server or other location, you will need to support the infrastructure necessary besides just coding and releasing your app.

Now imagine the following- your app falls on the ground belly up, though as a great app still has some 600 paying customers. Question is – what do you do now? You can’t pull off the app from people’s devices. Please don’t forget they did pay you for the software and the service you’ve promised to deliver, so you can’t just leave everything and head to the mexican border. The profit you make will only go lower and lower after the first peak and you are tearing you hair in despair because instead of making money from your app you are now the one paying to support the app’s infrastructure.

The advice here is – don’t let this scenario stress you; if you don’t create an amazing app you probably won’t have much success. Just be aware and leave yourself a backdoor – roughly drafted exit strategy. You could have a very simple way to trigger an app UI which would explain to the users you are out of business and new purchases won’t be accepted or whatever is your exit strategy. Don’t over-stress yourself with that though – just be aware it’s an option

6. Create application which already has a better alternative on the app store

The biggest mistake you can make is putting a lot of time and efforts into developing an application which just does not stand the competition. Before start coding – ask yourself: Can I make a better app than the ones already out there?; or : Can I make an app which will add something fresh to the choice of apps already on the App Store? Answer yourself honestly! If you really believe you’re on a good roll and you can make it – than of course go for it. On the other hand if those apps out there look pretty sleek and you’ve no idea how to make anything better or at least comparable to them – maybe it’s time to consider other app ideas?

7. Read and consider every single review and comment

Now I know this will be a very controversial advice, but it’s based on the 7 apps I’ve made and all the reviews I’ve read on the app store.

How many customers you’ve had up to now?

10 customers? That’s great – you could speak to everyone of them and fit your product to their needs, everyone was happy. 100 customers? Wow, your web studio seems to be pretty successful- I hope you have enough account managers to communicate with all your clients.
Now get this – your app was downloaded 200,000 times. All these people are your customers. They are. And the worse thing – their opinion is public and is only one way – they say what they hate/like about your app and you can’t say anything back. It’s just how the app store works.

Now what would you say the most common review is? I’ve read tons of reviews and I’d say there is a certain text which always pops up in the reviews section. And this text is “this game should be free. it needs more bad guys and more levels” – 2 stars. You need to understand there will always be people in between these 200,000 or more customers who won’t like your app or they just need something else. Or (boo) they just need to vent about something totally unrelated. Get over it.

My advice is – do read your reviews, but don’t get personal about the whole story. If you see a trend in the users’ feedback – yes, do consider implementing a new feature or changing something, but you just won’t be able to make everyone happy, the sooner you understand this the better you will sleep.

8. Not consider new frameworks/news from Apple

You are great! You are indeed. Even considering developing for the iPhone is already putting you ahead of many others. But you need to know that Apple is the king around here. It’s only up to them what’s going to happen on the app market, where the hardware is going to, who will be featured as hot in iTunes, what features or frameworks are acceptable to use and compatible with your Mac web hosting plan … this is no democracy. And so – listen to what Apple is saying. If Apple says: UIScreenCapture won’t be good to use starting 1st of June – get coding now and remove that function from your code – what they say it’s gonna definitely happen.
Even more important: if next OS features a native Facebook integration, don’t wonder around like a headless chicken, but do sit down and code native Facebook integration into your app, because believe me – this is going to be the hype. Apps having this feature are going to be featured, users will unconditionally want it and if you don’t have it you will just fall behind your competition.

9. Not having translations

Let me give you an example: the italians are in general very nice people, who are very much into everything fashionable. In the Milan subway nearly everyone is holding an iPhone and using an app. But the thing is in Italy they speak italian – you need to understand that it is indeed a very beautiful language and it does a great job as such. So in general they won’t speak english in there. ( I want to iterate on the fact that this is a huge generalization for the sake of the example) Ask yourself do you or do you not want to step on a multimillion iPhone app market? It will take a day and some bucks to have your strings file translated in italian, but then you’re good to go in Italy and chances are pretty big your investment will return times X. It’s the same in France, China, Japan and virtually everywhere. Just check which countries are considered big markets in iTunes and when possible do have a translation in the languages spoken there.

10. Think iPhone developers get rich overnight

I don’t know how to make this one really stick in people’s minds. Couple of years ago there was  hunger for apps in the App Store, and so the marketing machine made it look as if success on the App Store is an over-night miracle which happens to all good people who would buy a Mac and an iPhone and get cracking in XCode.

Let’s get real – you’ve probably read already how many games the guys over at Chillingo released before Angry Birds – well over 30. So Angry Birds was an instant success, but the process of reaching that point where you are able to release a hit is not weekend long.

My advice is to dream big, but leave aside perception that iPhone development equals quick money. It’s not like it is not possible to happen – it might be, but the time of farting apps is over and anything else valuable just requires more efforts and good skills to develop

So, I hope that was useful and if you didn’t yet – go and read also my “10 tips to successful apps”

Marin

Photo by: Zsuzsanna Kilian