We have officially started a trend. Cameron and I have been able to get Ask An iPhone App Developer published on time for three consecutive weeks. Since we are obviously capable of doing this consistently, this should be the last time I make any mention of our awesome streak. That is unless we fail to be timely once again.
This week's set of questions also marks another first for Ask An iPhone App Developer. Instead of answering questions from multiple readers, Cameron has decided to tackle five questions all from a single, very curious reader. All five questions are extremely solid, with one specifically delving into Cameron's daily work schedule. You will be happy to know that the
CollegeKidApp.com staff doesn't get tired of each other until quite late in the day. So, rule number one when developing an app with a group of people: find people you can stand for long periods of time!
And now on to the questions…
Jomskylark asks:
1. Some apps really benefit from having "100% off" (or, free) sales for a small period of time. For example, they reach new heights on the Top 25 rankings. Suppose your app, Battery Go!, was free for a week. In the long run, do you think that Battery Go! being free for a week would HIGHLY benefit your sales? Would your sales double, or even triple? Or would you just receive a couple of extra sales every day?
We actually did do this with
Battery Go! in anticipation of our 1.1 update, giving the app away for free for about a week before launch. What we saw was an astronomical bump in downloads because we were free, which I would credit heavily to some promotion from app websites who ran announcements that we were free. Downloads were pretty strong for about 4-5 days after we began giving the app away and slowed after that, right before we went back to $0.99.
We had read a bunch of information which suggested that we would see a sales bump after going back to $0.99, but we really didn't find this to be the case. To be absolutely honest, the free giveaway did pretty much nothing for our sales. Similarly, we released our first update about a week ago and have seen the same response to the new content as well. We may be an outlier here, but the update didn't give a sales boost either. Maybe it's because we're a utility and not a game, but it makes it hard to justify building more updates if we are to see minimal boosts if any like we did.
2. How do developers benefit from free apps with ads?
When we worked up a pricing strategy for Battery Go!, we couldn't justify making it a free ad based app. Internally, we've never produced anything with ads, but my reading of other developers has seemed to show that you really can't make too much money with ads unless you're one of the top free apps. Even then, it seems like those with the top free apps and ads still make much less than those who have top paid apps. So personally, I couldn't see us ever using ads in an app just because we couldn't get a decent return. If another developer reads this and they do use ads in their app, I would love to hear about their success or lack their of.
3. Have you ever considered porting Battery Go! to another platform, such as Android or Windows Mobile?
We've looked into it, but haven't put much thought or research into it. We're relatively novice developers as it is and really don't want to stretch ourselves too thin. We have played around with the Palm Pre dev kit for a bit, but that was mostly for fun and proof of concept stuff. So far, it really doesn't seem like small developers like us could ever come close to making a return on these other stores because people just don't buy apps on the phones that support them like people do for the iPhone. Specifically looking at Android, I've read reports where the top selling apps are only making a couple hundred dollars a day. That may seem like a lot of cash, but considering the fact that you probably aren't going to stay on top for more than a couple of days and the costs of making a top app are huge, it just doesn't make sense for someone like us to consider the OS as of right now.
4. What is your development process like on a day-to-day basis?
We wake up, eat some potato chips, watch TV for a couple hours, pretend to work on a computer for an hour or so, and then we go to sleep and do it all over again. Just kidding, though I do wish the life was that glamorous. The whole process can vary greatly depending on what part of the cycle you're in. When we were developing Battery Go!, a typical day would see us hitting the office around 9am and then working on app artwork, coding, pre-promotion, etc until about 6-7pm. We have a three man team, so Mike will be doing all of the coding and work on the app while Jeff works on the artwork and I promote either the company, an application, or work on arranging interviews. Typically we're all working on different projects at the same time, with each project at a different stage.
Things get really exciting though right after you launch, especially if you make it into the top 100 like we did for a while. For the first week or so after the launch of Battery Go!, my typical day was like this:
- Wake up at 6-7am and immediately check to see how the previous day's sales were. You want to see if you have a spike, plateau, or any oddity in sales which you should focus your day on. If you had a great day, try to find the source of this surge and then figure out what you can do to continue growth. If you had a bad day, you may want to try and see what went wrong and how you can fix it.
- Next, I spend about an hour checking through e-mail and news on Google Reader or Apple blogs to see what is going on in the app world.
- Around 9-10am, we would all chat real quick on what the ultimate goal for the day is. Are we trying to get the app reviewed by fan blogs? Will we be working on an update? How can we better promote the app?
- We do this until 1-2pm when we finally break for lunch. A half hour away is great for everyone in keeping up motivation. We'll also use the lunch break as a way to see what's been going on for each of us that day or discuss big Apple news in the making.
- After lunch, we'll work until 6-7pm when we're all exhausted and tired of each other. We'll recap the day and then build a quick strategy for the next day so that we're all on the same page come morning.
- For the rest of the night, we'll usually be on our own at home. I'll eat dinner, watch a half hour of TV or so, then hit the laptop reading news and blog posts on the App Store, trends, and all things Apple. You really get sucked into the minor stuff about development really quickly. I'll also get back to emails I didn't have a chance to finish earlier, before going to bed around 2am or so.
- Rinse and repeat.
5. Do you think that releasing an application relating to Christmas in the middle of June would be more beneficial (in terms of sales) than releasing it at the last minute, only a few days before Christmas? Think about it this way: If it was released in June it would have had more time to gain sales, but if it was released in late December, then sales may have rose due to people specifically looking for a Christmas related app.
What I've seen with our app, and with what I've read about other apps, it seems that unless you become a top 10 paid app, you're going to see your best sales within the first week of your launch. Given that, I think it would be best to plan release around Christmas time so that you'll see your boost around Christmas time and hopefully people will also be looking for the app, which should hopefully gain you some good sale numbers.
That’s it for this week. Keep the great questions coming! Remember, they can be about anything iPhone app related.
Have a question for our iPhone app developer? Send it to: tyler [at] appadvice [dot] com with the subject line “Ask An iPhone App Developer” OR just leave a comment below.
