App Store Insider: Ask An iPhone App Developer - Week 2

The first ever Ask An iPhone App Developer didn't go exactly as planned and that's why we had to skip an entire week.  But that's alright, these things happen.  We have tweaked some of our original ideas and came up with some new ones, so now everything should be good to go. The first thing that needs to be addressed is that we have removed Cameron's mugshot from the top of the column and replaced it with a brand new, more geeky image.  We hope you like it.  Second, we want more questions.  Let me rephrase that, we need more questions!  Over the last week we received enough questions to fill the column -- actually, we received enough questions that some remain unanswered -- but we want even more.  To help entice you, we have decided to partner up with the guys at CollegeKidApp.com and giveaway some CollegeKidApp.com emblazoned wristbands.  To have a chance at winning one of five wristbands this week, simply submit a question in the comments section below or via email before next week Tuesday at 11:59 PM PT.  You can still submit questions after that time, but you won't be eligible to win.  Your question doesn't have to make it into the column for a chance to win, just submit a relevant one. Just to be clear with the rules, residents within the 48 contiguous US states are only eligible to win a wristband.  I know, we have a ton of readers outside of this country, but to avoid massive shipping costs we just had to not include you fine folks.  Winners will be announced in next week's Ask An iPhone App Developer column, so don't forget to check it out.  A somewhat blurry image of the wristbands can be seen on the right-hand side.  You get the idea. And now on to the questions... Chris asks: "I want to join the iPhone developer program but don't want my name displayed on the App Store in any possible future app. Enrolling as company involves submitting business documents etc. (I think). Is there any way to enroll as a different name but not a company?" As far as I know, you either need to enroll as an individual or as a company, with companies needing business documents. I just did some poking around and I don't think you can use a different name or even change your name after enrolling in the program. If you're dead set on using a different name, look into enrolling as a business. You'll need to hit your local government building to get a Doing Business As form, but it's not a big process to register as a business. You'll also get the cool experience of saying that you've started your own company. Mike asks: "Looking back, what do you think is the most important part of developing an application that you didn't think about your first time through development? What do you wish you could have changed, if you were able to make Battery Go! again and start from the beginning?" I think we've been pretty happy with the decisions we made and the outcome of our first app in Battery Go!. That being said, we definitely second guessed everything that we did after launch and analyzed how we could have made better decisions. I think the one thing that came up over and over in our discussions on the app was the icon. We LOVE the Battery Go! icon and how it turned out, but we're not sure that helped our sales. We really should have thrown a battery in there somewhere to make it more obvious that the app helps you with battery life to those who only glance at icons while making a purchase. Leaving out a battery definitely didn't help us in foreign markets that don't speak English either. Rick asks: "Where do you get your app ideas?" This is a question we get all the time, and I never really quite know how to answer. Typically, we don't have brain storming sessions or anything to talk about apps. Instead, we just deal with new ideas or thoughts as they come to us. We keep a working Google Document that has a big list of the better ideas we've come up with. It's probably about 30-40 apps long and just has things we would find useful ourselves and would think about buying. A lot of our ideas come to us in the same way they would come to anyone else. Usually, we're just sitting around using an iPhone and think "man, I really wish an app did this for me." I wish it was a bit more scientific than that, but that's pretty much how we come up with our ideas. When you're working on apps in a lot, you do go through periods I think where you're super creative and you're just thinking up things for hours at a time. For example, Battery Go! came to me as a thought right before I went to bed one night right after I'd been sketching ideas and thinking for a couple hours. You just never know when you'll have that next great idea. I think everyone is starting to understand how this is going to work, so let's keep the great questions coming.  Feel free to submit anything that's on your mind that's iPhone app related.  Please be as specific as you can, so Cameron can answer your questions as clearly as possible. I would like to thank our first batch of contributors from the previous weeks, and if we didn't get to your question yet, we will next week! 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.

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