Mobile Evolution - Thoughts, insight, and experiences related to the mobile software industry

Designing an iPhone UI for a productivity app can take many directions and each time you make a choice, someone will not like it, yet others may think it's brilliant. (Of course, you hope the latter are the ones leaving reviews.) Today the landscape in the app store affects how you design your UI—you need to stand out to get noticed. However, the other edge of the sword is that if you go totally radical, people won't have that comfort feeling of familiarity of a iOS app. So the key is to get a balance of familiar, with a dose of 'zazz. Of course, it helps to have some luck of being in the right place at the right time, so someone with influence also sees your app, but this post is going to tackle areas WITHIN your control—the design of the User Interface (UI).

In marketing an app, one of the areas that needs attention is your website. The AppStore description and screenshots are sometimes not enough for every customer to make a decision. Sending them to your website gives you another chance at convincing them to purchase your product. In addition, many people do discover apps via search engines, so a website is essential for traffic that can link to your apps on the AppStore.

On your website you have more options with text formats and sizes, layout, and, of course graphics, including screenshots and device shots. Apple makes available device artwork and AppStore badges that you can use on your website, but you have to insert your own screenshots and resize the artwork to meet your needs. (The link requires a developer login). This post will cover some tips on processing your screenshots for device graphics on your website.

Many funding options are available for an entrepreneur, but which you choose depends on your lifestyle, your aspirations, your experience, and your desire for control, among other things. We chose Bootstrapping for many reasons. We like to have complete control over our business, and we had been both already been working as engineers for over a dozen years, so we had savings and had established ourselves. Our goals are modest—we merely want to create an income to support our family, be able to spend more time with them, and enjoy the flexibility of working for yourself. Bootstrapping may not for everyone, but if you're considering it as an option, this post will cover some ways to prepare and some pitfalls to avoid.

What's in an icon? App icons are one of the first things a potential customer sees. A good icon will catch an eye, stand out from the rest. It will make your customer take notice, will entice them to click for more info. Your app's icon is one of the most important graphics for your app and can make a big difference in attracting more customers.

When developing many apps, you might also want to opt for branding, either for your company, or for a series of related apps. A key element of branding is to determine a design element that you want to use throughout each icon. This element could be a style, an border, or something more specific. This post will walk through examples of how we've tackled branding for our apps, including our Trip Boss suite, and briefly discuss the difference an icon can make in sales.

Maximizing revenue on the AppStore is the goal of every developer. Setting the right price and changing it at the right time (increase or sale) is truly an art. Many variables are at play, but if you experiment carefully, you can find the sweet spot for revenue. This sweet spot may surprise you, so it's important to experiment, or you'll miss out on your revenue potential. Of course, when a competitor comes into the mix, you may have to adjust. It's very important to monitor things regularly, so you are not caught unawares. This post will reiterate a few things from a previous post of mine on pricing, and share some of our experiences with iOS price experimentation.

So many sensational articles about iOS development dominate the scene, from the get-rich-quick-we-sold-a-million-copies to the “median paid app earns $682 per year.” However, neither of these two situations are realistic for business planning. While doing taxes and accounting this week, plus monitoring our newly released in-app purchase in Trip Boss travel manager, I was reminded that I've been meaning to write about how it really IS possible to make a living writing iOS apps. Ask yourself: can your business support you? If so, how can you plan for this? I'm not one to “hope,” I want to “make” it happen. All serious businesses should have a plan, rather than “just writing apps and hoping for the best.” This post shares our experiences in sales, in promotions, and lastly our business plan.

Serving Sizer Pro Recipe Cards for iPad--your recipes, organized for cooking, update is now live in the iPad AppStore.


We've added several new features:

PDA247, a long-standing premium news site for smartphone news, community, and forums has posted an interview with Creative Algorithms: "Mobile Platforms: A developer's point of view". Here's an excerpt:

We are pleased to announce that we've uploaded a new update to DateWheel.net today. The new version updates the web application to add better support for Internet Explorer 8 and to add localization for Portuguese. In addition, included in this release are some bug fixes and optimization to increase performance.

DateWheel.net is a date calculator that can be accessed via your PC or Mac's browser. We also have a mobile-optimized version for mobile smartphones with browsers, such as iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nokia, and Pre. Native versions of Date Wheel are also available on the iPhone and Palm OS mobile devices. Please visit the about page for more information.

UPDATE: Date Wheel is now showing up for sale on the AppStore. Here's the iTunes link.

We just received the email for which we've been waiting--Date Wheel has been officially approved for sale on the AppStore! Should be a few hours before you can access it for purchase. We're very excited to finally release for iPhone. We'll keep you posted and provide links as soon as we know. In the meantime, feel free to follow DateWheel on Twitter for up-to-the-moment updates. We also ask you to please submit a review if you would. Thanks!!