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

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.

Here's another tip for newbie iPhone developers, concerning how setting the release date for a new app works.

Setting release dates properly has been a frustrating process for me. The release date can greatly affect where your app appears in the New Releases list on the AppStore, which is the only guaranteed list exposure your app will get. However, if you do not set the release date properly, you will lose that opportunity as well.

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.

Our travel manager, Trip Boss, is a comprehensive travel app which posed a unique structure that required an unorthodox solution when bringing it to the iOS mobile market. In order to move Trip Boss to iOS in a way that solves both our customer's needs and makes it feasible, economically, we came up with a new method of selling—Apps-Within-an-App. The app was originally available on the PalmOS platform, which is much different than the iOS platorm. To 'port this software to the new AppStore, we had to consider many things: customers needs, data sharing, development time, and pricing. Otherwise, the app would never have come to fruition on the iOS platform. This post will take you through the history, the thought process, the choices, and the final decision and product.

Recently we released phase 1 of Trip Boss travel manager for iPhone. We've been working towards its release since the AppStore opened 2-1/2 years ago in 2008. Although we released other iOS apps prior to Trip Boss, with each app we learned something new that we could use in Trip Boss. Full time focus on Trip Boss took about 7 months and we expect another 3-4 months to release the remaining phases, or “modules”. In comparison, Trip Boss for the PalmOS, the initial release, took over a year to write. Some of the subsequent additions and enhancements (such as itinerary) took another year each to release. This post will show you some of the history behind Trip Boss' design and some of the insight behind the design decisions for the iOS release.

Trip Boss travel manager, Expense & Budget edition, will be on sale on the AppStore on November 10th, 2010. To see a preview, please visit our website.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that Trip Boss for iPhone IS in the works. We are working hard to release it this fall. We'll keep you posted as we have screenshots and other goodies available. In the meantime, please feel free to "like" us on Facebook and follow Trip Boss on Twitter (for the latest news).

A few days ago I had a discussion on twitter with a few developer friends about links to the review section on the AppStores from within apps. Since people are prompted to "review on delete," the number of reviews can be slanted towards one-star, especially for 99c "throwaway" apps. No mechanism currently exists to prompt users who use and find value with their apps to rate and write reviews. So, many developers have added "Review this app" links inside their apps.

We're pleased to announce that our Serving Sizer Pro Recipe Converter and Cookbook app is now available on the AppStore!

Serving Sizer Pro™ does what your regular cookbook can't--instantly scales recipes based on number of guests coming for dinner! With Serving Sizer Pro you can convert entire recipes from one serving size to another. Great for scaling for crowds, or down-sizing for 1-2 person meals. Save recipes to re-scale later. Also converts between Metric and US measures so you can cook from recipes from other countries that use measuring tools different than what you're used to.

We've also included a few of our favorite recipes to see how it works or to make for yourselves. Enter your own recipes easily--over 500+ ingredients pre-loaded and beautifully designed sliders for choosing amounts and units. More details on our website. Enjoy!