

Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store - jwhelan
http://log.burningrobot.com/post/15352652288/one-month-on-the-ios-app-store

======
ajlburke
Congratulations! I went through a similar process with my first app as well. A
few things I'd recommend:

\- Use appfigures.com and appannie.com to track your sales and rankings. They
provide much nicer reports than those provided by Apple. Also, they'll tell
you if reviews come in, and even translate them for you. I'm personally
addicted to the hourly ranking updates from AppFigures.

\- Never stop promoting. Do something (even if it's something small) every day
to raise awareness. Getting on the front page of Hacker News is an excellent
start! But don't stop there.

\- Get a 'press kit' of screenshots and descriptions to send to popular app
review sites and tech writers etc. Many will ignore you, but the hits are
worth it. A great review in AppAdvice completely turned around my app's
fortunes.

\- Don't bother with AdWords - at least at the start. Generally the price per
click and the conversion rates won't support the revenue you would get from an
app sale. Some people spend big on AdWords to push their rankings, but that's
not a reliable way to make money.

\- Expriment with pricing. Price changes are quick and easy to make. Don't be
afraid to raise your price. You might be pleasantly surprised by the result.
And if it doesn't work out, you can lower it again. I found I got fewer cranky
reviews when my price was higher. but YMMV.

\- Continue writing honest reports about your app's progress. We see so many
news items about huge successes and huge failures, it's a good corrective to
see how a 'normal' app fares.

\- Work on your next app. I just launched my second app in the store and while
I'm still not making enough to live on, it's great to get twice as much money
coming in.

\- Have fun. Building something of your own and selling it is great. You might
start resenting your day jobs, though.

~~~
signalsignal
I recommend using Appviz 2 for sales analytics. It is Mac specific and doesn't
contain any Call Home functionality so it is good to go.

~~~
xmr
I second this; I've been a happy user since v1 of AppViz. Might want to try
out AppSalesMobile if you want the figures on the move.

------
voxmatt
(a) This is great. I've been using Maps+, which is a really impressive little
app, but it's complexity often makes it cumbersome. Yours is very barebones,
but in playing around with it, that's an asset.

(b) With (a) in mind, there really needs to be a way to plot to/from somewhere
other than (what the iPhone thinks is) your current location.

(c) It would be great to be able to see bike lanes, but I understand how much
extra effort that would require; so don't sweat it, but if this _does_ rise to
the level of a business...

(d) Get rid of the icon-sheen in the App store. It's not enabled on the actual
phone icon, and it looks so much better that way. It looks cheap with the
sheen in the App-store: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4087500/does-
itunes-store...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4087500/does-itunes-store-
always-put-sheen-on-512x512-image-when-submitting-iphone-app)

~~~
jwhelan
a) Glad you like it. Simplicity was a goal. b) Yes, totally agreed & in the
works. c) This will be in the next release. d) We actually have a ticket in
with Apple to get this fixed. There's nothing we can do on our end. Terrible.

Thanks for the honest feedback!

~~~
inkaudio
Thanks for the link to distimo.com analytic, I'm looking into it. My marketing
suggestion: contact blogs that a cyclist would read, blogs by/for cyclist or
even a blog by a boutique bike shop. Perhaps some will write about your app.

~~~
jaxn
<http://dcrainmaker.com> comes to mind

------
brador
I love postmortems! Could you give more details on the app...how long did it
take to develop? How many people worked on it? Did you outsource parts of it?
Any ongoing costs (eg, APIs etc.)? Any interesting side stories?

Also, what would you say is your total estimated cost for making the app from
start to finish?

~~~
x1r0
We're a team of 2. I do all the development. All the work was done in-house...
no outsourcing. The app, icon, and website were all us.

It took 3 months to get to version 1.0. We worked on it part time, nights and
weekends. There were some big gaps as life and work got in the way. It was my
first iOS development experience, and I had only dabbled in Objective-C
previously, so most of that time was getting up to speed with the language and
framework. I primarily work in Ruby.

There are no real ongoing costs. The website is completely static, so hosting
is negligible. We use Google's local search and directions APIs. Both of them
are free at our usage levels.

It cost $99 for the Apple developer license. That's all the capital all we
invested. The rest of it was just time.

~~~
brador
Awesome, thanks for the details. You mentioned only dabbling previously, any
tips on learning iphone app programming quickly? What tools/things did you use
to learn? Any recommendations? Did you use any books/guides?

Finally, did you use a mac pro or imac? and if it's relevant, does the glossy
screen cause eye strain when programming for extended periods?

~~~
x1r0
I still remembered a decent amount of C from high school & college (I'm just
old enough to have snuck through before Java took over CS). I brushed up on
the ol' K&R and then read about 2/3rds of O'Reilly's Programming iOS 4 book.

Apple's documentation and sample code is excellent, and really nicely
integrated into XCode. Once iOS 5 came out, I learned almost exclusively from
there. Of course, Stack Overflow is great for very specific gotchas and
questions.

I did all the work on a MacBook Pro, with glossy screen, usually plugged in to
a 27" Apple display (also glossy). The gloss doesn't cause me any problems
unless I sit in very bright sunlight, but all things equal, I would prefer
matte. Xcode is a bit of a pig, so it definitely does best on a big display.

------
joeblossom
On thing you may consider doing, if you aren't already, is using one of the
many libraries available which ask users to rate your app.

In the last release of one of my apps I implemented one of the libraries and I
saw the amount of ratings soar. Especially the positive ratings.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I second this. I added 'AppiRater' (<https://github.com/arashpayan/appirater>)
to one of my popular apps which users weren't reviewing. As soon as I added
AppiRater the number of reviews increased a lot. I also noticed that it didn't
increase the number of negative reviews which was a surprise.

~~~
sumukh1
If you do it right, then yes it will help your reviews. I suggest actually
using iRate (<https://github.com/nicklockwood/iRate>)

The advantage of these libraries is that you can ask at a specific time, say
the tenth launch.

~~~
megablast
As you can do with pirater. You can also set a time limit, a combination of
both, remind the user again, or give them one change only. AppiRater is very
flexible, not sure what iRate offers over that.

------
nathanbarry
Nice. Congrats on getting your live app in the store. It is a great way to get
hobby projects out in the open. Plus I get nice sense of completion when the
app goes live.

Sometime soon I'll post a sales breakdown for my latest app. For me getting
reviews written on sites like MacLife and AppAdvice made all the difference
for sales.

~~~
pkamb
> _For me getting reviews written on sites like MacLife and AppAdvice made all
> the difference for sales._

How so? The initial traffic from those sites? Other sites picking up the
story? Ongoing SEO benefits?

~~~
nathanbarry
The review from App Advice generated enough sales to push Commit
(<http://thinklegend.com/commit>) into the top 25 productivity apps. Which got
it even more sales.

Unfortunately I can't tell how many came from App Advice, only the total
number of sales that day (600).

------
AznHisoka
Congrats on releasing.

Question: When you submit an app for approval, can you tell them the exact
date you want the app to be officially released in the App Store?

~~~
sainttex
They give you an option of putting in a release date, or immediate release
after approval.

------
msolheim
Congrats on your app launch! I’ve been sharing it with all my biker friends.
:) Thanks for sharing this info it is very valuable info! You mentioned the
disconnect when someone transitions into the App Store. I was wondering if you
are signed up for Apple’s Affiliate program and using your unique affiliate
link on your websites App Store button. Would that give you any more idea of
what is going on inside the App Store?

~~~
jwhelan
Thanks so much. We have not tried this...but you've motivated me to take
another look at it. Do you know anyone who's used it?

~~~
msolheim
I do not. I’m in the process of getting my own app developed and in my
research I found that if you sign up for the iTunes Affiliate Program
(www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/) , use your unique link where ever you send
people to the iTunes Store or App store and you get a commission on anything
they buy within a 24 hour session or until they click another affiliate link.
So even if they don’t end up buying your app if they buy anything you’ll get a
commission! So, make sure you include affiliate links inside your app too.

I’m not sure what type of analytics they provide back to you for any purchases
or activity but hopeful it’s something to overcome the data disconnect once
inside the App Store.

------
pclark
I don't really like your website. Specifically the image of the iPhone. It's a
good size but most of it is the iPhone bezel. There is no way to understand
specifically what the app does and how by looking at it. Make it the full
iPhone height and add obvious arrows to let the user manually progress through
a 3 step "this is what it is" in the form of images.

~~~
x1r0
Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
jbrennan
The site won't even load for me. I've been trying on and off over a few
hours... What gives?

~~~
jwhelan
Hey, so sorry for the trouble.

You can check out the app in the app store: <http://bit.ly/Bike-Maps-App>

~~~
jbrennan
Safari 5.1.2 on Lion. It times out (the same happens in the latest Chrome,
too).

------
Macsenour
Pardon me if someone else mentioned this but... have you thought of a free
version with ads? You can use IAP, In App Purchase, to go to the paid version
without the ads. This skips the App Store "no information" wall by not going
to the App Store at all.

------
tluyben2
Congrats with the app :) And thanks for sharing your experience. You're high
up on HN, so your marketing skillz are improving. Just keep marketing your app
and work on the next one.

------
sainttex
You mentioned you're using google's directions API, what is this doing
differently than the walking directions in maps? Doesn't that include bike
paths, passages etc?

~~~
x1r0
Google uses different algorithms for walking & biking. For example, you can
walk in either direction on a one-way street, but you can only bike in one
direction.

The bike directions prioritize streets with bike lanes and low traffic bike
boulevards. With walking, really any street with a side walk will do.

------
mdellanoce
Thanks for sharing! I'd be interested in a follow-up to see how this Hacker
News discussion affected your sales too.

~~~
x1r0
We're currently #46 in the Top Paid apps for the Navigation category, so I
think it's safe to say that the influence has been substantial. We won't get
to see actual sales numbers until tomorrow morning.

------
slaven
That is very cool, thanks for sharing!

Are you doing any marketing for it?

~~~
jwhelan
Thanks. So, we had a $100 credit from Google to use on adwords. That was
interesting but not something that would work if we had to actually pay for
it. In terms of other marketing, Apple gives you 50 download codes so we
handed those out to local bike businesses & nonprofits.

Our experience is that people rarely redeem the download codes, but will often
reciprocate kindness. Our biggest sales came when we gave some promo codes to
a bike courier company, and they tweeted about the app to their 3,000
followers.

Aside from that we comment on some of our favorite cycling blogs with our url.
That's it. Suggestions?

~~~
tstegart
A small press kit with some screenshot of the app that you can send to blogs
and biking websites. I would use your promo codes with bloggers rather than
bike businesses, unless they have large followings like the courier company.

------
wouterinho
Thanks for sharing! What are your experiences with Distimo?

~~~
jwhelan
We were interested in Distimo their reporting on rankings. Unfortunately, you
have to be in the top 200 (it seems) to get ranking info. Appfigures is better
for this. They do hourly rankings (thanks to ajlburke for recommending it, we
just signed up today).

They do have a nice dashboard and the site is easy to use.

------
jack83
Great app, thank you for sharing those data

------
pthreads
Thank you for sharing.

------
keithnoizu
Awesome stuff,

    
    
       Hopefully word of mouth among your existing user base continues to pick-up along with your daily sales, but you are already off to a great start.

------
option1138
Very good example of why developers are dumb for writing mobile apps. It makes
zero business sense with the exception of the very few who sell hundreds of
thousands.

Apple screws the developers and we all bend over. What a joke!

