
Instant splash pages for iOS apps - giladvdn
http://www.smore.com/for-apps
======
manmal
I was wondering what "splash page" means in this context.. I thought this app
generates splash screens which are displayed when a mobile app starts up (not
a good thing anyway). I would rather call it "presentation page" or "virtual
flyer".

~~~
bonjourmr
I thought iOS standards required an initial splash page? Or am I confusing
this with a required loading page.

~~~
potatolicious
All iOS apps require a splash image (otherwise it's just a black screen while
it spins up), but Apple strongly discourages using actual splash screens for
this purpose: it's a very jarring experience, and also magnifies the apparent
time between launch and ready states.

Instead the official recommendation is to make the splash image a stripped
down version of your app's home screen - for an address book, this would be
the main screen without any data, for example. This gives the app a more
immediate feel, and also effectively hides a lot of the load time, since there
is also no visible transition between the loading and ready states.

Of course, this is far from the reality of things - a lot of apps use splash
screens for a variety of reasons, and most do not gracefully transition
between splash and ready states (e.g., that empty address book splash
screenshot will just magically pop into a ready view, instead of animating
into said state).

------
gurgeous
This works great. Beautiful. Here's mine:

<http://www.smore.com/cuhv-dwellable-vacation-rentals>

~~~
xmmx
Will it let you export html/css or are you confined to their website?

~~~
megablast
Well, there is always save page as.

------
mickrobk
I love the idea, but it feels too much like a tech demo versus something I can
actually use. The showstoppers that stood out to me are:

\- "Try it now for free" is great for showing me the value prop but ultimately
I want to see a pricing sheet. I'm not willing to invest a lot time into what
I see as the quick/cheap solution (compared to a custom design) for my app's
website without knowing A: how much it's going to cost and B: what the
limitations are. I can see that smore is in beta so maybe you just don't want
to scare people off with unfinalized pricing -- for me at least no price is
much scarier.

\- Building the page off of the app store content is a great idea. But I need
a website before I launch my app. If you support that maybe you could do a
better job showing me that as an option from the start. (I'd still like to use
the same content as for iTunes connect)

I want to be able to focus on the app I'm working on and not the web landing
page - but for me the stuff missing is too important for this to be an option
yet. I do like the direction.

------
faramarz
Looks very well done.

Although, I wonder how exciting or lucrative this market really is when
Venture backed App.net abandoned it in pursuit of other ideas

~~~
snprbob86
Smore is much more than just Mobile Apps: <http://www.smore.com/>

~~~
chefsurfing
This is an excellent distribution hack! By choosing this vertical they can
gain traction among early adopters and 'digital influencers'. Way to go Smore!
Bravo! Whoever in/out of your company that came up with the idea to focus on
this vertical... do what that guy/gal says for a while.

------
ja27
I know it's pretty universally ignored, but Apple's guidelines are that you
should not use the white device frames for app marketing.

~~~
DrJokepu
This is about creating a web page for your app, not the launch image.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That's what ja27 is referring to.

[http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-
to-s...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-to-stop-
using-white-iphone-images/)

------
escoz
I liked it, actually. Here's the two I made for my apps:
<http://www.smore.com/s06g> and <http://smore.com/r2w1>

Now if only they allowed me to pay a few bucks a month to remove all the smore
links on top, i would probably use it as the main landing page for my sites.

------
heykoo
I was struggling with designing a page for my appstore app. This will
certainly come in handy!

FYI: Just noticed you have a bit of duplicate markup in your head - the dns-
prefetch links are duplicated

------
RandallBrown
Tried it in Firefox and IE. It doesn't work at all. It does work in Chrome.

This is really well done. It's easier to use than App.net and the pages look a
little nicer. Well done.

~~~
giladvdn
Fixed! Thanks for the feedback Randall!!

~~~
michaelt
The "Why Smore? See why Smore is perfect for your app." button doesn't work on
Firefox - does in Chrome though.

Details: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101
Firefox/14.0.1 ID:20120714012003

------
ChrisNorstrom
The background image is TOO distracting. It's way too saturated and colorful
and just clashes and takes away from the screenshot and call to action button.
That's the biggest problem with using big background images.

Also, you also have severe alignment problems. See
[http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-
redesign-o...](http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-of-
tap11-com/) The width of the header, the body, and the footer are all
different.

------
samirparikh
I've been looking for something like this ! I'm about to launch an app and
need a splash page. This looks like the perfect way to do it.

------
clarky07
Not too bad, but I wish the screenshots weren't just thumbnails of about 1/3
of the screen. I'd rather have the whole thing on the page than having people
click on it. Overall pretty well done though. here's mine -
<http://www.smore.com/46nn-debt-snowbal>

------
rsaunders100
Great site, I agree with the name change, I too was confused by it.

My app generated an error. I presume its because its not available in America
(only UK):

[http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-
isles...](http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-
isles/id448049851?mt=8&uo=4)

------
sync
Great looking landing page, but whenever I choose an app and click 'Smorify',
nothing happens.

~~~
RandallBrown
It only seems to work in Chrome.

~~~
shlomiatar
Yeah,

Apparently, when you try to submit a form that was not added to the body, FF
and IE will just silently fail, while Chrome deals with it like a champ.

That's what you get with last-minute optimizations :/

We're in the process of deploying a fix.

~~~
giladvdn
.... and fixed :)

------
dh
Really love this concept, not sure it is a business that makes much money but
something the market needs for sure and will help app developers. I might even
use it myself

------
ruedaminute
Nice. Sounds like it would be relatively trivial to add templates for other
app stores- please do so! I'd love to make a Smore for my new Nook app.

------
pgrote
There is a misspelling in their example page in the video.

"Like ous on Facebook ..."

I am never sure if there is a contest for noticing these things. lol

~~~
andyjsong
It is a contest, and you're winning!

------
rgbrgb
How much does this cost? I tried it, I liked it but I'm not going to sign up
unless I know a price.

------
arank
looks awesome, we are working on something in similar lines - tapfame.com, our
work starts after you create your portfolio - to get you new freelance gigs.

------
sonyasonya
Looks fantastic. Wish I had this when I was in school....

------
hackerpolicy
Does anyone know a similar app for Android landing pages?

------
pkamb
Is a version for Mac apps in the pipeline?

~~~
diesellaws
If needed, we have Mac app support here: <http://kickfolio.com>

------
phmagic
I love it! Great job Gilad and Schlomi!

------
FredBrach
Awesome. Do you plan something for printing? An automatically generated psd or
something? Btw, I've also misunderstood first "splash" and thought it was for
splash screens at the startup of an app. Good luck.

