

Show HN: Taplytics, A/B testing on iOS without App Store updates - cdrux
http://taplytics.com

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saurik
I am interested in how this product compares with Apptimize (a company that
happens to be backed by Y Combinator).

[http://apptimize.com/](http://apptimize.com/)

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morgante
My question is how does a service like this not violate Apple's requirements?

Isn't this a super easy back door around the App Store? Just submit a nice,
simple app to Apple and inject offending modifications via Taplytics.

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jonathannorris
Testing on mobile is becoming more common as the platforms mature, and
critical to the success to many mobile apps including: Facebook, LinkedIn, and
Twitter.

With Taplytics, because we use native iOS elements (no HTML wrappers), we are
not modifying your packaged code just adjusting properties on the fly. All of
your code still gets reviewed by Apple.

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mrfrisby
How deep do those properties go? Can I run sophisticated tests which change
data sources, layout, etc. Or is your app focussed for now on the more trivial
things like colour and copy? And on the copy front, do you support multiple
languages within a single experiment?

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jonathannorris
We can change any native UIKit Class property using our sub-classes or
categories. Currently, we are keeping it simple on the web interface to
content and layout changes, but we also support more complex experiments like
controlling view flows. Currently we have limited the interface to a single
language, but multiple language support is built into the SDK/API and we will
be publicly releasing it in the near future!

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cclogg
Looks cool!

I have a somewhat related question for anyone who works on tools/frameworks
(for iOS I guess)... is it a pain to deal with iOS versions, ARC/non-ARC, and
anything else? I was reading the quick start guide here and I noticed it said
iOS 6.0+, so I guess you just have to look at the market share and make a
trade off as to how much you want to support?

I've personally only worked on apps themselves, but I've always wondered if
the people making Flurry, Tapjoy, etc have to go through hell getting their
framework to work for every combo of Xcode and iOS out there lol.

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Blahah
On AnkiMobile, whenever we find we want to use a feature or library that is
much easier or only possible on later iOS versions, we review market share. We
recently started retiring 4.3, and will soon retire 5. We already develop some
new features only for iOS6+ devices, and simply decide at runtime whether they
are to be used.

It's not a huge pain, but it's a prominent feature of developing for devices
that are frequently updated.

We _always_ use the latest XCode and the latest SDK. Often there are language
features that greatly reduce development time, like the NSDictionary/NSArray
literals for example. The only downside is that later XCode versions don't
support low-iOS version simulators, so you have to test on-device only when
supporting older devices. But this all helps justify to users when you stop
supporting older devices.

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michaelmior
At my previous position we built our own A/B testing framework for iOS. There
were a few hiccups, but overall it wasn't too complicated. One thing that was
important for us was to be able to tie together stuff happening on the Web
side of the product with tests running in the app. Curious if this is possible
with Taplytics.

Despite the DIY solution being relatively straightforward, given that they
have a free plan, this seems like a much better way to get started.

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cdrux
Thanks for the comment. We agree that keeping your web presence in sync with
your mobile product is critical. We have built Taplytics out as a big API
engine with the goal of managing multiple platforms, iOS is just where we're
starting.

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trey_swann
This is a great way to make your native mobile interface completely dynamic.
Sure makes mobile A/B testing a whole lot easier. ‘No app store approvals’ is
huge. This is cool. I'm a fan!

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jkresner
This is awesome. I've wanted optimizely for mobile forever.

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Brushfire
Great stuff. $20? You should be charging 10x that.

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cdrux
Hey, thanks so much for checking us out. Our goal is to keep the platform
affordable so developers like us could actually use it and grow with it.

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Brushfire
Obviously you know your customers better than I do, but I bet you could keep
the free plan, 2x-3x your middle plan, and 5x your upper plan and still
service the same number of customers.

The delta from $20 to $50 isn't going to break anyones bank, but I suspect the
change in unit economics mean big things for your business/LTV.

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suyash
The other day I saw a better demo of the same functionality by guys at
Optimizely, it's in beta and coming out soon!

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w4
This is great. I can already see using it for an app I'm working on to
optimize the IAP dialog.

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tylermac1
Very cool!

Definitely will look into this for my future apps.

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ksar
Congrats Cobi and team, this looks awesome!

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jonathanehrlich
Congrats Aaron and team. Great news.

