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".
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
