Thoughts on the conclusion of Building Mobile Applications

Kwame Harlin

Thoughts on the conclusion of “Building Mobile Applications”

My expectations enrolling in the “Building Mobile Applications” course were to gain insights into the complete lifecycle of Iphone application development and the process of application approval in the “Itunes app store”.  Upon conclusion of the course, I feel like I have learned those things and more. It has become clear to me that the Itunes app store is not longer the “gold mine” it used to be back in 2008. It takes an enormous amount of strategy and promotion to ensure your application is even visible in the app store and even more effort to ensure your application is profitable. It is important to access the needs of your business before considering the developing an Iphone application. A few questions to ask would be:  Is my business mobile? How would users benefit from a way to access information on the go? Does my audience access information this way? All those are important questions to think about before investing in the development of an application.  Yes, an Iphone application is currently the trendy thing to do it doesn’t make sense for every business. They key is making this determination based upon your business goals. In addition, an extremely valuable aspect of the course was the contributions from the guest speakers. They were able to provide tremendous insight into the mobile marketplace and real word examples of successes and failures.  The 3 speakers whom stood out the most to me where:

• Brad Ellis from Rogue Sheep – He stressed the importance of design ascetic and the value of taking the time to make sure everything down to the icon is “pretty”. In addition, it was very interesting to hear about his experiences working for a small agency.
• Michael Schneider co author of “The Business of Iphone App Development” – He was probably the most informative speaker of the quarter regarding the application marketplace. His own personal story of transitioning from a lawyer to a successful application developer was inspiring. He gave the class valuable advice pertaining to the dos and don’ts in regards to being successful in the Iphone app marketplace.  The points of his that stuck with me the most were idea of the value of pricing your app accordingly and the testing the core functionality of the application in the marketplace before you invest a lot of time in developing additional features of the app. As this will save you a lot of time and money developing features customers may not even want and if the app is successfully customer will tell you what features they would like to see within the app.
• T.A. McCann – He was an excellent speaker. His tremendous amount knowledge of the mobile device marketplace really impressed me and it is remarkable that he has become such a well established entrepreneur having started over 5 companies. I am very much a fan of his latest company Gist. The technology was very impressive; I enjoyed his overview so much that I even downloaded the application.  In addition, I was very engaged with his thoughts regarding the potential of windows phone 7 and his option of which market to go after. It was a privilege for him to speak to the class.  

Ultimately, I feel like the course was a success overall. I would have liked the class to have been longer in order to introduce a programming aspect of Iphone application development as well. Maybe it could have even broken into two sections to accomplish this. This would have given the class a complete picture from the process of development to marketing the final product.

Marketing your app: Price & Pretty

Week 8 readings

A. Price:

How much should I charge for my application? Is the most important question that developers should consider post development of an iPhone application. If you charge to little you will miss out on a lot of revenue; conversely if you charge too much you will miss out on a lot of sales.  Not only will your bottom line be affected but also how people perceive your application is based on price as well. I had a very interesting debate with Micheal Schneider who was a guess speaker during my MCDM smartphone class discussing this exact issue. I belive that a high-priced iPhone application would reflect negatively on reviews and perception because of raised expectations;  generally speaking people who have had negative experiences make their voices unknown more so than people who have had positive experiences. In addition, if I do not feel like I’ve gotten my moneys worth then I would feel more inclined to see some sort of retribution in the form of a negative review. The other side of this argument is people feel more attached to high-priced purchased. For example someone commented that they will never delete their high-priced application even though it is never or rarely used. Or maybe its just people are willing to give it more time than the typical .99 cent application.  Either way, whatever side of the argument you may fall on both sides reiterate the importance of pricing your iPhone application appropriately.

 B. Pretty

Right or wrong, I’ll purchase the prettiest competing application over the most functional any day of the week.  I actually keep my icons in a certain order based on color scheme and the prettiest icons on the home page and poorly designed ones in the back because I conciously think about how my phone appears visually. Apple’s success is the perfect example of the appeal to design. This is why is it extremely important to spend a lot of time crafting your application icon, screenshots, and the website for your application. These 3 things are your primary marketing tools and possibly your only ones depending on your budget. In such a crowded app store marketplace you will need to stand out from the crowd and an application that grabs your attention will help you do that. When Im making a decision on an application I usually breeze past the description and go straight for the screenshots to get an idea of the look and feel of the application. If the application is poorly designed no matter how useful I will not buy it and look for another that is designed better. Adding an caveat to the design aspect, the application still has to be useful not just pretty but pretty will certainly give you the competitive edge over competitors. An perfect example is Shaazm versus Soundhound; Soundhound offers more features and utility of identifying music than Shaazam yet Shaazam is the most reconginzed application of the two.

The Good & The Bad of Iphone Apps

The Good

Shazam (Itunes)

Visit the Shazam on the web

Shazam is a cool app the will identify song titles for you. I think everyone has been in  club, bar, or coffeeshop and heard a new song but didn’t know who the artist was. With Shazam your problem is solve 85% of the time (not every song created is in its database), just load up the app and get your phone near to the music. 15 seconds or so later you’ll know the song title, artist and even have the ability to purchase the song on Itunes. One of my favorite apps by far.

OneBusAway

Visit OneBusAway on the web

OneBusAway is probably my most used app of them all (not including stock apps such email, text, etc). I ride the bus to work everyday and OneBusAway is generally pretty accurate in regards to minimizing my wait time for the bus in the morning. I don’t think anyone likes waiting for the bus, and your have to be a rocket scientist to figure out some of those bus schedules. OneBusAway is super easy and eliminates extended waits in all the poor weather conditions.

QuickTip

Visit QuickTip on the web

Quicktip is another simple but cool app I use each time I go out. I’m not a math major so the most difficult process of a dinner out or happy hour is figuring out the tip. 18% of 56.73 is how much?? With quicktip figuring it out is super easy. It will calculate the amount based on the standard 15% tip with the option to round up or round down based on what the change of the total is. It has a very simple and clean interface and is easy to use.

The Bad

I AM T-Pain

Visit I AM T-Pain on the web

Capitalizing off the Auto-Craze of last year T-pain came out with an iphone app that mimics his famous auto sound; you know have the ability to karaoke to classic T-Pain songs. In theory this sound like a fun idea for Karaoke night with friends but where the app falls short is the numeros add ons that cost extra money. Standard the app comes with 2 songs to sing along to any additional songs will cost you 99 cents each. Also the iphone ”speaker” is a horrible way to listen to music and even more so karaoke ; connecting your iphone to a speaker system will become a bit cumbersome. Unfortunately, its the only way to enjoy the experience with friends.  Its a novelty app for sure that and will be popular or un popular based on T-Pains popularity at the moment.

The Official Kim Kardashian Application

Visit The Official Kim Kardashian Application’s website

I think we all knew this was coming but secretly hoping it didn’t. Kim Kardashian has an iphone app. This app is bad because it doesnt do anything, literally. You get a virtual mockup of Kim herself, and feeds from her twitter and blog for 1.99, but that is it. This application is the definition of limited utility.

Beer

Visit the Beer website

This app is simply awful. It is a poorly photoshopped beer can (placed in a variety of locations) that will spill out golden bubbles (supposedly flowing beer). If you tilt the can at specific angles the beer will flow faster. That is all the app does – for 99 cents.

MCDM 581: Building Mobile Applications

Back to school, like Rodney Dangerfield …

Course Description:

What makes a successful smart phone application? How do you know if your  organization needs a smart phone application? What all is involved in developing a smart phone application? In this course, we will explore applications for modern smart phone operating systems: audience identification, competition, data source, application flow (wireframe only).

What I hope to accomplish with this course.

To preface: I’m extremely passionate about exploring technology and devices I use in my personal life (not just for work).  When the iPhone was first announced it almost didn’t appear to be real, and many others must have felt the same way dubbing it the “Jesus Phone” due to its miracilous capabilities. It really changed the way I use my cell phone previously owning a nokia (the first long black one which names escapes me). Now I cannot see myself without a smartphone as I’m 100% reliant on checking my email instantly, and  the applications I use daily have become an staple in my daily routine. I actually feel a bit panicked when I leave my phone behind and I know I’m not alone.

Smartphones have become a part of people lives and using their capibilies efficently will provide a service to the community and potentially alot profits for the creator. Through this course, I would like to learn the end to end process of mobile application development (minus learning the programming of objective c and cocoa touch). Starting from the conception phase,  the application and submission process, the importance of the design esthetic and  UI, to the successful marketing and sustained success of it.  Ultimately, at the end of this course I would like to have the skills necessary to either develop my own iphone application or manage a mobile project for a large company.