Keep It Simple, Functionality over Flair

Here are a few key takeaways from Michael Schneider and the book he co-authored “The Business of Iphone app development”. *Although I believe these methods could apply to an application or application store on any platform.

The one key point that kept resonating with me throughout Michaels presentations (I was fortunate enought to hear Micheal speak during my smartphone course in the Uw mcdm program) was “keep it simple”. During the early days of the Apple “App Store” you could sell ice to an eskimo because they platform was so new and there werent many apps in the marketplace at the time. The high visibility and limited selection allowed a greater amount of sales since consumers were buying up anything just to try out the platform. Unfortunately for developers,  those days are long gone and there has to be some strategy involved to how much time and money you put into an application initially or else you may be setting yourself up for failure. As a result, it will be very important to remember to “keep it simple” when developing and here are 4 benefits of “keeping it simple” that will allow you to save time, money, and test the marketplace before spending your lifesaving and fully investing yourself in an application potentially no one would be interested in .

1. Get your application out there as quickly as possible: This is important strategy to test the waters and see how desired your application  is. For example, if you put out and application and no one downloads it then you saved a lot of time and money into developing a bad idea. Just develop the core functionality and leave all the bells and whistles out of it (initially). This will allow users to see the utility of the application and then tell you the additional features they would like to see.
2. Save money on development: When developing only the core functionality, it will save you a alot of time and money on development costs. It is a extreme risk to put all your eggs in one baskets but creating the most extrevagating features, and designs for an application that no one will potentially purchase. If your application proves to be popular you have the ability to add additional features via an update or in app purchase.
3. Un-utilized features: Let’s assume you have a successful selling application, it will not provide any benefits for you to pack your application full of features that will overwhelm your customer or they may not even use. In addition, doing this will limit your ability to up sell or modify your cost structure in the future. There are many was to monazite new and add-on features for your application. If you pack in everything at once (like mentioned above) you will be banking heavily on the success of of one application because of the time and money invested in it.
4. Able to build more applications: Lastly, keeping each application “simple” will allow you to build more applications and get them to market faster. An example Michael spoke about was that his company develops many application dedicated to relaxing techniques. The simple nature of his apps allows him time to build more applications all with similar design and logo which brings more visibility to his brand.  This technique will enable you to have more opportunities to be in Apple’s prestigious top 100 applications list. If one your your applications become successfully the familiarity of your brand will likely entice consumers to purchase more from you.

BestInTown application breakdown

BestInTown Application

Functionality & Features: BestInTown is a application designed to aggregate food reviews from the top restaurant reviews sites such as yelp, Zagat, Urbanspoon, Citysearch etc along with a critiques from the highly trained expert staff at BestInTown to award each specific food item with a true ranking of BestInTown. Users will be able to search their favorite food items by ingredients and choose through a list of those items to select a dish they desire. For example, a user may enter in chicken, pesto, garlic and the search results will list a number of items such as pesto pasta, pesto chicken sandwich etc. From this point the user can proceed to finding the best dish in town.  If you don’t know what you want, the user can ask the app to “surprise me” and will generate a suggestion based on your previous searches or most searched items in the database.

Problem being solved: Each review site will have a different rating which correlates with that reviewer’s opinion and criteria for a good product.  Unless, the consumer has developed trust for one specific review site then it will be difficult to tell which product is truly BestInTown.  Our intention is to combine and process all this data to formulate 1 ranking. In addition if you choose to drill down into the ranking you will be able to see which sites the data was pulled from.

Audience:  Our audience is anyone who loves food and eats out frequently.

Competing Products: Yelp, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon, Foodie (Chicago market only), Irestaurant.  The primary competitors will be Urban Spoon & CitySearch as they also aggregate data from multiple sources such as blogs, well-known critics reviews, and generate a list of the best restaurants in town. UrbanSpoon has a big name and large user base currently do it will be extremely difficult to overtake the but BestInTown plans to differentiate by not simply suggesting the best restaurant in town but by personalizing it a step further to actually suggest the “best food item in town” based on what your desires are.  In addition, there will also be groupon like functionality promoting a specific item of the data such as BestInTown “Pizza” is at SeriousPie – 25-dollar certificate for only 10 dollars to dine there and try it out to lure new users to the BestInTown platform.

Mobile Application Ideas

Lotto – Lotto is a application where you can purchase and redeem state and national lottery tickets such as the washington state lottery and the national big game lotto.

• Purpose: A mobile application would boost the sale of lottery tickets for the state and make it easier and more convenient for people desiring to buy lotto tickets.
• Competing Apps: There are a number of competing applications that will display lottery results such as lottery and Big game (each .99) but none where you can actually purchase the tickets themselves.
• Functionality: The functionality of the application would require you to login and create a profile using your driver license to verify age, address and bank account information. Upon purchasing the ticket a copy would be sent to the lottery ticket database timestamped and a copy emailed with an official barcode to you for print. The lotto application would also have the ability for you to scan you barcode to see if you ticket generated any winnings.
• Organization Sponsor: The state government.

Rewards – A application that gives access to a mobile database of rewards for specific tasks such a lost animals, phones, wallets, and wanted people.

• Purpose: A mobile application would assist in the awareness of lost and wanted items and increase the chance of the item being recovered.
• Competing Apps: There are a number of competing applications such as FBI’s most wanted and Americas most wanted for criminals and Lost pet for lost animals but no application that combines all lost items in one application and also is a rewards database.
• Functionality: The functionality of the application is you would be able to sort and scroll through your choice of lost item such as animals, personal items, or criminals. Once there desired category is selected you can narrow it down to geographic location and then sort by reward if your looking for a task to complete for some cash. In addition, if you have found a lost pet or item – snap a photo of it and write some detailed information about where you found it then upload to see if it potentially matches anything in the database.
• Organization Sponsor: The state police department.

BestInTown:

• Purpose: A mobile application that will search all review sites such as Zagat, Yelp, Urban Spoon, Blogs etc for the BestInTown for your favorite foods.
• Competing Apps: There are a number of competing applications such as Zagat, Yelp, UrbanSpoon that give you reviews but none that will aggregate them and truly give you an idea of what the “BestInTown” is.
• Functionality: The functionality of the application is you will be able to list either an item specifically such as pizza or list a set of ingredients and get an idea of foods that are made with your favorite set of ingredients. Search the database for the BestInTown and see a list of top candidates , what reviews were used, and price range.
• Organization Sponsor: Could be a spinoff from Zagat, Urban Spoon or any review organization.

Mobile Access to the Global Good

Want to make a difference on the Go? Here are some cool applications that can you can use to improve your own life along with others.

1. Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA).

Itunes Link

This application is developed by Qorivs Communications; its purpose is assist low income or uninsured Americans get information about programs that provide prescriptions for free or no cost.  Patients are able search over 10,000 free health clinics across the US for care. Using the iphone’s GPS technology, the application can pinpoint your location and map out the nearest clinic using Google maps.

2. 2Fat

Itunes Link

2Fat is an simple application that will help you calculate your body mass index.

3. LoseIt!

Itunes Link

LoseIT! is an application to aid in weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. Your able to establish goals and set a calorie budget to achieve your desired amount of weight loss.