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.

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 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.

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.

• 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.

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.

]]> http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/the-good-the-bad-of-iphone-apps/feed/ 0 kwameharlin Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.24.37 AM Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.24.45 AM Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.22.55 AM Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.23.09 AM Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.25.28 AM Screen shot 2010-07-08 at 10.25.47 AM ScreenHunter_03 Jul. 09 14.37 ScreenHunter_04 Jul. 09 14.37 ScreenHunter_01 Jul. 09 11.01 ScreenHunter_02 Jul. 09 14.35 ScreenHunter_06 Jul. 09 14.49 ScreenHunter_05 Jul. 09 14.49 http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/trendy-mobile-blogs-the-cool-kids-are-reading-them/ http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/trendy-mobile-blogs-the-cool-kids-are-reading-them/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:04:49 +0000 kwameharlin http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/?p=35 ]]> The Mobile Weblog: A blog exclusively dedicated to mobile devices and technology.

Engadget Mobile: A portion of the Engadget blog exclusively dedicated to mobile technology.

Mashable Mobile: Mashable is well known for the posts on social media but also offer high quality mobile content.

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.

]]> http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/mobile-access-to-the-global-good/feed/ 0 kwameharlin mzl_mnkuyuvz_320x480-75 mzl_lonzbpgh_320x480-75 mzl_bfecdvbd_320x480-75 Screen shot 2010-07-10 at 1.26.12 PM Screen shot 2010-07-10 at 1.26.18 PM Screen shot 2010-07-10 at 1.18.50 PM Screen shot 2010-07-10 at 1.18.40 PM http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/hello-world/ http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/hello-world/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:44:47 +0000 kwameharlin http://justbeshiny.wordpress.com/?p=1 ]]> 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.