American dream, or Half a year in the top. In the mind

Instead of the preface

Half a year has passed since the release of the first version of our application "In the Mind". A lot has changed in these six months in life, but we have not dropped out of the Top 10 Education category. Before, it surprised me a little, but eventually I got used to it.

Half a year has also passed since the first note about this unique experience. By the release of the next (but not the last) version of the application, this modest continuation of the story is timed.

Past

How it was: short

For the convenience of the reader, let me remind you what is all about. At the very end of November 2011, an application of the “Mathematical Etudes” project appeared in the App Store called “In the Mind” . The application is a legendary task book, S.A., digitized and decorated into a simple but clean interface. Rachinsky "1001 task for mental accounts."
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Then, six months ago, we didn’t count on anything. Just doing their job - the popularization of mathematics. And in general, what to expect from an application with two buttons: check and the next task? Moreover, "next" then meant "next random." This is how the first version looked like:



It contained about 400 tasks and did not even remember the solved ones, not to mention showing the general list.

So, the application that is doomed to popularity among a couple of dozen people is spat out into the App Store and in a matter of days is gaining unpredictable popularity.

Big numbers

Despite the direct connection with mathematics, as a science, I have a small problem with numbers. The point is not that I think badly, but that I absolutely do not know how to evaluate orders. Say, 1000 is a lot or a little? And 10,000? I remember looking thoughtfully at the statistics when we “pierced” those same 10,000 and tried to figure out how much it is. When the number of users exceeded the population of Andorra, I just stopped thinking about it.

There is one simple thing that seems obvious to us. When you have a huge user base, a significant part of which is active, you cannot forget about it, just as you cannot forget about Andorra. That is, it is possible, of course, but dishonorable. Putting the app in the App Store, you take some responsibility before people who like your product. Personally, it’s hard for me to distinguish between 10,000 and 100,000, but it’s just impossible to miss such reviews:

Updated

At the moment in the App Store is the third public version of the application (I will not take the number of internal builds). Each of them has brought something new, both outside and inside.

Spreading the next update, you should already present the new features and improvements that will be included in the next. With the second version, everything was clear and it was suggested, both in self and in reviews: add a task list and memorize solved ones. The greatest difficulty lay not at all on me, but on the people who filled the base, prepared the certificate and verified the answers.

Nevertheless, we listen to users and carefully read. There were complaints about the lack of support for iPhone 3G:



In parallel, I discovered uncharted mysteries of iOS. A sharp-sighted user can note that all the hyphens are manually placed here (to be exact, not hyphenation, but non-breaking spaces are indicated). So, in different versions of iOS, the rendering algorithm (in particular, hyphenation) in the UILabel (a component of the static text) is different. Little such innocent and little-known zest, which doubles the amount of work on reading. I will not describe the problem of floating-point arithmetic and the new optimizer in Xcode (firstly, everything was resolved with the release of Xcode 4.1, secondly, it seems it was under the NDA), I will only say that I killed a week for it. The layout of the interface stubbornly rode on certain devices. As they say, live and learn.

And updated again

After the first update, we received another batch of thanks and criticism. The time has come to think about the next version of the application. It so happened that several tasks did not fit into the standard response format: either the number is too long, or the answer with the choice of the option (most often profit / loss). This is the first thing to do.

Almost from the first day we began to ask about the monetization of the application. On this occasion, I immediately want to highlight a couple of important things:

• The application was, is and will remain free. We are glad that so many people liked it, and we hope that many more will like it.
• All the basic functionality of the application must remain accessible to any user.
• We do not want and do not intend to stuff the application with annoying ads.

Armed with this knowledge, we still decided to make some kind of strange and refined form of donations:



You can imagine how much effort it takes to re-process and subtract 1001 tasks, and in the pre-revolutionary spelling. Also note that the "gift" can be made only once. In any subsequent attempt on any device with the same Apple ID in the App Store, we will not take money from you, no matter how you want it, but we will immediately open the promised functionality.

Finally, in connection with all of the above, we boldly changed the name of the application to “In the mind” . At the moment I do not know of other examples of applications in the App Store with a nice letter in the name and a lot of solid signs inside!

Now the main screen for some looks like this:

The present

After some discussion, we decided to reveal all the passwords and appearances (meaning, of course, statistics). Analysis and conclusions everyone will do himself, and I am happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Pictures

The total number of downloads and updates since the release of the application:



Position in the rating since the release of the application:



Patronage statistics:



Totals:

Future

“And what is actually next?” - you ask. And then we are waiting for new updates! Because many of our users wanted to see statistics. Some of them asked for synchronization via iCloud. Someone wanted to see the “Reset Results” button hidden inside the phone’s general settings. There are still those who want to have the “skip solved” mode. And just recently I saw how the animation slows down on 3G. I just did not have a device to realize this. I saw, I was horrified, we will urgently fix it!

In the end, all this is done not in pursuit of numbers, but in such words:



I personally promise to add!

Instead of epilogue

A few days ago, my wonderful friend and boss asked me if I would show him this text before publication. "Of course not! Let it be a surprise, ”I replied. On the one hand, I represent a single team, on the other - I write exclusively from myself.

There is a class of people who cannot live without changing the world around them. Some of them have more opportunities, others less. It’s not so important whether you invent a new device, write a useful application or ennoble a yard, spending your precious time on it. The main thing is the result.

Imagine for a second that one of the obsessive ideas of Steve Jobs really was the thought of allowing teams of one, two, three, four developers to bring their creation to tens and hundreds of thousands of users. Teams without giant budgets for, in fact, development, marketing, support. Up to tens and hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. Give an opportunity.

I will not lie and confess that six months ago I did not believe it. In October, Steve Jobs left, but I no longer believed. In November, the first public version of the "In the Umѣ" application was released. Now, looking at the number 230,000, I believe. This is not the American dream, but the dream of one person. I believe and say thanks to him!

Acknowledgments

From myself, I want to thank all those who worked with me, works and will work. This is our perpetual motion machine, a friend and just a wonderful person, Kolya Andreev, designer from the god Roma Koksharov, esthete and main athlete Nikita Panyunin (on whose shoulders lay the bulk of digitization and alignment). Thanks to our friends for whom intermediate versions were tested. Thanks to all users for the kind words, fair criticism and errors found. Ultimately, everything we do is for you.

Interested in

Until you forget! It seems we are looking for a developer under iOS. If you are interested in working in a small and very human team, if you like high-quality code, if you want to do something that goes beyond “another application on the App Store”, send me a personal message or email (my user) on gmail .com. Just do not consider this as work. Maybe we will like each other!