Evaluate the idea of your mobile application
Disclaimer:
This article is a free artistic retelling-translation of the first chapter of the book " App Savvy
Turning ideas into ipad and iphone apps
It may interest people who are just coming to the world of mobile development, and think about where to start. If you are an experienced businessman who already has a stable income from his own mobile applications - most likely, it will seem useless and obvious to you.
To fully appreciate the viability of your application’s ideas, you must first understand the current situation with applications on the App Store, estimate the cost to launch your application, and look realistically at the possibility of your application getting into the App Store catalog. By “you” and “your idea,” I mean not only you personally, but all people — relatives, friends, and colleagues — with whom you work on your idea. Do you evaluate the idea alone, or with someone, I want to offer you a scheme, following which you can get a more structured assessment of your application. At the end of the article there will be links to useful resources and tools that will help you evaluate your idea.
The App Store is the place to start evaluating your idea. It does not matter if you use the App Store through iTunes or as an application for iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch - in any case, you should understand that this is not the place for you to search for and download applications. For you, the App Store is a battlefield, this is an opportunity to conduct reconnaissance behind enemy lines and understand what they are doing right (and what is not).
Let the App Store research become your main job. Apple usually significantly updates the “New and Interesting” section towards the end of the week. This section contains a very small part of the applications that are carefully selected by Apple employees and are advertised in all app stores throughout the week. A close look at this section is a great way to understand which applications Apple seems to be interesting and unique. Constantly follow this section and you will always stay abreast of current trends.
Take a look at the applications that fall into this section, and you will find a pattern - they are all simple, creative, have a high-quality design and are well made. This section does not necessarily get unique applications, but there are applications that somehow turn out to be better than all similar offers.
All applications in the catalog are divided into categories, and each developer chooses a category and subcategory for his application. Choosing a category for an application is an important strategic decision. The categories of books, games and entertainment already contain many applications, and the competition in these categories is very strong. If your application can fall into both the “Entertainment” category and the “Lifestyle” category, placing it in a less saturated section will give you more chances to get into one of the Top Applications list. You can use 148 Apps to view statistics by category and get the most complete picture of the categories.
In addition to viewing applications by category, use the App Store search function to find applications that are similar to your idea. Try entering different keywords - that describe your idea, functions of your application, or typical uses for it. Also note that when searching by keywords, the App Store sorts applications by popularity — this will allow you to identify your key competitors.
You can use special resources, such as appsaurus.net , www.appolicious.com and appadvice.com , to keep track of current trends and keep abreast of the hottest new mobile app stores.
When you have found all your competitors - carefully read the descriptions of their applications and feedback about them. Pay attention to how your successful competitors write descriptions of their products, which key functions highlight and what features they focus on when creating screen shots.
From the reviews, you can learn more about how users use this application, what features they like, and what they find redundant. It will help you when you think through the functionality of your own application.
After you study all search results and browse all applications of competitors, it may seem to you that your research is complete. Remember that this is not so - after all, hundreds and thousands of applications are added to the App Store daily. Therefore, you need to check the App Store regularly. Use the release date sorting to keep track of new interesting offers that will appear in your categories.
But in any case, do not become a fanatical consumer of the App Store. Remember that you only study it. For example, you don’t have to buy at all all paid applications of your subject - it’s enough to restrict yourself to the most popular ones. This will allow you to assess the whole situation without spending too much money.
Also remember that by studying the App Store, you will not be able to figure out how to make an excellent application. The study will help you to experience the market, to understand what is currently in demand, to find out in which niches there is already strong competition, and which are not yet occupied. At the same time, it is not necessary to abandon the idea if it has many competitors - after all, you may be able to make an application that is better than any other - and the history of feedback about your competitors you already have will help you with this. Also, you should not rush headlong into areas in which there are very few applications or there are none at all - most likely, there is no one there, not because this ingenious idea first occurred to you, but because no one needs these applications. If you still decide to come to one of these extremes, in any case it will not be bad for you - you can get an invaluable experience of participating in a strong competitive struggle, or you can try yourself as a pioneer in the industry.
After studying the App Store, you must proceed to the next step - evaluation of your application. As already mentioned, creating an application takes time, effort and money, so evaluation is one of the key steps in working out your idea.
Before proceeding to the assessment process, I want to highlight 2 points that are not the purpose of our assessment:
Make sure that you confidently understand why you are starting to create a mobile application. Do you pursue personal goals or corporate? Your goal is to maximize the number of downloads or profits? Do you want to create something new or add an existing product? Decide on your goals, because they will affect the process of evaluating your application and choosing a monetization model for it.
Many websites lost profits due to the lack of convenient and simple payment methods - and this was a big problem for the Internet. But in the App Store this problem is solved - after all, payment is made through your iTunes account. Apple claims that they already have more than 150 million plastic cards in their database.
Initially, Apple assumed that applications could be paid and free. There is also the possibility to make purchases inside the application (In App Purchase), which allows your users to buy more directly from the application. At first, this feature was available only for paid applications, but subsequently Apple removed this restriction, and now free applications also have the ability to sell something.
Having such a small selection of options, it may seem to you that it is very easy to choose a monetization model for the application, but this is not so. The opening of the opportunity to make purchases within the application for free applications, as well as access to the iPad market, radically changed the view of developers on the process of monetization and distribution of applications. Entrepreneurs also saw the opportunity to earn money by selling ads on iPhones - and Apple joined this game by purchasing the Quattro Wireless advertising platform in January 2010. The result of this merger was the iAd platform, which became part of iOS 4.
Consider the main types of applications monetization models:
Free application
Perhaps the offer to distribute your application for free will surprise you - because why give away for free what you have spent so much effort on? You can get the answer to this question when you think about your goals.
The App Store may just be another location for your organization. In such a situation it is not so important to make money from the application itself. For example, the Gap app is free because their main task is to sell clothes through the app. Facebook - one of the most popular applications in the "Communication" category - is free because it is a client for a free website. The applications of the Salvation Army are free, because their goal is to convey information to as many people as possible.
.
Free application with ads
I want to immediately warn you that the decision to monetize your application, making it free with advertising, may be wrong. If you do not have a lot of different applications, and you do not have a very popular application to sell advertising in it - most likely, you can earn more if you assign a normal price for your application.
Most ad placement options in an application, including iAd, take up to 40% of revenue as a commission. If you decide to add advertising to your application - make sure that it is not too intrusive. Make sure that the subject of the displayed advertisements corresponds to the theme of your application - this will help you avoid user dissatisfaction. The Pandora music app is a good example of how to intelligently add ads to your app.
Paid application
Paid applications are the second monetization method proposed by Apple. For each sale of your application, Apple takes a commission of 30%. As will be discussed in chapter seven, Apple uses a multi-level pricing model, in which prices range from $ 0.99 to $ 999. Proper pricing for your application is both an art and a science. This is one of those factors that can quickly increase the number of downloads, thus increasing your earnings. A little further in this article I will tell about pricing in more detail, and the issue of promotional pricing strategies will be discussed in the eighth chapter.
Lite and Pro
It is also a common practice to let the user try your app before purchasing. One of the main criticisms of the App Store is the inability to download a demo application before purchasing. Buyers can not evaluate the application before buying, and are forced to pay for what they do not need.
Although now this method of monetization is losing popularity due to the possibility of making purchases from free applications, before many developers kept two versions of their application in the App Store - paid and free. The free versions usually didn’t have some of the features, or were somewhat limited (for example, you could only go through the first level in the game).
In-app purchases
Shopping inside the app is the latest official way to monetize Apple apps. Just as with paid apps, Apple will take up 30% of each sale. After Apple allowed to make sales within free applications, the popularity of the model “Lite and Pro” very quickly fell. Many developers began to sell advanced application features or additional levels in games through the In App Purchases tool. Using this feature, compared to Lite and Pro, gives developers much more opportunities to control the behavior of their users.
New versions
The person who bought your application, gets it in the property forever. You can continue to improve your application and release updates for it - all your customers will receive these updates for free.
This moment becomes another stumbling block for developers - because taking additional money from a user for a new, significantly improved version of the application is a normal practice. If you use the App Store, and do not use sales within the application, then all the money you receive during the use of your application is its initial cost. If we are talking about an app for $ 0.99, then you will get $ 0.70 and not a cent more.
Many developers believe that such a system is not very suitable for them. Then, after significant improvements in the application after some period of time, they release a completely new version of the application, under a new name.
There are two good examples of this approach - a popular Twitter client called Tweetie (which is now owned by Twitter and called Twitter for iPhone) and the Enigmo puzzle game. In the case of Tweetie, developer Loren Britcher spent so much time developing the next version of his application that he decided to completely remove the first version from the App Store after launching Tweetie 2. Enigmo decided not to oppose the two versions to each other, and suggested to treat Enigmo 2 as continuation of the series. At the moment, both Enigmo and Enigmo 2 are available on the App Store.
It should be emphasized once again that the act with the Tweetie was very brave. Despite the removal of the first version from the App Store, you still can not reuse its name. Also, you will lose all ratings and user reviews. Be very careful when making this decision. Suppose you can make more money, but this step you can scare away your existing users and lose their trust.
Also, the practice of releasing "new" versions of applications became even more common after the release of the iPad - developers quickly realized that adapting an application for iPhone to iPad can often be a non-trivial task, and supporting universal applications, when the same application can run on iPhone and on the iPad is quite a laborious process. Therefore, the developers began to add to the name of their application consoles "HD" or "for iPad" and release additional paid versions for the iPad. HD is usually used for games, and “for iPad” is used for applications. An example of such an adaptation is the version of the popular game Flight Control, the iPad version of which was released under the name Flight Control HD
Let's summarize in the form of a table:
At this stage, it is important for you to understand what price you will charge for your application. In the App Store research process, you’ve already seen competitor prices, which gives you some insight into the market. For example, if your competitors sell their applications for $ 3.99, it would be a bad idea to set your price at $ 14.99. But you can easily request $ 6.99 for it if your application really is that much better.
When pricing, consider also the current App Store trends - because the price will have a direct impact on the number of downloads. Small price changes, such as switching between $ 1.99 and $ 0.99, can increase the number of downloads at times. I want to say that there are basic prices that most people charge for their apps on the App Store. A typical iPhone app costs $ 1.99. IPad apps usually offer more features, which is why they are more expensive - the average price for such an app is $ 4.99, which is closer to the usual prices for software for personal computers.
Beware of pricing at $ 0.99 dollars - too low a price can lead to impulse purchases when a person buys your application without really knowing what it will use for it. This can lead to a decrease in the rating of your application and the appearance of negative reviews, because people will not receive what they expected.
You should think about different pricing options, especially if you intend to invest in the App Store for a long time. Suppose you assign a price of $ 2.99 to your application. Suppose, on average, your application will download 15 people per day - then for the year the total income of your application will be about $ 16,000 (15 * 365 * 2.99), after deducting the commission, you will have $ 11,000 left. Suppose you increase the price by a third — to $ 3.99 — and your downloads drop by the same third. It seems that in this situation, you can potentially earn $ 12,500 (about $ 18,000 of total income).
Unfortunately, this is not the case. In 2009, Distimo conducted a very revealing experiment. The game, which was in the top 5 in the rating of popular games, they increased the price from $ 0.99 to $ 1.99. Very quickly after this, the game began to lose its rating, and literally in a few days flew out of the top 25, which significantly reduced its visibility. Due to the fact that a smaller number of people began to see the game in the App Store, its number of downloads fell very much, at the same time as the income of the author decreased. You should also try experimenting with the price to figure out which one will give you maximum downloads. It will not necessarily be the lowest price in your category - for example, in the top 15 games you may notice offers for both 99 and 169 rubles.
If you are developing only one application, you can hardly afford to experiment with the price - after all, this will directly affect your income. But when you have already gathered a portfolio of applications - you will be able to conduct similar experiments and achieve in each case more success than any of your competitors.
When you have decided on the idea of the application, the method of monetization, the type of application and the price - you can proceed to assess the market opportunities of your application. One way to do this is to estimate the volume of the target market for your application. Speaking of the target market , unlike the target audience, I’m not talking about the number of people who may potentially be interested in your application, but about the number of people who can potentially buy it. Estimating the target market is an approximate way to estimate the maximum revenue from your application, which you can get in an ideal situation.
Jonathan Wegener wrote very well on how to evaluate the market of your application in his article The Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing . Jonathan is the author of Exit Strategy NYC, which allows subway passengers to plan their way to get through the subway as soon as possible. For example, you specify the station at which you want to exit - and the application tells you which door of which car is best to stand in order to be directly opposite the exit.
The algorithm for calculating the target market is approximately the same (all numbers are relevant for April 2010):
If you plan to launch an app with in-app purchases, use the total cost of all the products that can be purchased in it to estimate. Do you plan to release a universal version for the iPhone and iPad, or two different applications - in any case, do not forget to take this into account when calculating.
Do not focus only on sales - similar calculations can show you how many users of the free application you can count on.
I would like to remind once again that the assessment of the target market is not an assessment of the amount you should count on. All this amount you can earn only in the best scenario. This assessment is an opportunity for you to assess the potential of the application in the event that every person your application might be interested in will buy it.
There are several open sources from which you can draw useful statistics.
The tool, amazing in its power, has been created by Google: www.google.com/think/tools/databoard.html A detailed description of this tool will pull more than one article, so for now I can only recommend you to try it yourself - there is a fairly clear and simple interface.
A lot of statistics in his blog puts Flurry: blog.flurry.com . Also, a lot of useful information can be obtained on the Distimo website: www.distimo.com/publications
An interesting tool for business planning and pricing assistance is offered by App Cooker. You can try:
www.appcooker.com/overview/estimate-the-cost-effectiveness-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps
You may have a super idea for iPhone and iPad apps with a huge target market, but if you can't implement your idea, it’s worthless. True, it is worth noting that if you yourself can not do something - most likely you will be able to find someone who can do it for you.
In addition, look carefully again - perhaps because of inexperience, or perhaps from an excess of courage, you want to make a product identical to what is already on the market. Should not be doing that.
An ideal situation for you would be if you simultaneously have experience in the field in which you launch the product, and experience in the production of IT products. If you have neither the one nor the other experience, it will be very hard for you.
It will be great if your ideas are born from your everyday tasks and complexities - in this situation you will understand how people will use your application and what they will think about in the process of using. Of course, you can take advantage of the opportunity to receive feedback from potential users throughout the development period - from the very beginning of work on the application, rapid prototypes will help you with this. But if you yourself are a user of your own application, this will help you to keep a more complete picture in your head. A good knowledge of your market or the industry for which you are developing the application will also help you, including through well-established relationships with customers and the press.
— . — , .
, , , — , , .
, … , . , — . , — , , , - .
, , 10 000$. , — , .
— , . App Store. — . — , , .
— , , . , App Store 700$ — , . , App Store , .
148apps App Store Metrics
appsaurus.net
www.appolicious.com
appadvice.com
The Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing
www.google.com/think/tools/databoard.html
blog.flurry.com
www.distimo.com/publications
www.appcooker.com/overview/estimate-the-cost-effectiveness-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps
This article is a free artistic retelling-translation of the first chapter of the book " App Savvy
Turning ideas into ipad and iphone apps
It may interest people who are just coming to the world of mobile development, and think about where to start. If you are an experienced businessman who already has a stable income from his own mobile applications - most likely, it will seem useless and obvious to you.
Table of contents
Introduction
Strategy
Chapter 1: Evaluate the idea of your mobile application
Chapter 2: What should be in your application?
Chapter 3: From idea to concept
Development
Chapter 4: Finding a Team: You Need Help
Chapter 5: Getting a working application
Chapter 6: Improving the app before adding it to the App Store
')
Launch
Chapter 7: Getting Ready to Download an App on the App Store
Chapter 8: Building Our Marketing Strategy
Chapter 9: Evaluate Success and Consider Future Developments
Strategy
Chapter 1: Evaluate the idea of your mobile application
Chapter 2: What should be in your application?
Chapter 3: From idea to concept
Development
Chapter 4: Finding a Team: You Need Help
Chapter 5: Getting a working application
Chapter 6: Improving the app before adding it to the App Store
')
Launch
Chapter 7: Getting Ready to Download an App on the App Store
Chapter 8: Building Our Marketing Strategy
Chapter 9: Evaluate Success and Consider Future Developments
To fully appreciate the viability of your application’s ideas, you must first understand the current situation with applications on the App Store, estimate the cost to launch your application, and look realistically at the possibility of your application getting into the App Store catalog. By “you” and “your idea,” I mean not only you personally, but all people — relatives, friends, and colleagues — with whom you work on your idea. Do you evaluate the idea alone, or with someone, I want to offer you a scheme, following which you can get a more structured assessment of your application. At the end of the article there will be links to useful resources and tools that will help you evaluate your idea.
1. Explore the App Store
The App Store is the place to start evaluating your idea. It does not matter if you use the App Store through iTunes or as an application for iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch - in any case, you should understand that this is not the place for you to search for and download applications. For you, the App Store is a battlefield, this is an opportunity to conduct reconnaissance behind enemy lines and understand what they are doing right (and what is not).
Let the App Store research become your main job. Apple usually significantly updates the “New and Interesting” section towards the end of the week. This section contains a very small part of the applications that are carefully selected by Apple employees and are advertised in all app stores throughout the week. A close look at this section is a great way to understand which applications Apple seems to be interesting and unique. Constantly follow this section and you will always stay abreast of current trends.
Take a look at the applications that fall into this section, and you will find a pattern - they are all simple, creative, have a high-quality design and are well made. This section does not necessarily get unique applications, but there are applications that somehow turn out to be better than all similar offers.
Categories and Search
All applications in the catalog are divided into categories, and each developer chooses a category and subcategory for his application. Choosing a category for an application is an important strategic decision. The categories of books, games and entertainment already contain many applications, and the competition in these categories is very strong. If your application can fall into both the “Entertainment” category and the “Lifestyle” category, placing it in a less saturated section will give you more chances to get into one of the Top Applications list. You can use 148 Apps to view statistics by category and get the most complete picture of the categories.
In addition to viewing applications by category, use the App Store search function to find applications that are similar to your idea. Try entering different keywords - that describe your idea, functions of your application, or typical uses for it. Also note that when searching by keywords, the App Store sorts applications by popularity — this will allow you to identify your key competitors.
You can use special resources, such as appsaurus.net , www.appolicious.com and appadvice.com , to keep track of current trends and keep abreast of the hottest new mobile app stores.
App Store App Page and User Reviews
When you have found all your competitors - carefully read the descriptions of their applications and feedback about them. Pay attention to how your successful competitors write descriptions of their products, which key functions highlight and what features they focus on when creating screen shots.
From the reviews, you can learn more about how users use this application, what features they like, and what they find redundant. It will help you when you think through the functionality of your own application.
Regular research
After you study all search results and browse all applications of competitors, it may seem to you that your research is complete. Remember that this is not so - after all, hundreds and thousands of applications are added to the App Store daily. Therefore, you need to check the App Store regularly. Use the release date sorting to keep track of new interesting offers that will appear in your categories.
But in any case, do not become a fanatical consumer of the App Store. Remember that you only study it. For example, you don’t have to buy at all all paid applications of your subject - it’s enough to restrict yourself to the most popular ones. This will allow you to assess the whole situation without spending too much money.
Also remember that by studying the App Store, you will not be able to figure out how to make an excellent application. The study will help you to experience the market, to understand what is currently in demand, to find out in which niches there is already strong competition, and which are not yet occupied. At the same time, it is not necessary to abandon the idea if it has many competitors - after all, you may be able to make an application that is better than any other - and the history of feedback about your competitors you already have will help you with this. Also, you should not rush headlong into areas in which there are very few applications or there are none at all - most likely, there is no one there, not because this ingenious idea first occurred to you, but because no one needs these applications. If you still decide to come to one of these extremes, in any case it will not be bad for you - you can get an invaluable experience of participating in a strong competitive struggle, or you can try yourself as a pioneer in the industry.
2. Evaluate the profitability of your application
After studying the App Store, you must proceed to the next step - evaluation of your application. As already mentioned, creating an application takes time, effort and money, so evaluation is one of the key steps in working out your idea.
Before proceeding to the assessment process, I want to highlight 2 points that are not the purpose of our assessment:
- Approximate estimate of the number of downloads. We will not do this because it is impossible to estimate the number of downloads. Too many different external factors can affect the load on your application.
- What features of the application will guarantee your downloads? We also will not consider this question in the appraisal evaluation process, because at the moment we are at the stage of evaluating an idea. The process of thinking through the functionality of the application will be described in detail in the third chapter of this book.
Make sure that you confidently understand why you are starting to create a mobile application. Do you pursue personal goals or corporate? Your goal is to maximize the number of downloads or profits? Do you want to create something new or add an existing product? Decide on your goals, because they will affect the process of evaluating your application and choosing a monetization model for it.
Choosing a monetization model
Many websites lost profits due to the lack of convenient and simple payment methods - and this was a big problem for the Internet. But in the App Store this problem is solved - after all, payment is made through your iTunes account. Apple claims that they already have more than 150 million plastic cards in their database.
Initially, Apple assumed that applications could be paid and free. There is also the possibility to make purchases inside the application (In App Purchase), which allows your users to buy more directly from the application. At first, this feature was available only for paid applications, but subsequently Apple removed this restriction, and now free applications also have the ability to sell something.
Having such a small selection of options, it may seem to you that it is very easy to choose a monetization model for the application, but this is not so. The opening of the opportunity to make purchases within the application for free applications, as well as access to the iPad market, radically changed the view of developers on the process of monetization and distribution of applications. Entrepreneurs also saw the opportunity to earn money by selling ads on iPhones - and Apple joined this game by purchasing the Quattro Wireless advertising platform in January 2010. The result of this merger was the iAd platform, which became part of iOS 4.
Consider the main types of applications monetization models:
Free application
Perhaps the offer to distribute your application for free will surprise you - because why give away for free what you have spent so much effort on? You can get the answer to this question when you think about your goals.
The App Store may just be another location for your organization. In such a situation it is not so important to make money from the application itself. For example, the Gap app is free because their main task is to sell clothes through the app. Facebook - one of the most popular applications in the "Communication" category - is free because it is a client for a free website. The applications of the Salvation Army are free, because their goal is to convey information to as many people as possible.
.
Free application with ads
I want to immediately warn you that the decision to monetize your application, making it free with advertising, may be wrong. If you do not have a lot of different applications, and you do not have a very popular application to sell advertising in it - most likely, you can earn more if you assign a normal price for your application.
Most ad placement options in an application, including iAd, take up to 40% of revenue as a commission. If you decide to add advertising to your application - make sure that it is not too intrusive. Make sure that the subject of the displayed advertisements corresponds to the theme of your application - this will help you avoid user dissatisfaction. The Pandora music app is a good example of how to intelligently add ads to your app.
Paid application
Paid applications are the second monetization method proposed by Apple. For each sale of your application, Apple takes a commission of 30%. As will be discussed in chapter seven, Apple uses a multi-level pricing model, in which prices range from $ 0.99 to $ 999. Proper pricing for your application is both an art and a science. This is one of those factors that can quickly increase the number of downloads, thus increasing your earnings. A little further in this article I will tell about pricing in more detail, and the issue of promotional pricing strategies will be discussed in the eighth chapter.
Lite and Pro
It is also a common practice to let the user try your app before purchasing. One of the main criticisms of the App Store is the inability to download a demo application before purchasing. Buyers can not evaluate the application before buying, and are forced to pay for what they do not need.
Although now this method of monetization is losing popularity due to the possibility of making purchases from free applications, before many developers kept two versions of their application in the App Store - paid and free. The free versions usually didn’t have some of the features, or were somewhat limited (for example, you could only go through the first level in the game).
In-app purchases
Shopping inside the app is the latest official way to monetize Apple apps. Just as with paid apps, Apple will take up 30% of each sale. After Apple allowed to make sales within free applications, the popularity of the model “Lite and Pro” very quickly fell. Many developers began to sell advanced application features or additional levels in games through the In App Purchases tool. Using this feature, compared to Lite and Pro, gives developers much more opportunities to control the behavior of their users.
New versions
The person who bought your application, gets it in the property forever. You can continue to improve your application and release updates for it - all your customers will receive these updates for free.
This moment becomes another stumbling block for developers - because taking additional money from a user for a new, significantly improved version of the application is a normal practice. If you use the App Store, and do not use sales within the application, then all the money you receive during the use of your application is its initial cost. If we are talking about an app for $ 0.99, then you will get $ 0.70 and not a cent more.
Many developers believe that such a system is not very suitable for them. Then, after significant improvements in the application after some period of time, they release a completely new version of the application, under a new name.
There are two good examples of this approach - a popular Twitter client called Tweetie (which is now owned by Twitter and called Twitter for iPhone) and the Enigmo puzzle game. In the case of Tweetie, developer Loren Britcher spent so much time developing the next version of his application that he decided to completely remove the first version from the App Store after launching Tweetie 2. Enigmo decided not to oppose the two versions to each other, and suggested to treat Enigmo 2 as continuation of the series. At the moment, both Enigmo and Enigmo 2 are available on the App Store.
It should be emphasized once again that the act with the Tweetie was very brave. Despite the removal of the first version from the App Store, you still can not reuse its name. Also, you will lose all ratings and user reviews. Be very careful when making this decision. Suppose you can make more money, but this step you can scare away your existing users and lose their trust.
Also, the practice of releasing "new" versions of applications became even more common after the release of the iPad - developers quickly realized that adapting an application for iPhone to iPad can often be a non-trivial task, and supporting universal applications, when the same application can run on iPhone and on the iPad is quite a laborious process. Therefore, the developers began to add to the name of their application consoles "HD" or "for iPad" and release additional paid versions for the iPad. HD is usually used for games, and “for iPad” is used for applications. An example of such an adaptation is the version of the popular game Flight Control, the iPad version of which was released under the name Flight Control HD
Let's summarize in the form of a table:
| Type of monetization | When used | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Free application | Used for corporate applications or when selling an application is not an end in itself. | The Gap, Facebook, The Salvation Army Bellringer |
| Free application with ads | Used in popular applications that actively interact with the user. | Pandora, Flixster |
| Paid application | The most popular way to monetize. 70% of total revenue goes to the developer | - |
| Lite and Pro | The unofficial way to give the user the opportunity to test the application before purchasing. | Labyrinth Lite, Labyrinth |
| In App Purchases | Used to enable users to purchase new features from the app. | We Rule Boxcar |
| New versions | The unofficial method to persuade the user to purchase a new version of the application to recoup the costs of its development. Also used when releasing versions for iPad. | Enigmo, Enigmo 2
Flight Control, Flight Control HD |
Pricing
At this stage, it is important for you to understand what price you will charge for your application. In the App Store research process, you’ve already seen competitor prices, which gives you some insight into the market. For example, if your competitors sell their applications for $ 3.99, it would be a bad idea to set your price at $ 14.99. But you can easily request $ 6.99 for it if your application really is that much better.
When pricing, consider also the current App Store trends - because the price will have a direct impact on the number of downloads. Small price changes, such as switching between $ 1.99 and $ 0.99, can increase the number of downloads at times. I want to say that there are basic prices that most people charge for their apps on the App Store. A typical iPhone app costs $ 1.99. IPad apps usually offer more features, which is why they are more expensive - the average price for such an app is $ 4.99, which is closer to the usual prices for software for personal computers.
Beware of pricing at $ 0.99 dollars - too low a price can lead to impulse purchases when a person buys your application without really knowing what it will use for it. This can lead to a decrease in the rating of your application and the appearance of negative reviews, because people will not receive what they expected.
You should think about different pricing options, especially if you intend to invest in the App Store for a long time. Suppose you assign a price of $ 2.99 to your application. Suppose, on average, your application will download 15 people per day - then for the year the total income of your application will be about $ 16,000 (15 * 365 * 2.99), after deducting the commission, you will have $ 11,000 left. Suppose you increase the price by a third — to $ 3.99 — and your downloads drop by the same third. It seems that in this situation, you can potentially earn $ 12,500 (about $ 18,000 of total income).
Unfortunately, this is not the case. In 2009, Distimo conducted a very revealing experiment. The game, which was in the top 5 in the rating of popular games, they increased the price from $ 0.99 to $ 1.99. Very quickly after this, the game began to lose its rating, and literally in a few days flew out of the top 25, which significantly reduced its visibility. Due to the fact that a smaller number of people began to see the game in the App Store, its number of downloads fell very much, at the same time as the income of the author decreased. You should also try experimenting with the price to figure out which one will give you maximum downloads. It will not necessarily be the lowest price in your category - for example, in the top 15 games you may notice offers for both 99 and 169 rubles.
If you are developing only one application, you can hardly afford to experiment with the price - after all, this will directly affect your income. But when you have already gathered a portfolio of applications - you will be able to conduct similar experiments and achieve in each case more success than any of your competitors.
Assessment of the ideal situation for your application
When you have decided on the idea of the application, the method of monetization, the type of application and the price - you can proceed to assess the market opportunities of your application. One way to do this is to estimate the volume of the target market for your application. Speaking of the target market , unlike the target audience, I’m not talking about the number of people who may potentially be interested in your application, but about the number of people who can potentially buy it. Estimating the target market is an approximate way to estimate the maximum revenue from your application, which you can get in an ideal situation.
Jonathan Wegener wrote very well on how to evaluate the market of your application in his article The Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing . Jonathan is the author of Exit Strategy NYC, which allows subway passengers to plan their way to get through the subway as soon as possible. For example, you specify the station at which you want to exit - and the application tells you which door of which car is best to stand in order to be directly opposite the exit.
The algorithm for calculating the target market is approximately the same (all numbers are relevant for April 2010):
- A total of 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod Touchs were sold worldwide.
- Our application is available on both devices - hence we have 85 million potential users. That is, at a price of $ 1, we can potentially earn 85 million. But we must remember that our application is addressed to passengers of the subway in New York.
- According to AdMob statistics, 50% of the devices are in the US, which gives us approximately 43 million. A total of 300 million people live in the United States, which means that approximately 21.5% of Americans are interested in devices.
- Eight million people live in New York, and 5 of them take the subway. Thus, the target audience of our application is 5 million people, which again gives us a rather impressive amount of 5 million potential income!
- True, now we need to multiply the number of metro passengers by 21.5% of iPhone users and we will get only 1.3 million devices that are in the hands of passengers.
- But how many people buy apps? Let's look at the statistics of the best-selling games and we will see that, of the 80 million Doodle Jump devices, is set at about 4%.
- Now multiply 1.3 million by 4% and get 52,000 people - this is the number of people who install our application in the best possible way . And our final maximum income is not 85 million, or even 1.3, but only 52 thousand dollars. And do not forget to deduct 30% commission from Apple.
If you plan to launch an app with in-app purchases, use the total cost of all the products that can be purchased in it to estimate. Do you plan to release a universal version for the iPhone and iPad, or two different applications - in any case, do not forget to take this into account when calculating.
Do not focus only on sales - similar calculations can show you how many users of the free application you can count on.
I would like to remind once again that the assessment of the target market is not an assessment of the amount you should count on. All this amount you can earn only in the best scenario. This assessment is an opportunity for you to assess the potential of the application in the event that every person your application might be interested in will buy it.
There are several open sources from which you can draw useful statistics.
The tool, amazing in its power, has been created by Google: www.google.com/think/tools/databoard.html A detailed description of this tool will pull more than one article, so for now I can only recommend you to try it yourself - there is a fairly clear and simple interface.
A lot of statistics in his blog puts Flurry: blog.flurry.com . Also, a lot of useful information can be obtained on the Distimo website: www.distimo.com/publications
An interesting tool for business planning and pricing assistance is offered by App Cooker. You can try:
www.appcooker.com/overview/estimate-the-cost-effectiveness-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps
Evaluation of yourself and your abilities
You may have a super idea for iPhone and iPad apps with a huge target market, but if you can't implement your idea, it’s worthless. True, it is worth noting that if you yourself can not do something - most likely you will be able to find someone who can do it for you.
In addition, look carefully again - perhaps because of inexperience, or perhaps from an excess of courage, you want to make a product identical to what is already on the market. Should not be doing that.
Look in the mirror
An ideal situation for you would be if you simultaneously have experience in the field in which you launch the product, and experience in the production of IT products. If you have neither the one nor the other experience, it will be very hard for you.
It will be great if your ideas are born from your everyday tasks and complexities - in this situation you will understand how people will use your application and what they will think about in the process of using. Of course, you can take advantage of the opportunity to receive feedback from potential users throughout the development period - from the very beginning of work on the application, rapid prototypes will help you with this. But if you yourself are a user of your own application, this will help you to keep a more complete picture in your head. A good knowledge of your market or the industry for which you are developing the application will also help you, including through well-established relationships with customers and the press.
— . — , .
, , , — , , .
…
, … , . , — . , — , , , - .
, , 10 000$. , — , .
— , . App Store. — . — , , .
— , , . , App Store 700$ — , . , App Store , .
useful links
148apps App Store Metrics
appsaurus.net
www.appolicious.com
appadvice.com
The Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing
www.google.com/think/tools/databoard.html
blog.flurry.com
www.distimo.com/publications
www.appcooker.com/overview/estimate-the-cost-effectiveness-of-iphone-and-ipad-apps
Introduction
Strategy
Chapter 1: Evaluate the idea of your mobile application
Chapter 2: What should be in your application?
Chapter 3: From idea to concept
Development
4: :
5:
6: , App Store
7: App Store
8:
9:
Strategy
Chapter 1: Evaluate the idea of your mobile application
Chapter 2: What should be in your application?
Chapter 3: From idea to concept
Development
4: :
5:
6: , App Store
7: App Store
8:
9:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/189496/
All Articles