Experience and practical tips to launch iOS applications
Hello,
In this article I will talk about the features of creating a keyboard application for iOS8 and its launch promotion in the App Store. The article describes actions that can be done by one person without extra skills in marketing applications to promote his application at the start. At what I will try to talk more about the practice, concrete examples and my own experience.
The most important features to consider when developing a keyboard application:
- Apple insists in the rules that all keyboard applications must have a numeric layout and punctuation marks. This is written in the guides, but we, naturally, began to read them after sending the application to the review. In our case, from the first versions, a layout with the main punctuation marks was added to fill in something with the delete button. We did not plan to add figures. When using shortcuts they do not carry any good. But people who apruvyat applications are quite straightforward: if it is written in the rules, they must be done. None of our explanations about user experience helped. I had to quickly refine this part, since the solution was found quickly.
')
- The big difficulty for us was Full Access (“full access”), which you need to get from users in the iOS settings for our functionality to work. The fact is that at the moment this is the only way in iOS8 to transfer custom user data from the application to the extensin itself, which opens in the keyboard. Without opening full access, only the previously pre-installed static functionality of the custom keyboard is available to you. In our case, the entire application is built on the loading of custom data.
Apple also scares users with a huge warning that with full access to developers, all data entered from the keyboard becomes available. Technically, this is of course the case, but when checking the application, their own team carefully checks this point in all applications and does not miss any violators. Apparently, with this warning, Apple is overdone and shifts the responsibility to users and developers. But to us, as developers, such an implementation creates a bunch of problems with the trust of users. We hope that the approach will change in the next iOS updates.
Another point - Apple also insists that in any keyboard application, even in the absence of Full Access, some functionality was provided. Having received such an answer to our first version, they were very upset. What can be the functionality if we can not load user data into the keys? The solution was found by placing dummies with examples of texts. This option made review team.
- We had a serious problem. Without Full Access, the keyboard was turned on with a very serious delay - about 3 seconds. And she also worked very slowly. We thought, tried the options, watched other applications - it works fine for everyone. We decided that the problem is that the build is placed directly on the phone, and that this will be fixed upon downloading from the App Store. Sent for review. The answer came that the keyboard is too slow and in this form it will not be missed.
I had to reassemble the functionality bit by bit, checking which step the problem started with loading speed. Experienced to find out - the brake starts when sound is added. Apparently, in an extension without full access there is a limit on the number of threads. This is an obvious bug, it will most likely be fixed in the next updates.
Do not be afraid to dispute the response of the Review Team if you have checked with all the published rules and are confident that you are right. The people who check the applications are also people, and they can be wrong too. We were able to prove to Apple that our application was incorrectly rejected and to achieve a review of the decision.
The marketing strategy was built from the main introductory: do not invest additional money in promotion.
Without money, an application can take off in one case - if it is faded in the App Store. Usually everyone hopes for the Best New Apps list. We still had a list of Keyboards in the category Utilities.
In fact, the whole promotion was sharpened to get into one of these lists with free methods. Looking ahead, I will say that we did not succeed, and I will tell you what, in my opinion, it was possible to do better.
The only thing that was done for the promotion before the release was a simple promotional website. The site is made by myself. In the arsenal, only basic skills in graphic editors. I do not know the layout and any basics of programming. Used Squarespace, highly recommend, a great and convenient tool. Yes, you need to understand a little, but the result is 100% satisfied.
The cost of a simple site is $ 10 per month. The coolest thing is to easily make edits and changes. To make all changes to the site after the release (add the App Store button, video, several additional links), it took 20-30 minutes. Plus, the site is immediately adapted for different devices.
To promote the site zasabmitil in the gallery of one-page on www.onepagelove.com and www.launchsoon.com . From the first traffic there is much more - about 3000 visits 1.5-2 months before the release. On such a Coming Soon website, the most important is a form of subscription to announce the launch. We collected about 100 subscriptions. Not much, but it became clear that someone would need the application. Traffic from there continues to come so far, perhaps even being converted into purchases.
There are still betalist.com , but they are now fat and asking $ 100 for placing your site in the gallery. And this is before the release of the application. You can cheat a little and pay for posting a week before the release and convert this traffic into truths. Although I'm not sure that Betalist will not delete your site if it ceases to be a Coming Soon landing page.
Before the release, you need to make a media list. These are contacts of journalists / publications to whom you will send news about the release of the application and press releases. In our case, we went through all the big sites about technology and startups and wrote out all the journalists who wrote about custom keyboards, iOS8, or about new cool apps.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to find mail; many journalists prefer Twitter to communicate. Enter the names of journalists, a Twitter account, or a personal blog on Google and you will find it pretty easy.
To catch the attention, send a short greeting and a link to the video. By experience, this is the best format to attract attention and talk about the product.
To communicate with the press you need a press kit. There is nothing difficult in his preparation. Create a folder on Dropbox with the text of the press release, screenshots, logo \ application icon in high quality and a couple of photos that journalists can quickly use for articles.
To promote the application, and in principle for any service, video plays a very important role. Journalists love video clips, the audience loves video clips, everyone loves video clips.
You can not spend a lot of money and make a simple screencast of your interface right from your phone. If earlier it was necessary to invent something for this, now everything has become very simple. You will need iOS8 on your phone and Yosemite on your computer. With such a bundle in the standard Quick Time there is a possibility to record video from the phone screen. Choose New Movie Recording, choose your iPhone from the source.
In voice acting, the most important thing is good English. We ordered voice acting on VoiceBunny. Worth $ 70, cheaper options were not found.
If possible, make freemium. We decided to first try the paid model because of a faster and simpler implementation. If you do not plan to overcharge too much, place $ 1.99. This will provide an opportunity to hold shares and reduce the price to $ 0.99.
The choice of the day of the week for release is still a headache. If you are also targeting a featured list, this is actually very important. In fact, you will have only 3 days before the chevterg for the App Store editors to notice your application. All your actions should be aimed at fulfilling this goal.
How did we plan the launch?
On Monday - the application appears in the App Store. It is downloaded by friends and acquaintances, put five.
On Tuesday - there are publications in the press. The application is downloaded by more people, it starts to flash on Twitter and discussions.
Wednesday is the last chance. We press sites where there have not yet been reviews. Considers options for paid placements.
Thursday - day X, waiting.
The press naturally writes when it is convenient for her, not for you. Plus, most of the press just do not write about the application and ignores your letters. This, in principle, is understandable, but we expected a little more attention.
Of course, if everything is done correctly, you must contact the press in advance and agree on the date of publication. But if you are a group of freelancers, knock them across the ocean and your application is quite simple, although qualitative and convenient, they are unlikely to be paid much attention.
We managed to achieve some good reviews in the Dutch, German, Russian and Ukrainian press. Later, Polish and French bloggers wrote about the application. The Germans liked the application most of all, I suspect that utilities and software on productivity are held in high esteem.
Of the major American sites, several journalists managed to attract the attention of several journalists, but it has not yet come to an article. One turned out to be too big a fan of Android and didn’t fully get into our interface. The second application was like, but it did not seem so innovative as to deserve publication.
Another nuance - top sites in runet do reviews only for money. Not our option.
Product Hunt is a great site for promoting any products that are somehow related to technology and the Internet. If your product pleases the audience of the site, you can attract the attention of a huge number of geeks and the press. Having posted the application on Tuesday, I was hoping for publication the next day (Wednesday). According to the plan, this was supposed to be a bullet point in promotion and help draw attention to the App Store editors application.
But as always, things went a bit wrong. Our application appeared on the site on Thursday. In principle, we received attention - it brought about 1000 visitors to the site and a good amount of downloads. But the main goal could not serve.
For the first week, the application downloaded about 500 times.
Videos watched about 5000 times. This is probably our most important indicator, as the video was tried to be included in all reviews and posts.
We received about 20 reviews and a lot of reposts. User feedback is very positive, people liked our approach and implementation.
Next we plan to experiment with the freemium model and look for new promotion channels.
In this article I will talk about the features of creating a keyboard application for iOS8 and its launch promotion in the App Store. The article describes actions that can be done by one person without extra skills in marketing applications to promote his application at the start. At what I will try to talk more about the practice, concrete examples and my own experience.
Underwater rocks
The most important features to consider when developing a keyboard application:
- Apple insists in the rules that all keyboard applications must have a numeric layout and punctuation marks. This is written in the guides, but we, naturally, began to read them after sending the application to the review. In our case, from the first versions, a layout with the main punctuation marks was added to fill in something with the delete button. We did not plan to add figures. When using shortcuts they do not carry any good. But people who apruvyat applications are quite straightforward: if it is written in the rules, they must be done. None of our explanations about user experience helped. I had to quickly refine this part, since the solution was found quickly.
')
- The big difficulty for us was Full Access (“full access”), which you need to get from users in the iOS settings for our functionality to work. The fact is that at the moment this is the only way in iOS8 to transfer custom user data from the application to the extensin itself, which opens in the keyboard. Without opening full access, only the previously pre-installed static functionality of the custom keyboard is available to you. In our case, the entire application is built on the loading of custom data.
Apple also scares users with a huge warning that with full access to developers, all data entered from the keyboard becomes available. Technically, this is of course the case, but when checking the application, their own team carefully checks this point in all applications and does not miss any violators. Apparently, with this warning, Apple is overdone and shifts the responsibility to users and developers. But to us, as developers, such an implementation creates a bunch of problems with the trust of users. We hope that the approach will change in the next iOS updates.
Another point - Apple also insists that in any keyboard application, even in the absence of Full Access, some functionality was provided. Having received such an answer to our first version, they were very upset. What can be the functionality if we can not load user data into the keys? The solution was found by placing dummies with examples of texts. This option made review team.
- We had a serious problem. Without Full Access, the keyboard was turned on with a very serious delay - about 3 seconds. And she also worked very slowly. We thought, tried the options, watched other applications - it works fine for everyone. We decided that the problem is that the build is placed directly on the phone, and that this will be fixed upon downloading from the App Store. Sent for review. The answer came that the keyboard is too slow and in this form it will not be missed.
I had to reassemble the functionality bit by bit, checking which step the problem started with loading speed. Experienced to find out - the brake starts when sound is added. Apparently, in an extension without full access there is a limit on the number of threads. This is an obvious bug, it will most likely be fixed in the next updates.
About review
Do not be afraid to dispute the response of the Review Team if you have checked with all the published rules and are confident that you are right. The people who check the applications are also people, and they can be wrong too. We were able to prove to Apple that our application was incorrectly rejected and to achieve a review of the decision.
Now about marketing and promotion
The marketing strategy was built from the main introductory: do not invest additional money in promotion.
Without money, an application can take off in one case - if it is faded in the App Store. Usually everyone hopes for the Best New Apps list. We still had a list of Keyboards in the category Utilities.
In fact, the whole promotion was sharpened to get into one of these lists with free methods. Looking ahead, I will say that we did not succeed, and I will tell you what, in my opinion, it was possible to do better.
Before release. Promo site
The only thing that was done for the promotion before the release was a simple promotional website. The site is made by myself. In the arsenal, only basic skills in graphic editors. I do not know the layout and any basics of programming. Used Squarespace, highly recommend, a great and convenient tool. Yes, you need to understand a little, but the result is 100% satisfied.
The cost of a simple site is $ 10 per month. The coolest thing is to easily make edits and changes. To make all changes to the site after the release (add the App Store button, video, several additional links), it took 20-30 minutes. Plus, the site is immediately adapted for different devices.
To promote the site zasabmitil in the gallery of one-page on www.onepagelove.com and www.launchsoon.com . From the first traffic there is much more - about 3000 visits 1.5-2 months before the release. On such a Coming Soon website, the most important is a form of subscription to announce the launch. We collected about 100 subscriptions. Not much, but it became clear that someone would need the application. Traffic from there continues to come so far, perhaps even being converted into purchases.
There are still betalist.com , but they are now fat and asking $ 100 for placing your site in the gallery. And this is before the release of the application. You can cheat a little and pay for posting a week before the release and convert this traffic into truths. Although I'm not sure that Betalist will not delete your site if it ceases to be a Coming Soon landing page.
Before release. Press
Before the release, you need to make a media list. These are contacts of journalists / publications to whom you will send news about the release of the application and press releases. In our case, we went through all the big sites about technology and startups and wrote out all the journalists who wrote about custom keyboards, iOS8, or about new cool apps.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to find mail; many journalists prefer Twitter to communicate. Enter the names of journalists, a Twitter account, or a personal blog on Google and you will find it pretty easy.
To catch the attention, send a short greeting and a link to the video. By experience, this is the best format to attract attention and talk about the product.
Before release. Press kit
To communicate with the press you need a press kit. There is nothing difficult in his preparation. Create a folder on Dropbox with the text of the press release, screenshots, logo \ application icon in high quality and a couple of photos that journalists can quickly use for articles.
Before release. Video
To promote the application, and in principle for any service, video plays a very important role. Journalists love video clips, the audience loves video clips, everyone loves video clips.
You can not spend a lot of money and make a simple screencast of your interface right from your phone. If earlier it was necessary to invent something for this, now everything has become very simple. You will need iOS8 on your phone and Yosemite on your computer. With such a bundle in the standard Quick Time there is a possibility to record video from the phone screen. Choose New Movie Recording, choose your iPhone from the source.
In voice acting, the most important thing is good English. We ordered voice acting on VoiceBunny. Worth $ 70, cheaper options were not found.
Before release. Price selection
If possible, make freemium. We decided to first try the paid model because of a faster and simpler implementation. If you do not plan to overcharge too much, place $ 1.99. This will provide an opportunity to hold shares and reduce the price to $ 0.99.
Choice of release day and plan
The choice of the day of the week for release is still a headache. If you are also targeting a featured list, this is actually very important. In fact, you will have only 3 days before the chevterg for the App Store editors to notice your application. All your actions should be aimed at fulfilling this goal.
How did we plan the launch?
On Monday - the application appears in the App Store. It is downloaded by friends and acquaintances, put five.
On Tuesday - there are publications in the press. The application is downloaded by more people, it starts to flash on Twitter and discussions.
Wednesday is the last chance. We press sites where there have not yet been reviews. Considers options for paid placements.
Thursday - day X, waiting.
Release Reality
The press naturally writes when it is convenient for her, not for you. Plus, most of the press just do not write about the application and ignores your letters. This, in principle, is understandable, but we expected a little more attention.
Of course, if everything is done correctly, you must contact the press in advance and agree on the date of publication. But if you are a group of freelancers, knock them across the ocean and your application is quite simple, although qualitative and convenient, they are unlikely to be paid much attention.
We managed to achieve some good reviews in the Dutch, German, Russian and Ukrainian press. Later, Polish and French bloggers wrote about the application. The Germans liked the application most of all, I suspect that utilities and software on productivity are held in high esteem.
Of the major American sites, several journalists managed to attract the attention of several journalists, but it has not yet come to an article. One turned out to be too big a fan of Android and didn’t fully get into our interface. The second application was like, but it did not seem so innovative as to deserve publication.
Another nuance - top sites in runet do reviews only for money. Not our option.
Release Product hunt
Product Hunt is a great site for promoting any products that are somehow related to technology and the Internet. If your product pleases the audience of the site, you can attract the attention of a huge number of geeks and the press. Having posted the application on Tuesday, I was hoping for publication the next day (Wednesday). According to the plan, this was supposed to be a bullet point in promotion and help draw attention to the App Store editors application.
But as always, things went a bit wrong. Our application appeared on the site on Thursday. In principle, we received attention - it brought about 1000 visitors to the site and a good amount of downloads. But the main goal could not serve.
What happened
For the first week, the application downloaded about 500 times.
Videos watched about 5000 times. This is probably our most important indicator, as the video was tried to be included in all reviews and posts.
We received about 20 reviews and a lot of reposts. User feedback is very positive, people liked our approach and implementation.
Next we plan to experiment with the freemium model and look for new promotion channels.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/247853/
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