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Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

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Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#141

Post by sandofsky »

luke14free wrote: post #62
yoz-y wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that the author has better visibility to actual download numbers than App Annie or Sensor Tower. I assume they just got the number from the App Store connect. That is, apple highlights are massively more impactful that any other venue. My app had reviews in multiple publications and I average about 200 downloads per week, at around 4500 impressions. It got featured once in some list (in Thailand) and I got a…

I work on models like those of Sensor Tower and App Annie use to estimate downloads. They are extremely precise, the cross-validated error is << 10% for apps that are this small, and in the US (it increases with much bigger apps in countries where little data is available).

Comparing our app’s sales against Sensor Tower’s numbers, we’ve found it off by way more than 10%.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#142

Post by dfrew »

I had a similar itch and built a similar app, except snippets are captured as searchable text and organised by books [1]. It was only ever my second app and app building for me is as much about the journey as the destination so it took me a lot longer than 1h/24h.

I agree with the premise of the article ie build small, monetize, learn.

Other lessons I've learned: Promotion is harder than building. It's pretty hard to get more than a few downloads per day. Free or not, once it's out there your users will make demands. I got emails from all over the world requesting all sorts of new features. Simple is better. Almost all feedback I got was that the app did one thing well (actually good enough). Try different monetisation strategies.

[1] Key Passages https://apps.apple.com/us/app/key-passages-study-assistant/i...

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#143

Post by guitarbill »

King-Aaron wrote: post #3

There's a strange double-scrollbar in the #content div, that makes viewing on a desktop a little awkward (Chrome/ Win10)

I don't know if it's that or something else, but scrolling is also altered/inhibited with Firefox on iOS. Luckily, reader mode "fixes" it.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#144

Post by darkwizard42 »

zhte415 wrote: post #135
lerxst00 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had a similar experience: I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I like reading through the comments. Often, comments quote specific timestamps from the video and I would find it a pain to keep scrolling between the comment section at the bottom of the page and the video at the top and then find the specific time in the video that the comment was talking about. So, I created a Chrome extension that surfaces Y…

That sounds very cool. Have you heard of bilibili.com? It's a video streaming website, but where comments are timestamped and scroll overlaid on the video at that timestamp, hugely entertaining, somewhat like sitting with 1000 videojockies at the same time. Mainly Chinese language, as it's a Chinese site. Worth having a look though, similar gist.

Nice! This sounds similar to SoundCloud which allows for comments attached to timestamps (great for music, “what a chord”, “the drop here!”)

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#145

Post by saagarjha »

mister_hn wrote: post #80
paxys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author noted that it was his fifth app, so it's likely that he had the knowledge and patterns/libraries/boilerplate etc. already in place.

sure, but for me the "All-in-all" means multiple screen resolutions support, permissions to access Camera and Storage and so on.

> multiple screen resolutions support

This isn’t hard if you use anything that’s not manual layout.

> permissions to access Camera and Storage and so on

A couple of Info.plist keys.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#146

Post by sandofsky »

yoz-y wrote: post #78
eps wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah... no sales on 1 million impressions?! I understand the context, but still.

Yep, that's why I really don't agree with the point 3 of this article. > 3. Don’t be afraid to ask for money Only ask for money if you know you will get major coverage (either Apple placement in a feature in a country speaking a language that your app supports, or general public publications). After switching to freemium model I earn more money per month than with a paid app during a year. Another thing is, the autho…

> Only ask for money if you know you will get major coverage.

Or just ask for money if it fits in organically with your product and audience.

We build a camera app. We considered freemium, but couldn’t find a way to lock features without compromising the intended experience.

It also acts as a bit of a filter, as people do research before paying for an app. We suspect that if we were free, we’d have to contend with more support requests for things like video recording, which isn’t the use case for the app.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#147

Post by yoz-y »

sandofsky wrote: post #146
yoz-y wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's why I really don't agree with the point 3 of this article. > 3. Don’t be afraid to ask for money Only ask for money if you know you will get major coverage (either Apple placement in a feature in a country speaking a language that your app supports, or general public publications). After switching to freemium model I earn more money per month than with a paid app during a year. Another thing is, the autho…

> Only ask for money if you know you will get major coverage. Or just ask for money if it fits in organically with your product and audience. We build a camera app. We considered freemium, but couldn’t find a way to lock features without compromising the intended experience. It also acts as a bit of a filter, as people do research before paying for an app. We suspect that if we were free, we’d have to contend with mo…

I agree, sometimes a freemium model is not viable, like in your case. And paid users are definitely more involved so they usually ask better questions if they have any.

Nevertheless, I believe that for a paid app, one needs good media coverage to be successful. Since there are no trials, there is not much the users can do to test the app before purchasing. (I think many people actually don't know that they can get refunds)

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#148

Post by svd4anything »

rocqua wrote: post #104
svd4anything wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> middle-class white men from suburbia I keep wondering why people always include white. Is the idea that non-white middle class men from suburbia have superior perspectives and life experience? If we removed “white” isn’t the point still accurate?

It seems obviously true that the majority of people from tech are white. Beyond that it isn't much of a stretch that the 'average' experience of a white man from suburbia is different from that of a black man from suburbia.

Why is it black vs white? What about all the other colors ...

It’s hard to say for one generation previously but for current generation of middle class suburban American teens I think differences in perceptions between races and genders are diminishing rapidly.

I just find it odd that it seems at almost every opportunity a commenter or poster will look to insert “white” like a dirty word in discussions. That strategy is backfiring terribly imho and I hope it can pass as some sociological fad in the next 10-15 years. I can say with certainty the teens growing up today in “middle class” suburban america are likely to look down on injecting “white” whenever possible for minimal or even irrelevant distinction.

Sorry if my view offends anyone.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#149

Post by svd4anything »

foobarian wrote: post #109
svd4anything wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> middle-class white men from suburbia I keep wondering why people always include white. Is the idea that non-white middle class men from suburbia have superior perspectives and life experience? If we removed “white” isn’t the point still accurate?

I always felt that phrase was an ugly affirmation of the phenomenon and consequences of "white flight" [1]. Almost like the meaning conveyed is "there only are white men in suburbia, duh". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Exactly. Which really isn’t so true anymore at all! So maybe instead of looking to always inject the dirty word “white” see if the point can be made without it or not.

Re: Oh shit, my weekend project turned into an App Store Best New App (2018)

#150

Post by lerxst00 »

mtgx wrote: post #70
lerxst00 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome! The only issue I have now is that I've moved on to using Firefox. So, I can't really use this extension anymore. I guess that sounds like another 'niche problem' that needs solving.

This might help: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

Oh, I wasn't aware of this. I'm going to try this out this weekend.

Thanks for sharing.

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