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Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

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Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#11

Post by voxmatt »

(a) This is great. I've been using Maps+, which is a really impressive little app, but it's complexity often makes it cumbersome. Yours is very barebones, but in playing around with it, that's an asset.

(b) With (a) in mind, there really needs to be a way to plot to/from somewhere other than (what the iPhone thinks is) your current location.

(c) It would be great to be able to see bike lanes, but I understand how much extra effort that would require; so don't sweat it, but if this does rise to the level of a business...

(d) Get rid of the icon-sheen in the App store. It's not enabled on the actual phone icon, and it looks so much better that way. It looks cheap with the sheen in the App-store: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4087500/does-itunes-store...

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#13

Post by x1r0 »

brador wrote: post #7
x1r0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're a team of 2. I do all the development. All the work was done in-house... no outsourcing. The app, icon, and website were all us. It took 3 months to get to version 1.0. We worked on it part time, nights and weekends. There were some big gaps as life and work got in the way. It was my first iOS development experience, and I had only dabbled in Objective-C previously, so most of that time was getting up to speed…

Awesome, thanks for the details. You mentioned only dabbling previously, any tips on learning iphone app programming quickly? What tools/things did you use to learn? Any recommendations? Did you use any books/guides? Finally, did you use a mac pro or imac? and if it's relevant, does the glossy screen cause eye strain when programming for extended periods?

I still remembered a decent amount of C from high school & college (I'm just old enough to have snuck through before Java took over CS). I brushed up on the ol' K&R and then read about 2/3rds of O'Reilly's Programming iOS 4 book.

Apple's documentation and sample code is excellent, and really nicely integrated into XCode. Once iOS 5 came out, I learned almost exclusively from there. Of course, Stack Overflow is great for very specific gotchas and questions.

I did all the work on a MacBook Pro, with glossy screen, usually plugged in to a 27" Apple display (also glossy). The gloss doesn't cause me any problems unless I sit in very bright sunlight, but all things equal, I would prefer matte. Xcode is a bit of a pig, so it definitely does best on a big display.

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#14

Post by pkamb »

nathanbarry wrote: post #6

Nice. Congrats on getting your live app in the store. It is a great way to get hobby projects out in the open. Plus I get nice sense of completion when the app goes live. Sometime soon I'll post a sales breakdown for my latest app. For me getting reviews written on sites like MacLife and AppAdvice made all the difference for sales.

> For me getting reviews written on sites like MacLife and AppAdvice made all the difference for sales.

How so? The initial traffic from those sites? Other sites picking up the story? Ongoing SEO benefits?

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#16

Post by jwhelan »

voxmatt wrote: post #11

(a) This is great. I've been using Maps+, which is a really impressive little app, but it's complexity often makes it cumbersome. Yours is very barebones, but in playing around with it, that's an asset. (b) With (a) in mind, there really needs to be a way to plot to/from somewhere other than (what the iPhone thinks is) your current location. (c) It would be great to be able to see bike lanes, but I understand how muc…

a) Glad you like it. Simplicity was a goal. b) Yes, totally agreed & in the works. c) This will be in the next release. d) We actually have a ticket in with Apple to get this fixed. There's nothing we can do on our end. Terrible.

Thanks for the honest feedback!

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#17

Post by x1r0 »

sainttex wrote: post #12

You mentioned you're using google's directions API, what is this doing differently than the walking directions in maps? Doesn't that include bike paths, passages etc?

Google uses different algorithms for walking & biking. For example, you can walk in either direction on a one-way street, but you can only bike in one direction.

The bike directions prioritize streets with bike lanes and low traffic bike boulevards. With walking, really any street with a side walk will do.

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#18

Post by x1r0 »

joeblossom wrote: post #10

On thing you may consider doing, if you aren't already, is using one of the many libraries available which ask users to rate your app. In the last release of one of my apps I implemented one of the libraries and I saw the amount of ratings soar. Especially the positive ratings.

Thanks! Good idea. Which library are you using?

Re: Our first app: One month on the iOS App Store

#20

Post by k-mcgrady »

joeblossom wrote: post #10

On thing you may consider doing, if you aren't already, is using one of the many libraries available which ask users to rate your app. In the last release of one of my apps I implemented one of the libraries and I saw the amount of ratings soar. Especially the positive ratings.

I second this. I added 'AppiRater' (https://github.com/arashpayan/appirater) to one of my popular apps which users weren't reviewing. As soon as I added AppiRater the number of reviews increased a lot. I also noticed that it didn't increase the number of negative reviews which was a surprise.
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