A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery • Hacker News Board

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#31

Post by jarjoura » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

egb wrote: post #13

coldcode wrote: post #10

We had good success at my last job at a big brand travel company, because our Apple rep really liked us. But me as an individual has no chance. I don't think Apple really cares about you as a developer as long as there are enough to make iPhone sales happen. It's sad though, I wish I could build an app discovery app which would be a lot of fun to do, but it's stupidly verboten.

How did you get your Apple rep? I have never quite found out how to "apply" to get one, or if it's all self-selected from within Apple...

From what I understand, once your app crosses the 1 million download mark, Apple's Developer relations will reach out to you.

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#32

Post by walterbell » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:54 PM UTC

Aqua_Geek wrote: post #24

duncanawoods wrote: post #7

I wish Apple/Google/MS would realise that they could stop operating an App Store and start running an App Mall instead. Inside their Mall, different third party stores could focus on different niches and demographics with totally different criteria for including and rating apps with different UX to browse and discover products. Some could use expert reviews, some user reviews, others taste based recommedations. Its c…

There's nothing stopping anybody from doing this. Apple offers a DB dump of the store's content (including music). You could build a curation platform on top of that. They do, indeed, offer a referral fee for iTunes purchases. I'm actually currently working on such a setup.

Is it difficult to become an "Enterprise Partner"?

https://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentat...

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#33

Post by MilnerRoute » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

Jesus. The road to success, judging from the article, boils down to this. "Know somebody who works for Apple App's Store who can help get your app featured on launch day."

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#34

Post by s73v3r » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #7

I wish Apple/Google/MS would realise that they could stop operating an App Store and start running an App Mall instead. Inside their Mall, different third party stores could focus on different niches and demographics with totally different criteria for including and rating apps with different UX to browse and discover products. Some could use expert reviews, some user reviews, others taste based recommedations. Its c…

We already have that. Lifehacker regularly posts lists of apps, complete with links to the app in the store for you to download. They're not alone with this.

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#35

Post by ksk » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

I'm wondering if there is any marketing/sales strategy crossover from other domains which also have limited product placement opportunities - like supermarkets?

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#36

Post by sjg007 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

tempodox wrote: post #14

M8 wrote: post #3

Apps are now discovered outside of the stores.

If you know where, please let the rest of us know (i.e. if the source has better discoverability than the AppStore).

Facebook in stream app ads.

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#37

Post by archagon » Wed, May 20, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #20

themartorana wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I agree entirely on the press thing - although my experiences are from owning a mobile game company, not a mobile app company. For games, online press is great to start to be recognized within the community of peer groups/companies, but has never moved the needle for us, user-wise. We haven't been featured either, but that's made things harder on us. Getting featured is still huge for visibility. We're p…

What has moved the needle for you? We had a dev relations contact and got featured worldwide with Hexiled, then a smaller feature later when we added more language support. I argue with my dev partner about press - I think the best tactic is more decent apps in the store trying to get a home-run feature by honing the app style, rather than begging little app reviewers for coverage. I think if your feature gives your…

Out of curiosity, if you're willing to share, how did you get in touch with a dev relations person at Apple for (what looks like) your first game? I'm going to release my first big app soon (music creation) and having someone at Apple know about my product would be so helpful!

I agree with your thoughts on tactics, BTW, which is why I'm working hard on polishing the UX.

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#38

Post by seiji » Wed, May 20, 2015, 6:44 PM UTC

MilnerRoute wrote: post #33

Jesus. The road to success, judging from the article, boils down to this. "Know somebody who works for Apple App's Store who can help get your app featured on launch day."

Everything is back room deals. Didn't Instagram have a months-long deal to be a "featured app" as long as they didn't make an Android version?

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#39

Post by Aqua_Geek » Wed, May 20, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #32

Aqua_Geek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing stopping anybody from doing this. Apple offers a DB dump of the store's content (including music). You could build a curation platform on top of that. They do, indeed, offer a referral fee for iTunes purchases. I'm actually currently working on such a setup.

Is it difficult to become an "Enterprise Partner"? https://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentat...

Nope. Or at least it wasn't when I applied: fill out the form, get an email with username/pwd.

Re: A Developer’s Guide to the Wild West of App Discovery

#40

Post by Zigurd » Wed, May 20, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

raphael_o wrote: post #25

Zigurd wrote: post #11

There is a lot of good experience presented in that article. But there is one place where they screwed up: It's easy to make apps for Android that scale up to tablet-sized screens. Failing to do that isn't Google's fault, and whinging about Google's preference to feature apps that run on tablets is unhelpful. Especially so since they previous, correctly, decided to build an Android design from scratch. If you do that…

You have a point here. A lot has been done in the Android framework to enable developers to build app that will scale up and down elegantly. However, keep in mind that there is more than supporting the physical form factor to it. To build for tablets vs phone is a different product mindset, with different goals and user experience. I don't expect people to open BillGuard every day on their tablet, rather to take thei…

That's a very complex issue. In some ways, Google's recent design trends and libraries, e.g. as in Inbox, do not take good advantage of large screens on the desktop or in tablets. I suspect Google aimed for a cross-platform UX first, before really tackling the screen real estate issue.

On the other hand, a tablet layout that "flattens" a UI hierarchy by displaying a list Fragment to the side of a display/edit Fragment is pretty simple to do. Material Design works just fine for this, too.