Position: Creator (design and development)
Background: Digital Post is a virtual newspaper application for the iPhone and iPad. The iPad application debuted as part of the iPad App Store launch in April 2010.
Links: http://flyosity.com/digitalpost/; http://twitter.com/flyosity
Ken: Describe where you got the idea for your app, Digital Post. What were your goals in launching it? Do you feel you achieved those goals when it launched?
Mike: Digital Post started out as a very different type of application with a different name and totally different concept. In early March 2010, I had the idea to build a dedicated “Internet search” app for the iPad, called SearchPad, with the goal for it to be available in the iPad App Store on the first day. I planned on pulling down information from Google (regular search results) as well as pictures (Google Image search) and displaying them in a nice way, better than you’d find if you used Safari. I had some interesting interface ideas for the image search; images would drop onto the screen and then could be manipulated using Multi-Touch gestures like in the movie Minority Report. The regular Google search results would be displayed in a list view, similar to how they’re shown on the Web, but with better typography, spacing, and colors to make it more polished and feel like an app and not a website.
The more I thought about this concept the more I realized I was approaching the device in the wrong way, an easy thing to do when you’re developing for a device you’ve never actually used before. I thought about how people would use the iPad and then tried to match it with the overall idea for SearchPad, and it just didn’t mesh well. Before its launch, the iPad was mainly seen as a device for casual consumption of information: movies, emails, tweets, music, games, etc. It was being billed as an entertainment appliance where interesting information would be displayed for you to interact with. SearchPad wasn’t going to display anything interesting to you when it opened; its first screen would essentially be an empty void until you typed in a term. SearchPad wouldn’t be an app you launched when you wanted to be entertained for a few minutes, and after a few days of careful thought I realized that “instant interestingness” is the niche I wanted to be in, so I scrapped SearchPad and started thinking about similar concepts.
Many months ago I began an iPhone application called, simply enough, Interesting for iPhone. It would cull various RSS feeds that I predetermined and show what was interesting on the Web at the moment. I never finished it, but I took the kernel of that idea and applied it to the iPad. For information sources, I thought I’d use newspaper articles since they’re of a high quality and precurated, and then it struck me to build the interface as a pseudonewspaper design.
My goals for Digital Post were simply to build something I was proud of and perhaps to make some money. I’m definitely happy with how it all came out, especially since I went from idea to 1.0 in about three weeks’ time, only working nights and weekends. The sales have been good and fairly consistent as well, which was a shock to me. I thought there would be a huge jump at the beginning and then a tapering, but with Digital Post that was not the case.
Ken: What sort of background research did you do to assess that Digital Post was a good idea? What convinced you it was the “right” app to pursue?
Mike: The iPad lends itself to media consumption and the newspaper idea seemed to make a lot of sense for the form factor. I knew that the New York Times had an app in the works, but from seeing the interface when the iPad was introduced I saw a lot I could do to improve on the concept of simply browsing news articles. Their single-article view is excellent, but on the main view they try to emulate the newspaper version too much and only show four to five articles due to long excerpts. From my background in usability testing (and especially eye tracking), I know that people mainly read headlines to determine how interesting something is, so showing paragraphs of text for an article they don’t want to read is a waste of space. In Digital Post, I use a list layout and display many more articles per screen, so it’s easier to scan for something interesting to read. As soon as I knew it’d be an app that I’d use myself I knew I was on to something.
Ken: With the launch of the iPad, Apple began offering the option for developers to create Universal apps. Digital Post started on the iPad, but you decided to build an iPhone version too. Will it be Universal? What went into that decision-making process?
Mike: When Apple first announced Universal apps I thought they were a terrible idea, and so did many of my developer friends. Why would someone completely rework the interface for the iPad’s resolution with brand-new features and not make it a separate app with a different price, especially if they have to rehire a designer to do it all? It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I’m slowly coming around, mainly because it makes your current users really happy, and that keeps the buzz and word of mouth going. From reactions on blogs and on Twitter, users are ecstatic when a developer releases a Universal version, because it’s like a reward for being an early customer.
For Digital Post, I’m planning to have separate iPad and iPhone versions. That decision is based purely on price and the economics of each store. At $2.99, I think Digital Post for iPad is priced pretty well in the News category, and also relative to other apps in the App Store. For an iPhone app, however, a $2.99 price is definitely on the expensive side, considering the functionality it has. It’s not a big enough app to warrant people thinking $2.99 is a good price for it. My plan is to do an iPhone version and price that at $0.99. In the future, I may drop the iPad version’s price to $1.99, but that’s not really for sure.
Ken: Share some perspectives on how best to price an app. More specifically, how did you determine the price for Digital Post?
Mike: The economics and business of the App Store interest me more than anything. Because the iPad was brand-new, no one really knew what the prices for apps would be like, so it was an exercise in game theory—your app’s price is partially based on everyone else’s price—and you don’t want to look too expensive or too cheap. OmniGroup gambled the most and put out a $50 app, which seemed to raise a few eyebrows, whereas the big media companies had some great apps available for free. I priced Digital Post at $2.99 because some existing news apps in the iPhone App Store were around that price and it felt right to me for the amount of effort I put in and how much value someone would get out of it.
Ken: Since you have a background developing software on other platforms, what makes the iPhone platform different? Where will those who may have experience in other media get tripped up when first dealing with Apple’s iOS? Conversely, what will they enjoy more or find easier, if anything?
Mike: When I first started learning Cocoa it was for Mac application development. It wasn’t until later that I got into the development APIs for the iOS. I also have a deep background developing apps for the Web. I never learned C, so learning Objective-C meant I had to learn header files, pointers, and memory management as well. It’s a challenge, especially since Objective-C’s syntax is quite different from other languages someone may be coming from (Java, PHP, Ruby, etc.), but once you get the hang of it, you can fly. The Cocoa Touch frameworks are excellent and extremely high-level; you can do very complex things in one line of code. Apple’s known for quality interface design, and they provide developers a wealth of built-in components that you can use without any customization to build solid apps. Of course, if you want to go the extra mile and do custom interface development, that’s very straightforward as well.
The iPhone is one big constraint—no keyboard, small screen, few buttons—so designing applications for the iPhone is an exercise in building smart, simple software. It’s all about removing everything until you still have the main features available and then executing those perfectly so that the interface is pixel-perfect and the overall user experience is smooth and flawless. Bloated apps full of half-baked features don’t do well in the App Store, so it’s better to omit a feature than to not get it exactly right. Compared to Android apps that I’ve used, an app’s interface matters far more on the iPhone, so make sure it’s a top priority.
Building applications for the iPad is very interesting; it uses the same frameworks as the iPhone, but applications feel so different. They feel more like full-screen desktop applications than simple mobile apps. However, the same elegant design principles from iPhone development apply, and the screen is very large, so there’s more room for error. It’s fairly simple to use the default built-in interface components for an iPad app, but when they’re blown up to full-size they look awkward. Developers can create decent iPhone apps without hiring a designer, but you just can’t get away with that when building an iPad app since there are more pixels to fill and errors are magnified. Hiring a designer to work on your iPad app is a must.
Ken: Besides being tech savvy and a designer/developer, you’re very involved in several different technology-oriented communities. All are huge assets that make putting an app into the App Store a somewhat less risky proposition compared to someone who is just starting out with app development. What advice would you give to those who find themselves in that position?
Mike: As with all products, the better they are the more they do the marketing for you. If you don’t have an exciting, engaging product, it takes more to convince people to write about you and spread the word. I’ll be the first to admit that a curated, filtered news reader isn’t the most exciting application in the App Store, but I did my best to execute the concept as well as I could. That’s the only variable you really control: quality of execution. A decent idea with world-class execution will do well; however, the very best app idea in the world can be spoiled with poor execution.
How do you get world-class execution in an app for the App Store? Pay attention to the details: every pixel, every color, every font, every button. If you’re not the type of person who can do this, make sure you hire the best interface design person out there, and no, they’re probably not that expensive. I personally know people under the age of 20 who I’d consider world-class designers, guys with half my experience but twice my skills who are just insanely talented. Every few months or so one of them gets snatched up by Apple. These are the types of people you want on your project, not some gigantic iPhone consulting firm with a dozen people on staff treating your project like a paycheck. Unless you’re building the next killer 3D platform, your app can probably be built with just a few people working on it if you get the right people. Finding these people is tricky, so you have to go where they are, such as forums like Dribbble and deviantART. Quality interface design is what turns a so-so idea into a fantastic app, and a great idea into a million-dollar app.
Ken: What are three “to-do” items to put developers on a path to success?
Mike: My three “to-do” items for success would be these:
Build an app that you will love to use every day.
Sweat every single detail or hire someone who will.
Always remember the constraints of the platform since you don’t want your app looking out of place (or people saying it belongs on Android!).
Company: Mobclix
Position: Co-founder
Background: Mobclix is one of the largest mobile ad exchanges, enabling 20+ ad networks to reach a targeted ad inventory across apps on the iPhone platform, Android, BlackBerry, and mobile web.
Link: http://mobclix.com
Ken: Mobclix has been a leader in the mobile advertising space. Having seen many apps across multiple platforms, what are some of the characteristics of successful apps? Conversely, what traits are evident in apps that struggle or fail?
Krishna: Apps that serve a simple purpose and do it well are always successful. Casual games that are fast-paced, like ngmoco’s Maze Finger, keep users engaged. Apps that make use of the rich features of smartphones are always exciting—Need for Speed, for example, incorporates the iPhone’s accelerometer. Meanwhile, apps that tap into users’ online social circles can become extremely viral. For instance, Newtoy’s Words with Friends and FlipSide5’s Touch Hockey both allow users to play against each other over network connections.
Consumers only want to spend three to five minutes to perform a task or interact with data and objects. Understanding this behavior has been essential to the developers who’ve made successful apps. This is because the longevity and sustainability of an app can be determined by its ability to invoke high levels of consumer engagement (e.g., magazine apps and multiplayer games), help users perform a task well (e.g., productivity and navigation), check and consume data (e.g., Twitter clients and instant-message clients), or interact in an entertaining fashion (e.g., casual games). Likewise, apps with simple designs and good functionality can also expect to do extremely well on the App Store.
Apps that fail or fall out of favor with users have three main traits in common:
“Me-too” apps
Too complex
Not enough functionality
Me-too apps are apps that try to replicate the behavior of successful apps. Often, these copycat developers will miss key features or will fail to understand the key mechanics needed to engage their users. Two good examples of this are Doodle Jump and PapiJump. Both apps have the same functionality; however, Doodle Jump succeeded by providing consistent updates and engaging their customer base. PapiJump, on the other hand, released updates at random intervals that didn’t make any significant changes to the app. Moreover, apps that serve as app wrappers of web content, soundboards, or joke cards don’t provide enough user value to have a sustainable life cycle in the App Store.
Ken: Choosing a revenue model (e.g., free, paid, In App Purchase, advertising, etc.) is often confusing for new developers. Based on Mobclix’s experience, how should developers approach determining what works best? Can a business model change over time?
Krishna: When the App Store first launched, developers were only able to release paid apps and free apps. In other words, they had two distinct audiences that they could market to. Free apps typically drive the widest audience for developers and guarantee them revenue through advertising. In the early days of the App Store, we heard of one-off companies making millions on $0.99 apps (e.g., iShoot, Pocket God, etc.). Most of the time, developers would first focus on maximizing the number of downloads of their free apps, and then try to drive those users to download the paid version of the app.
As of late, we are seeing more traction in the In App Purchase model across free apps, largely because this model offers quicker and increased revenues via in-app incentives.
Ken: When does it make sense for a developer to choose advertising as the right business model to monetize an app? For those that fall into that category, what are some good practices for incorporating advertising properly? What should developers definitely not do when choosing to use advertising?
Krishna: Best practices include leveraging all of the available types of advertising. This means having a good mix of banner, interstitial, and rich media advertising. That being said, developers need to think about advertising and how it will fit into the app from day one by building the user experience around ad creatives. Often, developers wait until the very end to add in advertising, making for a poor user experience. Right now, we are starting to see developers create better engagement around the banner ads as a way to drive higher click-through rates (CTRs). ngmoco’s GodFinger app is a good example.
Developers also need to understand that impressions are not the only or even most important drivers of revenue. The mobile advertising ecosystem is still evolving, and CTRs are an important measure of performance right now.
Ken: Related to the previous question, what are some ways for developers to estimate what they might be able to make from advertising in their apps? Is there any market data or tools available to help them have even a broad understanding of whether their app can offer a better return on investment through paid downloads versus advertising?
Krishna: Some good tools include the estimators and calculators that are available via Mobclix. A good rule of thumb is to take 70% of the expected purchase price and compare that to the total estimates that advertising can provide.
Ken: How will the launch of the iPad affect the app economy? How will this impact mobile advertising? What will be the new opportunities for advertising on the iPad?
Krishna: The iPad will provide a new user base for developers to attract and make great apps for. Mobile advertising will continue to grow and innovate, and with the proliferation of the iPad device, it will continue to drive marketers and advertisers to devote more of their budgets on mobile. Advertisers will be able to leverage the iPad’s functionality to drive higher engagement with creative ads.
You will also start to see a shift from mobile ad networks to online ad networks in terms of ad dollars being driven to the iPad since the ad unit sizes correlate more to IAB (http://www.iab.net/) standard sizes.
Mobclix provided the first monetization solution on the iPad and has the largest display inventory across the board on the iPad today. We were able to do this by leveraging our online ad network relationships to help developers start generating revenue when the iPad App Store launched.
Ken: How will the introduction of the iAd impact Mobclix and other mobile advertising options? Does the iAd appeal to all developers and advertisers or to only certain segments?
Krishna: There are certain types of advertisers looking to reach a certain type of app and iAd will bridge that gap. For sure, the iPhone platform advertising market will continue to flourish and have multiple winners. iAd will increase the overall advertising earnings available to iPhone and iPad app developers. At the same time, scaling rich media campaigns across 30 billion impressions will be a monumental challenge. Plus, HTML5 creative adoption will be an ongoing process. At the end of the day, advertisers will continue to focus on cost to acquire new customers and brand equity.
Whether they use a rich media brand buy or a targeted text ad, they will want to answer the same question: how much is it costing me for a new user? As for developers, the best plan of action for them will be to have multiple sources of revenue to maximize the value of their user base.
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