Maybe Facebook is scared Instagram will be a major competitor OR it wants to prevent Google from getting their hands on it

But one thing is for sure, If Instagram wasn’t a “simple” app that does one thing well (sharing photos) and at the same time give a good visual experience……..

It won’t attract 30 million users. Without 30 million users, Facebook wouldn’t have taken a second look at it.

Lessons to learn are

• Be Simple
• Do ONE thing well and
• Have an amazing visual experience

I started the Vault to help you with number 3 because I know you can handle 1 and 2 but admit it, you suck at 3

To help you with that, here is a sneak preview of the next template coming out on the Vault.

A sexy visual theme that gets its inspiration from Pinterest (the next property to be bought for $1 Bn, I predict).

Please leave a comment and Let me know what you think.

So how do they do it? Is it possible to learn how be a design rockstar? Listen to the interview below to find out.

Download the .mp3 file here.

Read the transcript below.

Tope: So, hello everyone. Today, I’m talking to Jen Gordon, founder of Tapptics.com. I’m sure you know Jen. If you don’t, Jen has a lot of training on iOS app design and also on how to design for Android as well.

She has a lot of courses on Udemy. She also has a lot of guest posts on Smashing Magazine and you actually see her a lot on a lot of websites. Mobiletuts is also another example. So she’s versatile. She knows a lot about her stuff. So let’s get into it. I have a lot of questions to ask Jen today. Jen, welcome and thanks for speaking to me today.

Jen Gordon: Thank you.

Tope: Thank you. All right. So tell us a little bit about your background. What did you do before Tapptics?

Jen Gordon: Before Tapptics, I focused on web design. I started at Yahoo! probably about nine years ago and I mainly designed landing pages and ad campaigns for a lot of the clients that were advertising on Yahoo! and so I worked for them as a contract for about four, five years. And whenever the iPhone came out, is when I started transitioning into mobile. I’ve done a little bit of mobile stuff at Yahoo! primarily ads and that sort of thing but when the iPhone came out, I was like, “OK. This is where it’s going to take off. This is where I need to be.”

And I always kind of had it in the back of my mind doing mobile ads at Yahoo! I’m like this is going to take off. This is going to take off.

Tope: So is that what motivated you to start Tapptics then?

Jen Gordon: Yes, exactly. Well, what happened was I started designing apps for myself.

Tope: OK, OK.

Jen Gordon: Just to learn how to do it mainly. In the back of my mind, you’re always thinking, “Hey, you know what? This could be like a big money maker,” or whatever but primarily what came out of it was I just became an expert at how to design for mobile. That was the primary thing that came out of it and so instead of people asking me about my apps, they were asking me about how did I design my apps.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: And yes, so that’s whenever I created – I basically just took all the assets from about two to three years of designing apps and I created a starter kit because whenever you’re designing for a platform for a long time, you kind of have your own templates that you start with.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And so I basically took the templates that I used myself and just beefed them up with all the different elements that I would use really frequently.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And so like in some of the templates, they will have like the copy and paste mockup and I’m like never in a million years would I show a client cut and paste. That’s just like a thing I would just never show and so anyway, that’s how it all got started.

Tope: OK. Sounds good. So the apps that you have, that you developed for yourself, are they still live right now? Are they actually on the App Store …

Jen Gordon: Yes, they are. They are. I just got a phone call from Apple. They’re like, “Hey, your developer license expires in five days,” and I’m like, “Oops, I guess I better go renew that.” So actually this is a good reminder.

Tope: Can you give us a couple of those, like the name of those apps? So maybe …

Jen Gordon: For iPad, search for Doodle Bright. It’s a Lite Brite type application that was done in Cocos2D.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: And there’s another fun one called Celebrity Mashup where you can take your picture and then you basically put your face in the face of a celebrity or a celebrity’s date. Those are my favorites, is whenever Justin Bieber is like standing next to someone.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And you put their face or your face in where their face was and …

Tope: Oh, that’s a nice concept. That’s a nice, interesting concept. So how did you go about developing them? Because I mean you’re a designer, right? So how do you actually – did you develop them yourself as well?

Jen Gordon: No. So what I did was we just – it was pretty interesting back in like 2008 trying to find an iPhone developer but I found a few. I found one in California, one in Canada, one in New York and basically I had experienced contracting development work for the web and so I took a similar approach with mobile just being as detailed with it as I could about the storyboards and specifications and mockups and it worked pretty well.

Tope: Sounds good, sounds good. So the thing is – I mean we know that as developers, right? I mean I’m a developer and I kind of suck at design most of the time, right? And you have a lot of training that teach people how to design. Is it really possible for a developer to really learn how to design apps? Like how can we get the aesthetic – how will I put it? Super powers that designers have.

Jen Gordon: Well, I ask myself that question a lot because it’s one of those things where you have a cursive knowledge no matter what expertise you have and so personally, I believe that it is possible and that there are like techniques and tricks that you can learn to identify what makes a design work or not work. Like we all have like this intuitive sense of what appeals to us and what doesn’t.

Tope: Yes, but we do. The thing is we know what appealed but how to actually put it on to paper.

Jen Gordon: Yes.

Tope: Are there some – how will I put it? Like steps or say step one, do this. Step two, do that. To actually get to putting that good design or that thing that you know will appeal to someone on the …

Jen Gordon: Yes, or let me give you a tangible example. So what I try to do with all trainings is give a before and after Photoshop file.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: So basically, you will have a Photoshop file that starts out with something that needs improvement or something that is completely basic. Like, if you picked up one of the templates online and you just wanted to make it look good. So in the trainings for the game design, the iOS design, I talk through concepting.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And basically it’s just a worksheet and you go through and you define. OK. What are like – are you creating an app that has to do with street art. OK? Well, if you’re doing an app that has to do with street art, then you’re probably not going to have an aesthetic that looks like you make wine.

Tope: OK, OK.

Jen Gordon: And I just talked to some of the basics like that saying, “OK. Well, if you’re doing one on street art, you would definitely consider that you have more flexibility to use a varied color palette.”

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: Whereas if you’re doing an application for a spa, you want to go with colors that are very spa-like.

Tope: OK, OK.

Jen Gordon: And another example is illustrating for example something very simple like a ListView. OK?

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And talking through the – what makes that ListView more or less readable. Like everybody can look at a ListView and say, “Which one is more readable?” if you had two to compare.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: But then talking through. OK. Well, the reason why this one is more readable is because there’s a visual hierarchy where your eye lands on this element first.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And so – and these are all very teachable, learnable things about design that you can duplicate over and over without being even an expert designer.

Tope: Well, that’s good. I mean that’s good news because the thing is, some people will – you might get a template to work off of

Jen Gordon: Yes.

Tope: But a lot of people actually also want to have their custom designs. Something that is really theirs. So I’m guessing these developers – at least some of the people I know having –writing emails also would like to be able to learn how to at least use a little bit of tool to actually get their own design. So it’s good to know that it’s actually teachable. So what tools do you actually use for example with a designer? Where do you start from?

Jen Gordon: Where do I start from? Well, my tool of choice is Photoshop.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: I do some work in Pixelmator just for those who are Pixelmator fans.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: So I’ve got some very, very, very simple things that I’ve done in Pixelmator but typically, everything I do is in Photoshop just because you can’t get away from the fact that an application, if it becomes successful, is going to need to proliferate a variety of devices.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: And so you got to be ready to resize all these images and if they’re not – if they’re all bitmap, you’re going to run into major problems. So …

Tope: Yes, yes. OK.

Jen Gordon: I’ve seen other people who are Illustrator. I’ve seen other people create fantastic interfaces in Illustrator so I’m not against that at all. I think whatever tool you’re most comfortable with.

Tope: Yes. What I’ve also seen is that on your website, you have some videos on how to do mockups. So basically – actually start from a mocked up version of your app. Very low, low def and then if I actually start doing the design – a lot of those developers actually jump into the coding straight away which I guess is not a good thing. So what are the benefits of mocking up your app before you actually start designing or coding or developing for example?

Jen Gordon: Well, I will say for those who like to jump straight into the coding, there’s something to be said for the iterative process and launching fast and getting practical feedback from your audience and that sort of thing with that. But if at a minimum you can sketch some low fidelity mockups before you do that, you’re going to be – you’re going to have more to – well, I will just say you’re going to be in a better place after you get the feedback.

Tope: What I’ve also noticed is actually that what – I’m actually looking on an app right now. It’s going to be like a child-minding app. So for child-minders, people who take care of their kids when they are at work or stuff like that so they have these – a lot of people look at what they have to do and I’m thinking of actually doing an app for that and this is the first that I’ve actually sat down to actually do a mockup before… I’m going to call myself out here….

So it’s the first time I’ve actually sat down to mock up an app and to be fair, I have downloaded the app iMockups for iPad and to be fair, it actually does a lot to actually give you your thought process beforehand. There are a lot of things that you may not actually want to – like how do I say it? That you don’t think about until you actually start doing the mockup and not think of – you forget. So I think it’s a good – how do I put it? It’s a good exercise to actually do before you actually get into the coding. So …

Jen Gordon: Yes, yes, yes. It is.

Jen Gordon: There’s definitely value there because what you’re doing is you’re – like you mentioned, just your thought process. You have something to compare to.

Tope: All right. Cool. So then also a question which I also wanted to ask you because I mean this is part of some of the courses that you have on Tapptics. This was actually very interesting for developers because getting your app developed and launched is the first bit.

The second is actually getting it discovered on the App Store. So you have a course on App Store SEO. Can you give us some tips on how to get your apps or get our apps actually up in the search results? Like what do we need to do or take into consideration to measure – when people search for something related, then our app shows up in that list.

Jen Gordon: Right. Well, this is an area where I did a lot of experimenting because whenever I launched my apps, I found that they were the kind of apps that were very search-worthy meaning they weren’t the kind that had some really obscure name that would never be searched for. Basically I created a whole group of spot apps and they were – well, they are. They’re still in the App Store. They’re designed to help you find like one specific thing. So for example, if you like love ice cream or love pizza or love burgers or love coffee, then each of these apps is designed to help you find that one specific thing, no matter where you are.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: And so for example, I started experimenting with the CoffeeSpot because it was the most popular out of all the spot apps obviously. And so what I found was that there’s a few different techniques first of all that you can use to find out number one, how search-worthy your app may be and then what the combination of words needs to be in the title of your app in order for it to rank over your competitors.

So like if you wanted to see if – like say you have even an idea for an app. Before you even started developing or doing any sketches, you would go in and just start typing in some of the keywords that people might search for to find your app and just see if those keywords are taken. See if there’s – or not taken but see if those words start to show up whenever you’re typing them into your phone, into the search box. If those words start to pop up, that tells you that those are keywords people are searching for in the App Store.

Tope: Are you talking about the auto-complete results …

Jen Gordon: Yes.

Tope: OK. All right. Cool. OK.

Jen Gordon: Yes, correct. That is what you’re looking for is the auto-complete text. Another thing is if there are apps out there that do the exact same thing that you’re thinking of doing. That’s not a bad thing. That’s actually a good thing because if people – if there’s no other app out there, like what you’re thinking, there may be a reason for that.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: It may be that nobody wants it. It may be that somebody created it and nobody wanted it and they pulled it. It’s better to see competition that seems pretty active than no competition at all.

Tope: Yes, yes. I understand.

Jen Gordon: So basically what I did was I pulled Starbucks and coffee finder. Those were the two most popular terms that I could determine from the auto-complete and I put those keywords in the title of – for CoffeeSpot. So another piece that I thought about was whenever you are looking at the results on your phone, it cuts off the title of your app.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: And so it’s very important for those first few words to tell the user what they’re getting. So for example, I knew I wanted to use the words “coffee finder” and also “Starbucks” because people are searching for Starbucks and people are searching for coffee finder. So the title for CoffeeSpot reads, “Coffee finder, the best place to find Starbucks”.

Tope: Oh, OK. There’s no risk of you getting your app rejected because you’re using the trademark name in the title. Isn’t that a problem?

Jen Gordon: Yes, it has never gotten dinged for that.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: Actually, let me see what the current title is. I’ve switched it around quite a bit over time but I will see if I can pull it up and I also believe I used Starbucks in the keywords which …

Tope: OK, OK.

Jen Gordon: They still let things slide as far as that goes. I would say though I still have a great chance of findablity just based on the words “coffee finder”.

Tope: All right. So …

[Crosstalk] [0:18:16]

Jen Gordon: Yes, I wouldn’t always count on getting dinged on the keywords because the thing is, you got to try it and see because if you don’t try it and see if you get dinged …

Tope: Exactly.

Jen Gordon: If you don’t get dinged, that means other people aren’t getting dinged which means those people have a leg up on you.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: Because they tried it and got through.

Tope: Yes, I understand what you mean.

Jen Gordon: So that’s part of the competitive piece of it. It’s like well, you can’t always follow the rules because not everybody else is following the rules.

Tope: Yes. I mean if you – there’s no problem if you get rejected. You can always change it later and then try again. I mean there are no three strikes and you’re out type problems with that. So OK, that’s good. That’s good. So there’s also the question of – so do you – today, you put those keywords in your title and your keyword list, I’m guessing.

Jen Gordon: Exactly, exactly.

Tope: When you submit it.

Jen Gordon: Yes. Yes, yes. I will say I just looked up CoffeeSpot. So it’s actually – the title reads, “Find a coffee shop with CoffeeSpot, Indie or Starbucks.” That’s the exact title. So – and there’s – I think – I can’t remember the character limit but there’s – you can have quite a lot of characters in your title. So …

Tope: Yes, I think – I mean you can actually have a long title. I mean not everything is going to show up but everything will be added to the search …

Jen Gordon: The search.

Tope: Yes, exactly. It’s going to be counted in the search when …

Jen Gordon: Right.

Tope: … people search for that. Yes, yes. I can imagine. All right. All right. OK. Sounds good. What about app monetization, right? So we know we have the options of either making things free or making them paid for or have in-app purchases. What have worked for you? I mean what options do you think?

Jen Gordon: Yes, yes.

Tope: Yes …

Jen Gordon: Well, it really depends on your audience which a lot of times you don’t know exactly who that is until after you’ve launched. That’s the sad part is – I mean unless you’re Xynga who can hire millions of testers before they launch and that sort of thing.

Jen Gordon: But – so basically, I will give you a couple of examples. So the Celebrity Mashup, I launched it for free with in-app purchase.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: Well, it was misleading that it was free because it wasn’t in the games category. You know how you see a lot of games that are free and people kind of expect there’s probably in-app purchase to level up or something.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: Well, in entertainment, people are not expecting in-app purchases.

Tope: Well, yes. I mean for people looking for celebrity type apps, I’m not sure if they also want to pay a lot of money for that as well.

Jen Gordon: Right. Exactly. So – and not only that. The audience skewed much younger than I expected.

Tope: Exactly

Jen Gordon: Because it had like Justin Bieber and a bunch of like teen stars in it and so they were – I mean if you look at the reviews on Celebrity Mashup, people are pissed even though I give away like more than half of all the content and the app is free.

Tope: Yes, yes.

Jen Gordon: But they still just don’t like that. So a lot of it depends on your audience and what are their expectations as far as what they expect to pay, how much they’re willing to pay.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: Part of that is just trial and error. So what I always say as far as pricing goes is develop the app with about two to three different monetization strategies already baked in so that you can quickly shift gears without having to redevelop the app and even more monetization strategies is better. So you might develop the application with – even though this is kind of mentioned but to do a paid version and a free version with ads.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: Even though you don’t even have to do that anymore. Sometimes that’s – going the old school route there is the best way. Even though they could easily buy an in-app purchase and upgrade, some people just don’t – they don’t want to do that.

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: I can’t remember who it was that I read about that did that and found that strategy better than upgrading within the app.

Tope: I think that actually depends on your app as well too, right? Because as we said, it’s better to actually test it.

Jen Gordon: Oh, yes.

Tope: You can actually go upfront. Make it a paid version and then see how people receive it and then also make it free and then put in an in-app purchase. I mean see how people receive that as well. So …

Jen Gordon: Yes, yes, yes. And another resource that I love to read their trials and tests and such is Tap, Tap, Tap on their blog.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: They write all kinds of – they’re very, very transparent about their launches and their sales and like what worked and what didn’t work and …

Tope: Yes.

Jen Gordon: … I love how open they are with their information about that.

Tope: Oh, OK. Is that TapTapTap.com?

Jen Gordon: Yes, yes. TapTapTap.com. They’re in cahoots with MacHeist. So they get to test with a very large – hundreds of thousands of people. They can – are on their mailing list that they get – to get some very meaningful feedback.

Tope: All right. OK. Yes. All right. So thank you for answering the questions today.

Jen Gordon: Sure. Yes.

Tope: Actually come down to actually do the interview. How can people connect with you if they want to, I mean, like find out more about what you do?

Jen Gordon: Of course. Probably the best place to hit me up is on Twitter.

Tope: OK.

Jen Gordon: Just my handle is ItsJenGordon, I-T-S Jen Gordon. Someone already had regular Jen Gordon so I had to say ItsJenGordon.

Tope: All right. OK. All right. So on Twitter. And then your website is Tapptics.com.

Jen Gordon: Tapptics.com, yes. And if they want to reach me there, just hit the contact form and I check that daily.

Tope: Yes, yes. Yes, I’m also going to recommend the guys to actually go to Tapptics.com. It has a lot of resources that I’m sure is going to be very helpful.

You should check out Jen’s training videos as well too. I mean I got one on Udemy. I think she has a lot of similar ones on her website as well and well, all those trainings are actually – well, they are interesting to watch for me because I can also learn a lot of things from – on how to use Photoshop and also they are very interesting and very funny because you put your personality into those videos and I like the way you just crack some couple of jokes into the video and then that always cracks me up. So check out the videos on Tapptics.com. And then thank you very much for talking to me, Jen and have a great day. Thank you very much.

Jen Gordon: Thank you.

Applicasa is a new startup coming into the app server side market with a fresh outlook. You can send push notifications and also manage a database backend for your app. But let’s hear the story from Tzvi himself.

if you have any questions, please leave a comment and I am sure he will be glad to come on here and answer it.

Tope: Please tell us about yourself and your background

Tzvi: The founders, Lior Malenboim and myself, Tzvi Kopetz worked in the online and mobile app development sector for a number of years. Lior is a senior server side developer, planed, developed and designed complex management systems, which parts of them are implemented in Applicasa.

I come from the “client side” development field. I have developed many successful apps and gained much experience in apps and web user interface and design, bringing Applicasa great features to help the app developers.

Tope: Why did you and your co-founder decide to start Applicasa ? What problems are you hoping to solve?

Tzvi: Applicasa helps app developers, lacking in knowledge of server side languages, by providing them a variety set of tools including simple database creation, custom queries as well as a full CMS for management of updates, beta version deployment and push notifications.

Using Applicasa allows developers to develop their apps much faster with no server side worries.

Tope: Tell us a little bit about your service, Applicasa and how it came to be

Tzvi: Applicasa is a server side solution, for app developers. Applicasa’s web based platform allows developers to easily build a complete backend for their apps.

You can find in Applicasa 3 major sections:

• Database
• Push Notifications
• Users.

In the database section, developers can easily create objects to their apps by using our drag and drop user interface, test the data with the web service, insert data by using our content management system and download the SDK that was automatically customized according to the changes in the database.

Developers can also use the users management system and the push notifications system to invite colleagues and customers to send push and update data in the CMS.

What does a developer stand to gain from using Applicasa?

Tzvi: By using Applicasa, a developer doesn’t need to worry about the server “issues”.

A server needs maintenance, it needs growth and scalability capabilities, license and more – we, at Applicasa, takes care of all those issues and let you concentrate on the client side, saving you time, money and frustration when dealing with servers.

Tope: How is it different from other similar services out there? Why should we choose to use Applicasa?

Tzvi: Applicasa is a one stop shop, we are different from others by providing a variety of tools for developer:

Database creation, CMS, Push Notifications, Users management, Ad hoc versions deployment and even a Ticket management system for tracking bugs and tasks.

Applicasa put a lot of effort designing the system in such a way that it will be suitable for all kind of developers, project managers and anyone who has to do with developing apps. Our user interface makes it really easy for developers to develop their app’s backend.

Applicasa’s approach is to let the developer concentrate on the client side development, this why we came with two plans:

• The first one is for developers who work for brands. Here a developer can invite the brand representative to Applicasa so he can make the payments according to the right package. This way the developer doesn’t need to worry about payments.
• The second one is for developers who have an idea for an app and wants to develop it. Here Applicasa offers a free “Start App” program allowing developers to use Applicasa’s backend up to 100K app downloads.

Go here to find out more about Applicasa – The server side for your apps

Blogplex (released last week) was a hit and got lots of downloads. I guess it was because there were multiple colour schemes and everyone could relate to one of the colours.

Enter the Colour Switcher class

I decided to add a ColorSwitcher class (exclusive to Blogplex up until now) to some other templates as well.

The colour switch was implemented by re-exporting all the neccessary images from the Photoshop file in every colour I wanted to add.

Painful and boring!

Boy, was that a bore. Five hours in and I thought.. there must be an easier way.

Basically in Photoshop, all I was changing was the hue and saturation of the images. I knew there must be a way to do that in code.

And after some Googling , I found it. It so happens that Apple released the Core Image SDK in iOS 5.

Thank God for Core Image

Core Image is normally used to add effects to pictures, the type you see in Instagram.

Then I thought…”Why not add some colour effects to the image slices, hmmm?”.

This is how the new and improved Colour Switcher was born. Basically, you can change the colour scheme of your app on the fly if you really wanted to.

Here is the code. This deserves a “Patent”

-(UIImage*)processImageWithName:(NSString*)imageName
{
    UIImage* existingImage = [processedImages objectForKey:imageName];

    if(existingImage)
    {
        return existingImage;
    }

    UIImage* originalImage = [UIImage imageNamed:imageName];
    CIImage *beginImage = [CIImage imageWithData:UIImagePNGRepresentation(originalImage)];

    CIFilter* hueFilter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CIHueAdjust" keysAndValues:kCIInputImageKey, beginImage, @"inputAngle", [NSNumber numberWithFloat:hue], nil];

    CIImage *outputImage = [hueFilter outputImage];

    CIFilter* saturationFilter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CIColorControls" keysAndValues:kCIInputImageKey, outputImage, @"inputSaturation", [NSNumber numberWithFloat:saturation], nil];

    outputImage = [saturationFilter outputImage];

    CIContext *context = [CIContext contextWithOptions:nil];
    CGImageRef cgimg = [context createCGImage:outputImage fromRect:[outputImage extent]];

    UIImage *processed;
    if ( [[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] intValue] >= 4 && [[UIScreen mainScreen] scale] == 2.0 )
    {
        processed = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgimg scale:2.0 orientation:UIImageOrientationUp];
    }
    else
    {
        processed = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgimg];
    }

    CGImageRelease(cgimg);

    [processedImages setObject:processed forKey:imageName];

    return processed;
}

UPDATE:The code has been modified so retina images are resized accordingly

What the code does is to take an image and apply a Hue and Saturation filter to it.

Here are the results.

In your app, you will want to do this once and maybe save the files in your bundle for the sake of efficiency.

Updated templates

The first templates to get the Colour switcher is Podradio, Mapper and Blogplex. Please go and download them if you have access.

Let me know what you think in the comments if this can be improved in any way.

If you don’t know Erica, she wrote the iOS Developer’s Cookbook series, Writer at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) and iOS Developer.

Most of your pitches to review sites get unanswered and that is because of some tiny thing you left out.

She gives you tips on how you can make sure your email doesn’t get ignored so your app gets featured on a review site.

Apps that get featured on TUAW see a lot of downloads, so you don’t want to miss this interview. The pitch process starts around 6 minutes into the interview

Download the interview here

She even gave a sample pitch that will almost guarantee success, if you follow the pattern,

Download the Sample Pitch here

Important: Please leave a comment to thank Erica. That way she may be willing to share more with us in the future.

Transcript

Tope: Hello, everyone. Welcome to this interview today. Today I’m speaking with Erica Sadun. She is a very versatile human being. She’s an author. She’s a developer. She’s a writer. She wrote the iOS 5 Developer Cookbook Series and then she has a couple of live apps live . She’s also a writer for the Mac Rumors website which I’m sure a lot of you know.

So Erica, I mean you’re very versatile. Which of these do you actually like the most?

Erica Sadun: OK. I do have to interrupt and tell you it’s The Unofficial Apple Weblog. I have not written for Mac Rumors. I’m so sorry.

Tope: Oh, sorry.

Erica Sadun: It is close. You got it really close now.

Tope: OK. You know what? Let’s just continue. I’m not going to edit this out and let you everyone know what a noob I am– anyway, so let’s continue. So tell me about what do you like – which of these do you like the most? Which of these hats are you wearing the most?

Erica Sadun: It’s so hard because I’m the sort of person who will put on more than one hat at a time, not literally, just figuratively.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Although literally would be very amusing.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: But figuratively, most of what I do is I’m a fulltime mom.

Tope: OK. OK. Wow, that is – oh my …

Erica Sadun: So that’s the basic reality of my life.

Tope: Let me add that extra hat to it. Fulltime mom, OK. How do you manage all this?

Erica Sadun: I don’t.

Tope: OK. All right.

Erica Sadun: I mean it’s as simple as that. I simply do not. It’s a matter of putting out fires which is why it’s usually very easy to get my attention because my attention span does tend to be limited to about two to three minutes at a time.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: But fortunately, I type very quickly.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: And typing quickly seems to be, I would say, my number one technical skill in terms of what I accomplish in life.

Tope: OK. OK. All right. Nice. So what challenges do you like – let’s say as a developer because a lot of us here are developers. What challenges do you go through when you develop apps? What challenges would you see?

Erica Sadun: Mostly when it comes to both writing and app development, there’s this idea in your head and you know that idea is – two to three minutes down the line, it’s going away. Remember that timeline I talked about.

Tope: Yes, yes.

Erica Sadun: And it’s a matter of getting it out of your head into either Xcode or a text editor so that you can move on with life.

Tope: OK, OK.

Erica Sadun: Which is why the typing speed really matters.

Tope: So you mean this is at the idea stage. You mean like when you have an idea for an app, while you’re actually developing the app as well.

Erica Sadun: Really most of my apps on App Store in the cookbook and so forth, I would say have a range of under half an hour between idea to finishing debugging.

Tope: OK. OK. OK.

Erica Sadun: They’re very short. They’re very centered. They’re one big idea. I rarely have time to really sit out and expand it and when I do have that time, it’s really a pleasure. There are a few apps I have on App Store that I’ve really been able to do design over a longer period of time. That would be Draw and Whiteboard.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: But for the most part, due to my time constraints, what I put up is usually a single concept and that’s why the cookbook itself is tied into this notion of here’s a single concept that you can then appropriate and use in your own apps. So they have to be focused.

Tope: So talking about the cookbook, like taking on kind of the books we have, as you said, you have all these single concepts. How would you say is the best way to consume the book? Do you have to go from front to back or is it possible to just pick out what to read? Yes, go ahead.

Erica Sadun: In its current incarnation, it’s kind of a Frankenbook.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: The first four chapters are my editor’s desire to make the book readable in normal format.

Tope: All right.

Erica Sadun: So the first four chapters are really the tutorial chapters. They go over Xcode. They go over Objective-C and over Interface Builder and the idea is that you can actually read through those. There are examples and walkthroughs and so forth. Those are the traditional chapters and they were put there in order to have a classroom context for the book.

Tope: Yes, yes.

Erica Sadun: But most people who buy the book, who use the book, it’s a reference book.

Tope: Yes, yes. That’s what I found out as well too. You can easily basically flip through to a chapter and then find out exactly what you want. The good thing about it is you also have the code on GitHub. That’s really, really very interesting because you can easily pull it down, take on the code and then use it immediately as you wish. That’s great. That’s good stuff.

Erica Sadun: My vision for the book was always help people get past their current problem.

Tope: Yes. OK, OK.

Erica Sadun: Not necessarily have them figure out what problems they have but I need to do this. I can’t figure out how to do it. I can spend a billion hours trying to figure it out myself or I can just look it up in the book. Oh, yes. That’s how you do it. Use it and buy it to get on with the rest of their work.

Tope: Oh, nice, nice. So talking about the apps that you’ve made, a lot of questions I obviously get from developers asking me is how to get the word out about the applications. So what tips would you give developers and marketing of promoting the applications?

Erica Sadun: It’s really hard to market well. It is so hard and assuming you don’t have a built-in bully pulpit, what you’ve got to do is then go to websites and pitch your app and you want to go to all the major tech and Apple websites and you want to basically tell them why your app is exciting and people do this very poorly.

The biggest problem when picking your app is that you may have spent months, maybe even a year developing this thing. You love it. You have put your heart into it. You have put your soul into it and then you shoot an email off to a website like mine, like The Unofficial Apple Weblog and your email reads, “Please review my app.”

Now, when I get 5000 “Please review my app” emails, you know what’s going to happen. Yours will not stand out. There is a skill.

Tope: So how do you make it stand out? What subject line would make you click and open that email?

Erica Sadun: Name it, name your app. Tell me what your app name is. Put that into the subject line. Tell me what it does and why I should care and that’s all within about 80 characters.

Tope: Yes. How do you fit all that into 80 characters?

Erica Sadun: OK. Give me the name of an app.

Tope: OK. I have an app called Time Boss.

Erica Sadun: What does it do?

Tope: It tracks time. You can track – as a freelancer, you can track your time, track your hours, send invoices basically.

Erica Sadun: OK. So you have a time tracker app.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: What makes it pop? What differentiates it?

Tope: The design and the simplicity. A lot of other apps out there are very cumbersome and they look very ugly. Mine, I’m very proud to say looks good. Anyway, go ahead.

Erica Sadun: Time tracker app. What’s the name again?

Tope: Time Boss.

Erica Sadun: Time tracker app Time Boss simplifies billing for busy contractors.

Tope: So I’m getting where you’re going at. So basically in the subject line, say what the benefit of your app is. I mean what people will start to benefit from using your app.

Erica Sadun: You’ve got to have one benefit. You have to have one point, one pitch point, something that makes your app stand apart from all other apps. In your case, it’s the simplicity of doing the billing or it’s the simplicity of doing whatever, the tracking.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: But you must find that one distinguishing point and that’s what has to sell your app.

Tope: OK. All right.

Erica Sadun: And it must sell it in the subject line and if you’re not doing that, you’re not selling your app properly because the entire reason you send a pitch letter is to grab somebody’s eye and it’s that thing that sets it apart, that thing that’s novel, better, exciting. Something about that app that makes it worthwhile for you to have invested all of your time in building it, that’s what you have to communicate, that excitement.

Tope: Yes. All right. So I’m guessing all this has to start from the pre-concept phase, right? We need to have that extra edge, that unique point, unique selling point for your app so that you can …

Erica Sadun: Absolutely. Because why build something which is exactly the same as what’s out there?

Erica Sadun: My app is different because …

Tope: Because, yes.

Erica Sadun: And if you can’t answer that question, then you should not be spending your time on that app.

Tope: OK. So let’s say I have a nice subject line. It has made you click, made you read it but I mean at that point …

Erica Sadun: Right. And you want to know what comes next.

Tope: No, no. Yes. Well, I mean the email is OK. You read it and you liked it and maybe you have a thousand other emails to answer then you forget about it. OK? Now comes the time for me to remind you. How is the best way to remind someone without not sounding like …

Erica Sadun: I have bad news for you. The answer is if you didn’t sell it in your first letter, you’ve lost. You’ve lost. However, you want to make sure in your first letter, in that very first pitch, that you have absolutely everything there that we need. So fortunately, I happen to be writing a book about exactly that with Steve Sande.

Tope: Oh, really? That’s nice. What’s the book called, if you don’t mind?

Erica Sadun: We’re calling it Pitch Perfect right now.

Tope: Nice.

Erica Sadun: Yes, I know. It just happens that we’ve been putting this together for a while. So we talked about the motivating subject line, right?

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Because remember, subject lines are the elevator pitches of blogging.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Do you know what an elevator pitch is?

Tope: Yes, the 15-second pitch basically.

Erica Sadun: Right.

Tope: Before the doors open and they would have to go somewhere.

Erica Sadun: So you have to motivate and sell the app in 80 characters or less. OK? So that’s the subject line. Then here’s what you need to give us. Ready?

Tope: Yes, go ahead.

Erica Sadun: The name of the app. Do you know how many times people ask us to review the app and don’t bother to tell us what the name is?

Tope: Really? I mean people actually forget to put the name?

Erica Sadun: Yes. They say, “I have got a great video app. Would you please review it?” and that’s their entire pitch.

Tope: Yes. Let’s forget about those guys. Anyway, let’s go back to the ones …

Erica Sadun: OK.

Tope: All right.

Erica Sadun: The name and it has to be the proper name. This is the name that is used on the App Store whether it’s the Mac App Store or the iOS App Store or if you’re selling it through Amazon or whatever. We need the full name with a proper spelling, proper capitalization and all that because that’s what we will use for the write-up. That’s what we will use on Google to search for it because we do searches.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: And so name of it. Then price. You wouldn’t believe how many people forget to tell us how much it costs.

Tope: How much it costs. All right. OK.

Erica Sadun: Because that’s a big part of the app story too. If you’re selling something for $39.99 versus selling something for 99 cents, that’s telling us a lot about the app.

Tope: OK, OK. All right.

Erica Sadun: Always include two links. OK?

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Link number one is to your product page. That is your page. It’s the page that you built on your website that tells about the app, might provide facts and support and things like that. But you also want to include the link to the iTunes product page.

Tope: All right.

Erica Sadun: So we want both. Make sure you include both of those in your pitch. Screenshots, OK? Now, some people send us no screenshots and some people send us 20. Both are wrong. OK? What you want is one, maybe two, really good screenshots and no more than that.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Remember, bloggers have the attention span of a flea. You can’t assume that we’re going to look through to every screenshot. One screenshot tells us a story. Twenty screenshots make us go into la-la land.

Tope: Yes, I understand. Definitely. OK.

Erica Sadun: So you’re working within the human limitations of the blogger and if you assume that you’re writing to a kindergartener, you’re probably in the right realm of who you’re writing to.

Tope: So basically making it as simple as possible.

Erica Sadun: Yes.

Tope: All right.

Erica Sadun: Video. Always, always, always – maybe I should emphasize this a little bit more but always include a video.

Tope: Some people would say a video – you’re not going to sit down for five minutes and watch every video they send to you, right?

Erica Sadun: Oh, we don’t. We don’t. Video should be no longer than 30 seconds to one minute long. We do not care if it’s well done. It does not have to be public. We just want to see what the app is about without having to download it, without having to try it out. Thirty seconds plus the screen shot, it tells us the story.

Tope: Oh, now I understand. So it’s not really about demoing the app. It’s about telling the story and for you, it’s easier to grab. Is it a story worth telling on your blog, right? Basically.

Erica Sadun: I mean yes, basically.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: But if you look at a game, what’s the game play? If you got us an app that is doing time tracking, show us how easy it is.

Tope: Yes, yes, definitely.

Erica Sadun: You don’t have to send the videos. Just a simple link. Put it on YouTube. Make it private. You know how with YouTube you can set it up so only people you send the URL to can see it?

Tope: Yes, exactly.

Erica Sadun: Do that.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: We do not need professional, well-lit or well-composed videos. We do not care. We just want to see it and we just want to be able to initially assess the app.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: And this is what tells us, “Is this app worth downloading? Is it worth testing further?” I will tell you once again, all the people who come to us and they say, “Oh, we will have the video in a week. Do you mind waiting?” you have so lost the story there.

Tope: Yes. I guess that does not cater to the attention span of a flea, as you said it.

Erica Sadun: Exactly. Bingo.

Tope: Yes, I understand what you mean. So basically have everything in hand in one picture.

Erica Sadun: In one picture. Then we need a description. OK?

Tope: Description. All right.

Erica Sadun: We want a concise, one-paragraph description of your app. And when I say a paragraph, I mean a concise paragraph, not a paragraph that runs on for a page and a half.

Tope: OK. OK.

Erica Sadun: OK. In your paragraph, this is what you got to do. You have to say what is your app, who your audience is. Oh my gosh, that is so important. We want to know who the app is for. Please, please, please tell us.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: Tell us how your app sets itself apart from the crowd. What functionality powers your app? What features differentiate it? Because without that spark, without that differentiation – and again, this reflects what you’ve already said in the summary, in the subject line. Without explaining that, we don’t care. We get 50, 60, 70 pitches in an hour in a morning.

Tope: Wow. That’s …

Erica Sadun: What’s going to set you apart? What’s going to make your app pop? Well, we’re looking for things that are different from what’s out there. We’re looking for things that do something that everybody else does but does it better or we’re looking for something that’s newer and funner. We’re looking for something that just sounds like it’s an app that we ourselves would want to buy.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: If you can’t describe that though a quick paragraph, maybe a short bulleted feature list, then why are you even selling on App Store to begin with?

Tope: Yes, definitely.

Erica Sadun: And then here’s the really good bit. Contact information. If you give us an email and we reply to it and it bounces, don’t use fake emails when you’re pitching your app.

Tope: Do people do that?

Erica Sadun: I don’t know why people do this. Yes.

Tope: Why would someone use a fake email?

Erica Sadun: You know, we have gotten things from NoOne@Sorry.com and I tell you, if you use a return address of NoOne@Sorry.com, we’re going to forward it to NotGoingToBe@Reviewed.com.

Tope: Yes, that’s not going to work out. That’s not going to work out.

Erica Sadun: No. The rule is no valid email, no review. But please also include Skype information, URLs, Twitter IDs, any way we could get in contact with you. Do you know how many times people are reading about an app that they use – not necessarily the developer but somebody uses an app. They come to us. They say, “Oh my gosh, you got to try this app.” We go to their webpage. Now, imagine you’re a blogger with that three-second attention span. You go to that webpage. And what is the first thing you look for? It’s “contact us”, right?

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: And it’s not there.

Tope: OK. So …

Erica Sadun: What do you think the chances are that that thing is going to get reviewed? If we can’t go out and figure out how to get a copy of the thing, you’re out of luck. Make sure you have “contact us” on your website. Make sure, make sure, make sure. And you know what? We much prefer real email addresses over contact forms.

Tope: OK. Yes.

Erica Sadun: You know the contact form thing on webpages?

Tope: Yes, yes, yes.

Erica Sadun: Nobody ever really believes it’s going to get anywhere.

Tope: Yes, because I mean it probably goes to like an inbox that people don’t normally check, right?

Erica Sadun: Exactly.

Tope: Yes. OK. I mean I want to go quickly recap what you just told me. Is there more?

Erica Sadun: Oh, there are tons more but you can go ahead and recap because I could go on for like hours on this stuff.

Tope: I mean we always get these ideas that people say that you shouldn’t send long emails because if you send long emails, people don’t tend to respond immediately. So now, what you told me can easily fill a couple of pages. Is that OK or do we just add everything in an attachment for example or what’s the best way to package all this information?

Because now I have the name, the price; two links, one to the product page, one to the iTunes product; screenshots, one or two; videos, 30 seconds to one minute; a description, one paragraph of what the app is about; who the audience is and some contact information, Skype information as well. So what is the best way to do that?

Erica Sadun: I would say the thing should run one printed page. Basically if you were printing it out, if you were printing out a press release, it takes a lot pretty much the whole page.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: But it should be well-structured. If you take a look in the Skype screen, I actually pasted you a sample pitch which covers everything.

Tope: OK. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen that. Is this public information? Can I give this to people on the website as well? So they can have like something to work off of.

Erica Sadun: Sure, sure.

Tope: Great, great. That’s good. That’s good. So this is definitely something that I’m sure people would like to get. Well, that’s good. That’s good information.

Erica Sadun: But if you take a look at the sample I sent, you will see that there’s a short subject. There’s a one-paragraph intro. There are a couple of bullet points.

Tope: Yes.

Erica Sadun: And it covers all the things that I mentioned too. Here’s a link to iTunes. Here’s a link to the website. Here’s a link to video and there’s not much more to it. It sounds like a lot but it really does condense down.

Tope: Yes, you’re right. Like a short blog post, a short press release basically and it should be scannable as well. I see that. Well, that’s good. That’s good. OK. I’m going to add this to the resources at the end of this post as well.

Erica Sadun: OK.

Tope: When is the book coming out? Because I’m sure a lot of people are going to want to …

Erica Sadun: That you’re going to have to bug Steve Sande about because it’s basically in his lap right now and he has just been swamped. So the reason it hasn’t come out yet is because he has to deal with that.

Tope: All right. But I’m sure when it does come out, we will all know about it. I mean I am subscribed to your feed on The Unofficial Apple Weblog so I’m sure if it comes out, that will be there.

Erica Sadun: Possibly. We’ll definitely tweet about it.

Tope: OK. All right. Then we will find out about it.

Erica Sadun: He’s Steven Sande and I’m Erica Sadun.

Tope: Yes. OK, on Twitter.

Erica Sadun: On Twitter.

Tope: I’ll add that as well. I have a couple more questions but I’m not sure how we’re doing on time. Do you have a couple more minutes?

Erica Sadun: I’m totally relaxed.

Tope: Nice. That’s good. So that’s about pitching the app now. So now, let’s talk about some beginner developers now. So if someone wants to start to learn how to develop apps, what would you say is the best way to start? Like tutorials, websites, to go to – what is the best way to actually go into developing apps?

Erica Sadun: The first thing is you have to come in with some language skills and some development skills.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: It’s as simple as that. If you don’t know how to program, you need to go out and take some classes in basic programming and there are excellent ones given at community colleges locally, plus there’s iTunes U that will help with that. There are lots of resources.

Tope: OK, OK.

Erica Sadun: So before you get to actual development, you do need to have that as your basic skill set.

Tope: Yes, the basics. All right.

Erica Sadun: Then once you know how to program, you can usually transition from most languages into Objective-C pretty quickly because you already understand things like object-oriented issues. You already understand things like iteration and conditionality and what is storage and so forth. If you have those basics, going into Objective-C, not a huge deal.

Tope: OK.

Erica Sadun: And then the whole point of my cookbook is to give you completely functional working things that you can then adapt.

Tope: OK, OK.

Erica Sadun: So my idea there was that, if you have the skills to develop, then you could take something that works and is functional and tweak it until it becomes what you need it to be and it becomes a learning process there as well.

Tope: OK, OK. All right. That’s good. So when we actually pick up stuff to develop, it’s best to go with examples, you would say or…

Erica Sadun: Well, I think – which is why I work in that arena. People have different learning styles but I think for many developers, for many people who just think in terms of programmatic units, I think my approach really has worked well for them.

Tope: Yes, I think so as well because when you see something working and you find out how it works under the covers, I think that’s a good way to learn. That’s a good way to learn.

Erica Sadun: Plus because I focus on one idea at a time, if you need to learn how to do a table, you just learn how to do the table. If you need to learn how to do a text field, you just learn how to do the text field and then I trust you yourself know how to blend those things together.

Tope: Exactly. Exactly. All right. That’s good. That’s good. So one last question I have now is, “This big brouhaha going on about people gaming the system with paid downloads and stuff, what do you have to say about that?”

Erica Sadun: We live in a world that is not perfect and were it perfect, it would be far less interesting.

Tope: Basically, I mean is there a way for honest developers like us?

Erica Sadun: OK. You have kind of faded out so I didn’t hear most of that question.

Tope: I meant, is there like – your question was honest [Phonetic] developers, right? So what chance do they have to succeed in the App Store?

Erica Sadun: It is hard to be an honest [0:26:07] [Phonetic] developer and make a go out of it but it’s not impossible. If your app is clever and noteworthy and eye-catching and ear-catching, it will find itself an audience.

Tope: All right …

Erica Sadun: It’s not easy but good apps, exciting apps, they find their audience and they always will.

Tope: That’s good to know. That’s a lot of encouragement for people out there. So I think that’s a good way to end this. Thank you very much, Erica, for speaking to me.

Erica Sadun: Thank you for giving me a platform to chat.

Tope: My pleasure. Where can people find you? Where is the best place to connect with you?

Erica Sadun: Well, Twitter is great. I’m Erica Sadun at Twitter. I’m Erica Sadun at Google+ because this is exactly how imaginative I get. But if you want to keep on track of what I’m up to, the best place to tune into is The Unofficial Apple Weblog. That’s TUAW. That would be tango, unicorn, alpha …

Tope: No, we can’t say alpha. Apple …

Erica Sadun: Whiskey?

Tope: Apple, whiskey.

Erica Sadun: Apple, whiskey.

Tope: Right.

[Laughter]

Erica Sadun: I’m pretty sure U is not unicorn either.

Tope: I mean it’s alpha definitely but I mean I’m just thinking it has to be Apple because of the context. Anyway, forget about it.

Erica Sadun: Yes. But what is U?

Tope: Uniform. I think it’s uniform.

Erica Sadun: Is it uniform? OK.

Tope: I don’t know.

Erica Sadun: So it would be tango, uniform, Apple …

Tope: Whiskey.

Erica Sadun: … whiskey.

Tope: Thank you very much, Erica, and it was nice to talk to you. [0:27:48]

The quick answer is Yes and No.

No, because you cannot directly promote an app profitably at the moment. Not at the cost per click rates that you get on Facebook today. The lowest you can hope to pay for most demographics is about 0.40cents. To promote a $1.99 app, you will need to get about 1 download in 5 to break even., that is a 20% conversion rate!

How to promote an app strategically on Facebook

The best way to promote on Facebook is to send the traffic to a Facebook page. When users like a Facebook page, you can then continue to market to them for free.

It is not as straightforward as I make it sound but such is the nature of the App store. You need a solid business strategy here, no time for hobbyists.

Anyway, back to the Facebook tactic. Ideally your app should have a target audience. Let’s use “New Moms” as an example. Your Facebook page should not promote your app directly.

It should talk about topics that binds “New Moms” together. Facebook is a social network, and things need to be social for any strategy to work.

Check out this Facebook page, Being Mommy. At first glance it doesn’t look like it promotes any product right? Wrong, they have a community of moms that the owners engage in conversation about things that are dear to their heart.

Now that they have the attention of these moms, they can now insert information about apps that are relevant to them.

Normally you wouldn’t do this for just one app, you may start with one app but if you as smart, you will make apps that tend to the same demographic. This way, you will spend even less and less on marketing because you have that audience.

But before I go crazy making this thing, I want to make sure you actually want it (so I don’t feel like an idiot). More details near the bottom of the article.]

[Note #2: In case you’re wondering, this post is a follow up to this one where I got over 20 comments that has stopped me from totally going in the wrong direction].

I’m Thinking About Making A Couple of Free Themes For You

These themes will be complete Vault-standard themes. They will even be better than the themes on the Vault because they will incorporate your feedback.

Basically, we shall make this themes together and I will give it away to you for free to use in your apps. App Design Vault is badly in need of free themes anyway.

The free “Made By You” themes will include the same files you expect from the Vault.

• Photoshop .PSD file with all the features we decide to include
• An XCode iOS 5 project with all the features implemented.
• As a bonus, I may make a video screencast to show you how I put the XCode project together.

Here’s The Catch

Because I get deeply engrossed in the projects I do, I can already see myself going all out and making this a bigger package than you expect it to be…

I want to to be sure enough people want it. I will ask you for what features you want, I implement it, you give your feedback, it gets improved and before you know it….

We have a killer theme…

So Here’s What I Want You To Do

UPDATE: The survey is now closed. Thanks to all the 265 responders!

If you are interested, please fill out this quick survey and let me know what you will like to see in the free theme.

If I get enough responses, then I will make them. If no one wants it, then no worries.

NOTE: As a thank you gesture, I will send the themes to only those that respond to the survey

This is a principle that, like it or not, can either make your app a total success or an utter failure in the app store. Why is this so?

Circling back to the 80-20 principle, lots of companies have verified the validity of the priinciple. An example is Microsoft who discovered that 80% of crashes were eliminated by fixing 20% of the most reported bugs

But in this case, I am not talking about fixing bugs in your application. Rather, I want to explain how focusing your time on activities that matter the least will make your app destined to fail.

What are these activities? Read on

Focusing on Development and Coding will make your app fail

Developing features and writing code is the activity that 80% of developers engage in but only constitutes to 20% of the app’s success. What! To a developer, that is blasphemy. I can already see tons of people with ropes ready to hang me.

As a developer myself, I struggled to come to terms with this too. I believed in writing the best app ever and of course a great app will sell itself, for sure. Well, we all know that is not true.

A tribute to this philosophy lies in the thousands of apps that have great functionality but are buried in the deepest of the deep positions in the App store rankings. Many developers will relate to the pain of seeing a really inferior app in their category sitting in the Top 100 and making tons of money in the App store.

So what is the activity that will give your app an 80% chance of success?

Focusing on Marketing your App will make it succeed

In this day and age where you have almost half a million apps to compete with, the Gold rush is officially over. Only useful apps with a careful and well-thought out marketing strategy will succeed.

The irony of this point is that most of us developers agree that marketing your app is important but all we do about it ends there. we simply agree but do nothing about it or at best do it half-heartedly.

The reason for the half-hearted approach to marketing is mostly because it doesn’t fall in our area of expertise. You want to spend your time writing code and not trying to generate Facebook fans or begging App review sites to review your app.

Sure, focusing on functionality and more features will make you keep your customers and increase word of mouth but if you have no customers in the first place, there is no one to tell their friends about your app. You need to get attention to your app and the harsh reality is that spending time marketing your app will get you that attention.

Two Low Hanging Fruits You Can Pluck Today

The good news is that marketing does not need to be that hard or painful. You can take a lesson from the book of the great company Apple by applying great design to your app. Apple is known for beautiful use interfaces that people love to interact with. This is one form of implicit marketing that is easy to implement and goes a long way in making your app stand out from the wannabee apps in your category.

Here are two quick tips.

• Get a magnetic icon and app title. This is the first encounter a prospect has with your app whether it be on the App Store or in a review post. Make it count, make it magnetic
• Invest in great app design. Your screenshots go a long way in making me decide if I want your app on my iPhone or iPad. After I install your app, the way your app makes me feel (Warm and Fuzzy or Ugh!) will determine if I open it up again or not.

A quote from Teehan+Lax, designers of the iPhone GUI PSD explains why

“You don’t notice this level of detail on a micro level, but you’re aware of it on a macro one. When you pick up your phone to send a tweet or check an email you’re seeing hundreds of these details a second. Those details add up to make the experience what it is” – Teehan

It all needs a mindset change

You need to decide. What are you? A business or a hobbyist.

If you are a hobbyist, like what most indie developers actually are (but will not accept), then spend your time coding and adding features that you think your users may need. Who knows you may be the one in a million that hits the jackpot.

If you are in a business, think like one. As an indie developer, you have limited resources and you must allocate them to the activities that have the most effect on your app’s success.

Sorry if this pill is hard to swallow but that is why it is called medicine. If a pill will heal my ailment, I will take it any day.

Well . . . today is going to be a bit different

I want to open up a little bit and share something more personal.

Did you know I quit my job to start App Design Vault.?

I used to be a C# .NET programmer before this starting App Design Vault. I have worked in large companies like Philips and small companies as well. But somehow, I knew I did not fit in.

My bosses always loved me and the job I did but I knew there was something better out there. Something better than spending 8 hours of my day generating revenue for someone else.

Anyway, I quit in November 2011 and started App Design Vault. That is basically the best thing that has happened to me since then.

• Getting comments about the themes on the Vault
• Talking with lots of you via email
• Seeing Apps live in the App store using Vault themes.

I never thought in a million years thought that it was going to have such an impact so soon.

Every time one of you send me an email with your app using one of my themes in the App store, I puts a massive smile on my face.

And not just iOS apps, Android apps as well!. You rock!.

It hasn’t been the smoothest road though…

I have a 1-year old son that loves jumping on me and pressing the sleep button on my laptop while I am using it

Anyway, enough of my life already. Let’s talk about you

This year is all about you and what you want

Since I have made the Vault my life’s mission, I have to make sure you are happy with what it offers.

Anything I do in the business should be about you and how to get you the results you want.

Here is one request a lot of you have made that I have been holding back on

I get an email every other day about this specific request, but I have been holding back because it is going to mean sharing more of me and my business than I have done.

For some months now, I’ve been asked by lots of people to implement custom features for your apps.

Themes like…

• Wedding Invitation themes
• Blog App themes
• Movie Trailer themes

and Custom features like…

• Hidden view in the Path and Facebook app
• Sliding carousel

UPDATE: From the comments below, it seems a there is less demand for custom controls but more demand for choosing what kind of templates are launched on the Vault.

I can see you want me to help you take your apps and transform it into a stunning looking app that you will be proud of.

I am looking for a group of people that are ready to shape the future of the Vault. To give feedback on what kind of themes will be released next on the Vault.

It’s about time I start listening to you

The most popular theme from the Vault is the Foody theme, and this is one of the first themes that was released.

It came from a request I had about making an app that looked like the Apple “Find My Friends” app.

If I hadn’t listened, the Vault may not be where it is today.

So I have to get off my stubborn butt and start listening

It would give me an insight into what you want to see in your app. Instead of guessing what kind of features you want to see in future themes, I will be able to find out from you exactly what should be included.

So I’m Seriously Considering Doing This

I am seriously considering taking some of your feedback and making specific themes out of what I can glean from them.

I’m excited about sitting down with you to make your app look stunning, but I’ve been around long enough to know that my small projects quickly get out of hand and turn into big ones.

If I Do This, It Will Be A LOT Of Work, so…

Please let me know if you are interested

So I only want to do this if there’s enough interest.

I want to know . . .

• What do you think?
• Should I do this?
• Would you be interested?

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

Your feedback and thoughts are absolutely the fuel that keeps me going
And I don’t want to even think about doing this unless there’s enough potential interest.

It would mean a lot to me, and I’ll do my best to respond to each and every comment.

Here is how to change that.

 UIImage* icon1 = [UIImage imageNamed:@"icon1.png"];
 UITabBarItem *updatesItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Label 1" image:icon1 tag:0];

 [updatesItem setFinishedSelectedImage:icon1 withFinishedUnselectedImage:icon1];

 [navigationController setTabBarItem:updatesItem];

What this does is to make sure both the selected and unselected images are set to the same image. You can change it to two different images if you wish.