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Creating a Retail Demo for Apple

61 points by wallflower 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago
Does Apple pay for the extra work necessary to prepare these? Did you notice an uptick in sales from being featured in the retail demo?
- sjroot 7y ago
  Why would Apple pay developers for this work? If OP didn’t want to advertise their app this way, Apple could’ve easily asked another dev. Granted, I’m sure the uptick in sales more than compensated OP for their time. If it didn’t, then this HN article probably will. :)
- pandemicsyn 7y ago
  ftfa: >Sales wise it’s been a huge help, as Spend Stack tends to consistently chart since its retail demo release. Before, it tends to dip in and out throughout the month.
e28eta 7y ago
I was on a team that did the same, a long time ago. I’d be interested in a follow up if they ever ask for an update. Or can you push updates to them? I’m also curious how you structured the changes. Does this work exist on a separate branch that you’d need to update/replicate in order to push an update? Or did you merge it to master, and will be living with that added complexity during everyday development? Or something else?
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > Or did you merge it to master, and will be living with that added complexity during everyday development One place I worked, we had a demo version of the product's web interface, and this is how we did it. Maintaining it wasn't fun, and people didn't pay much attention to it so it started to rot. We eventually removed it because marketing switched to something else because it was so bad, but I'm wondering if there's another way.
com2kid 7y ago
During one of my internships I was charged with setting up one of the laptops[1] Bill Gates's demo'd on at CES. The demos were carefully crafted between the ISVs, Microsoft's marketing, and for the real bleeding edge stuff, Microsoft's own developers. What I remember most is how carefully the machines were setup. We'd come up with install scripts and manual installation steps that were designed to ensure maximum stability for what were often beta releases. The entire process was designed to be repeatable again and again with excellent documentation so if something popped up on the showroom floor getting back to a working state was as close to foolproof as possible. [1] Obv. I did other things, but there was a lot of work around prepping for trade show demos.
jordanmorgan10 7y ago
Oh hey! I wrote this. Cool to see it on HN. Happy to answer any other questions if anyone has any.

61 points by wallflower 7y ago

Does Apple pay for the extra work necessary to prepare these? Did you notice an uptick in sales from being featured in the retail demo?

sjroot 7y ago
Why would Apple pay developers for this work? If OP didn’t want to advertise their app this way, Apple could’ve easily asked another dev. Granted, I’m sure the uptick in sales more than compensated OP for their time. If it didn’t, then this HN article probably will. :)
pandemicsyn 7y ago
ftfa: >Sales wise it’s been a huge help, as Spend Stack tends to consistently chart since its retail demo release. Before, it tends to dip in and out throughout the month.

e28eta 7y ago

I was on a team that did the same, a long time ago. I’d be interested in a follow up if they ever ask for an update. Or can you push updates to them? I’m also curious how you structured the changes. Does this work exist on a separate branch that you’d need to update/replicate in order to push an update? Or did you merge it to master, and will be living with that added complexity during everyday development? Or something else?

dehrmann 7y ago
> Or did you merge it to master, and will be living with that added complexity during everyday development One place I worked, we had a demo version of the product's web interface, and this is how we did it. Maintaining it wasn't fun, and people didn't pay much attention to it so it started to rot. We eventually removed it because marketing switched to something else because it was so bad, but I'm wondering if there's another way.

com2kid 7y ago

During one of my internships I was charged with setting up one of the laptops[1] Bill Gates's demo'd on at CES. The demos were carefully crafted between the ISVs, Microsoft's marketing, and for the real bleeding edge stuff, Microsoft's own developers. What I remember most is how carefully the machines were setup. We'd come up with install scripts and manual installation steps that were designed to ensure maximum stability for what were often beta releases. The entire process was designed to be repeatable again and again with excellent documentation so if something popped up on the showroom floor getting back to a working state was as close to foolproof as possible. [1] Obv. I did other things, but there was a lot of work around prepping for trade show demos.

jordanmorgan10 7y ago

Oh hey! I wrote this. Cool to see it on HN. Happy to answer any other questions if anyone has any.