7 ms·

Instant splash pages for iOS apps

158 points by giladvdn 14y ago

sync 14y ago
Great looking landing page, but whenever I choose an app and click 'Smorify', nothing happens.
- RandallBrown 14y ago
  It only seems to work in Chrome.
  - shlomiatar 14y ago
    Yeah, Apparently, when you try to submit a form that was not added to the body, FF and IE will just silently fail, while Chrome deals with it like a champ. That's what you get with last-minute optimizations :/ We're in the process of deploying a fix.
    - giladvdn 14y ago
      .... and fixed :)
heykoo 14y ago
I was struggling with designing a page for my appstore app. This will certainly come in handy! FYI: Just noticed you have a bit of duplicate markup in your head - the dns-prefetch links are duplicated
faramarz 14y ago
Looks very well done. Although, I wonder how exciting or lucrative this market really is when Venture backed App.net abandoned it in pursuit of other ideas
- snprbob86 14y ago
  Smore is much more than just Mobile Apps: http://www.smore.com/ http://www.smore.com/
  - chefsurfing 14y ago
    This is an excellent distribution hack! By choosing this vertical they can gain traction among early adopters and 'digital influencers'. Way to go Smore! Bravo! Whoever in/out of your company that came up with the idea to focus on this vertical... do what that guy/gal says for a while.
RandallBrown 14y ago
Tried it in Firefox and IE. It doesn't work at all. It does work in Chrome. This is really well done. It's easier to use than App.net and the pages look a little nicer. Well done.
- giladvdn 14y ago
  Fixed! Thanks for the feedback Randall!!
  - michaelt 14y ago
    The "Why Smore? See why Smore is perfect for your app." button doesn't work on Firefox - does in Chrome though. Details: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1 ID:20120714012003
dh 14y ago
Really love this concept, not sure it is a business that makes much money but something the market needs for sure and will help app developers. I might even use it myself
gurgeous 14y ago
This works great. Beautiful. Here's mine: http://www.smore.com/cuhv-dwellable-vacation-rentals http://www.smore.com/cuhv-dwellable-vacation-rentals
- xmmx 14y ago
  Will it let you export html/css or are you confined to their website?
  - megablast 14y ago
    Well, there is always save page as.
samirparikh 14y ago
I've been looking for something like this ! I'm about to launch an app and need a splash page. This looks like the perfect way to do it.
manmal 14y ago
I was wondering what "splash page" means in this context.. I thought this app generates splash screens which are displayed when a mobile app starts up (not a good thing anyway). I would rather call it "presentation page" or "virtual flyer".
- DenisM 14y ago
  "Landing page" or "companion web page" would be even better, IMHO.
- bybjorn 14y ago
  I was thinking the same .. a splash page while the app starts
- bonjourmr 14y ago
  I thought iOS standards required an initial splash page? Or am I confusing this with a required loading page.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    All iOS apps require a splash image (otherwise it's just a black screen while it spins up), but Apple strongly discourages using actual splash screens for this purpose: it's a very jarring experience, and also magnifies the apparent time between launch and ready states. Instead the official recommendation is to make the splash image a stripped down version of your app's home screen - for an address book, this would be the main screen without any data, for example. This gives the app a more immediate feel, and also effectively hides a lot of the load time, since there is also no visible transition between the loading and ready states. Of course, this is far from the reality of things - a lot of apps use splash screens for a variety of reasons, and most do not gracefully transition between splash and ready states (e.g., that empty address book splash screenshot will just magically pop into a ready view, instead of animating into said state).
FredBrach 14y ago
Awesome. Do you plan something for printing? An automatically generated psd or something? Btw, I've also misunderstood first "splash" and thought it was for splash screens at the startup of an app. Good luck.
pkamb 14y ago
Is a version for Mac apps in the pipeline?
- diesellaws 14y ago
  If needed, we have Mac app support here: http://kickfolio.com http://kickfolio.com
hackerpolicy 14y ago
Does anyone know a similar app for Android landing pages?
ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
The background image is TOO distracting. It's way too saturated and colorful and just clashes and takes away from the screenshot and call to action button. That's the biggest problem with using big background images. Also, you also have severe alignment problems. See http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-of-tap11-com/ http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-o... The width of the header, the body, and the footer are all different.
escoz 14y ago
I liked it, actually. Here's the two I made for my apps: http://www.smore.com/s06g http://www.smore.com/s06g and http://smore.com/r2w1 http://smore.com/r2w1 Now if only they allowed me to pay a few bucks a month to remove all the smore links on top, i would probably use it as the main landing page for my sites.
mickrobk 14y ago
I love the idea, but it feels too much like a tech demo versus something I can actually use. The showstoppers that stood out to me are: - "Try it now for free" is great for showing me the value prop but ultimately I want to see a pricing sheet. I'm not willing to invest a lot time into what I see as the quick/cheap solution (compared to a custom design) for my app's website without knowing A: how much it's going to cost and B: what the limitations are. I can see that smore is in beta so maybe you just don't want to scare people off with unfinalized pricing -- for me at least no price is much scarier. - Building the page off of the app store content is a great idea. But I need a website before I launch my app. If you support that maybe you could do a better job showing me that as an option from the start. (I'd still like to use the same content as for iTunes connect) I want to be able to focus on the app I'm working on and not the web landing page - but for me the stuff missing is too important for this to be an option yet. I do like the direction.
ja27 14y ago
I know it's pretty universally ignored, but Apple's guidelines are that you should not use the white device frames for app marketing.
- DrJokepu 14y ago
  This is about creating a web page for your app, not the launch image.
  - aaronbrethorst 14y ago
    That's what ja27 is referring to. http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-to-stop-using-white-iphone-images/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-to-s...
arank 14y ago
looks awesome, we are working on something in similar lines - tapfame.com, our work starts after you create your portfolio - to get you new freelance gigs.
pgrote 14y ago
There is a misspelling in their example page in the video. "Like ous on Facebook ..." I am never sure if there is a contest for noticing these things. lol
- andyjsong 14y ago
  It is a contest, and you're winning!
phmagic 14y ago
I love it! Great job Gilad and Schlomi!
ruedaminute 14y ago
Nice. Sounds like it would be relatively trivial to add templates for other app stores- please do so! I'd love to make a Smore for my new Nook app.
sonyasonya 14y ago
Looks fantastic. Wish I had this when I was in school....
rgbrgb 14y ago
How much does this cost? I tried it, I liked it but I'm not going to sign up unless I know a price.
clarky07 14y ago
Not too bad, but I wish the screenshots weren't just thumbnails of about 1/3 of the screen. I'd rather have the whole thing on the page than having people click on it. Overall pretty well done though. here's mine - http://www.smore.com/46nn-debt-snowbal http://www.smore.com/46nn-debt-snowbal
rsaunders100 14y ago
Great site, I agree with the name change, I too was confused by it. My app generated an error. I presume its because its not available in America (only UK): http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles/id448049851?mt=8&uo=4 http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles...
rsaunders100 14y ago
Great site, I agree with the name change, I too was confused by it. My app generated an error. I presume its because its not available in America (only UK): App link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles/id448049851?mt=8&uo=4 http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles... Smore link: http://www.smore.com/app/gateway/appstore?source=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fgb%2Fapp%2Fcycle-paths-for-british-isles%2Fid448049851%3Fmt%3D8%26uo%3D4 http://www.smore.com/app/gateway/appstore?source=http%3A%2F%... Also it might be worth linking in the iTunes link generator: http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/ http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/

158 points by giladvdn 14y ago

sync 14y ago

Great looking landing page, but whenever I choose an app and click 'Smorify', nothing happens.

RandallBrown 14y ago
It only seems to work in Chrome.
- shlomiatar 14y ago
  Yeah, Apparently, when you try to submit a form that was not added to the body, FF and IE will just silently fail, while Chrome deals with it like a champ. That's what you get with last-minute optimizations :/ We're in the process of deploying a fix.
  - giladvdn 14y ago
    .... and fixed :)

heykoo 14y ago

I was struggling with designing a page for my appstore app. This will certainly come in handy! FYI: Just noticed you have a bit of duplicate markup in your head - the dns-prefetch links are duplicated

faramarz 14y ago

Looks very well done. Although, I wonder how exciting or lucrative this market really is when Venture backed App.net abandoned it in pursuit of other ideas

snprbob86 14y ago
Smore is much more than just Mobile Apps: http://www.smore.com/ http://www.smore.com/
- chefsurfing 14y ago
  This is an excellent distribution hack! By choosing this vertical they can gain traction among early adopters and 'digital influencers'. Way to go Smore! Bravo! Whoever in/out of your company that came up with the idea to focus on this vertical... do what that guy/gal says for a while.

RandallBrown 14y ago

Tried it in Firefox and IE. It doesn't work at all. It does work in Chrome. This is really well done. It's easier to use than App.net and the pages look a little nicer. Well done.

giladvdn 14y ago
Fixed! Thanks for the feedback Randall!!
- michaelt 14y ago
  The "Why Smore? See why Smore is perfect for your app." button doesn't work on Firefox - does in Chrome though. Details: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1 ID:20120714012003

dh 14y ago

Really love this concept, not sure it is a business that makes much money but something the market needs for sure and will help app developers. I might even use it myself

gurgeous 14y ago

This works great. Beautiful. Here's mine: http://www.smore.com/cuhv-dwellable-vacation-rentals http://www.smore.com/cuhv-dwellable-vacation-rentals

xmmx 14y ago
Will it let you export html/css or are you confined to their website?
- megablast 14y ago
  Well, there is always save page as.

samirparikh 14y ago

I've been looking for something like this ! I'm about to launch an app and need a splash page. This looks like the perfect way to do it.

manmal 14y ago

I was wondering what "splash page" means in this context.. I thought this app generates splash screens which are displayed when a mobile app starts up (not a good thing anyway). I would rather call it "presentation page" or "virtual flyer".

DenisM 14y ago
"Landing page" or "companion web page" would be even better, IMHO.
bybjorn 14y ago
I was thinking the same .. a splash page while the app starts
bonjourmr 14y ago
I thought iOS standards required an initial splash page? Or am I confusing this with a required loading page.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  All iOS apps require a splash image (otherwise it's just a black screen while it spins up), but Apple strongly discourages using actual splash screens for this purpose: it's a very jarring experience, and also magnifies the apparent time between launch and ready states. Instead the official recommendation is to make the splash image a stripped down version of your app's home screen - for an address book, this would be the main screen without any data, for example. This gives the app a more immediate feel, and also effectively hides a lot of the load time, since there is also no visible transition between the loading and ready states. Of course, this is far from the reality of things - a lot of apps use splash screens for a variety of reasons, and most do not gracefully transition between splash and ready states (e.g., that empty address book splash screenshot will just magically pop into a ready view, instead of animating into said state).

FredBrach 14y ago

Awesome. Do you plan something for printing? An automatically generated psd or something? Btw, I've also misunderstood first "splash" and thought it was for splash screens at the startup of an app. Good luck.

pkamb 14y ago

Is a version for Mac apps in the pipeline?

diesellaws 14y ago
If needed, we have Mac app support here: http://kickfolio.com http://kickfolio.com

hackerpolicy 14y ago

Does anyone know a similar app for Android landing pages?

ChrisNorstrom 14y ago

The background image is TOO distracting. It's way too saturated and colorful and just clashes and takes away from the screenshot and call to action button. That's the biggest problem with using big background images. Also, you also have severe alignment problems. See http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-of-tap11-com/ http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-o... The width of the header, the body, and the footer are all different.

escoz 14y ago

I liked it, actually. Here's the two I made for my apps: http://www.smore.com/s06g http://www.smore.com/s06g and http://smore.com/r2w1 http://smore.com/r2w1 Now if only they allowed me to pay a few bucks a month to remove all the smore links on top, i would probably use it as the main landing page for my sites.

mickrobk 14y ago

I love the idea, but it feels too much like a tech demo versus something I can actually use. The showstoppers that stood out to me are: - "Try it now for free" is great for showing me the value prop but ultimately I want to see a pricing sheet. I'm not willing to invest a lot time into what I see as the quick/cheap solution (compared to a custom design) for my app's website without knowing A: how much it's going to cost and B: what the limitations are. I can see that smore is in beta so maybe you just don't want to scare people off with unfinalized pricing -- for me at least no price is much scarier. - Building the page off of the app store content is a great idea. But I need a website before I launch my app. If you support that maybe you could do a better job showing me that as an option from the start. (I'd still like to use the same content as for iTunes connect) I want to be able to focus on the app I'm working on and not the web landing page - but for me the stuff missing is too important for this to be an option yet. I do like the direction.

ja27 14y ago

I know it's pretty universally ignored, but Apple's guidelines are that you should not use the white device frames for app marketing.

DrJokepu 14y ago
This is about creating a web page for your app, not the launch image.
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  That's what ja27 is referring to. http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-to-stop-using-white-iphone-images/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/02/apple-tells-developers-to-s...

arank 14y ago

looks awesome, we are working on something in similar lines - tapfame.com, our work starts after you create your portfolio - to get you new freelance gigs.

pgrote 14y ago

There is a misspelling in their example page in the video. "Like ous on Facebook ..." I am never sure if there is a contest for noticing these things. lol

andyjsong 14y ago
It is a contest, and you're winning!

phmagic 14y ago

I love it! Great job Gilad and Schlomi!

ruedaminute 14y ago

Nice. Sounds like it would be relatively trivial to add templates for other app stores- please do so! I'd love to make a Smore for my new Nook app.

sonyasonya 14y ago

Looks fantastic. Wish I had this when I was in school....

rgbrgb 14y ago

How much does this cost? I tried it, I liked it but I'm not going to sign up unless I know a price.

clarky07 14y ago

Not too bad, but I wish the screenshots weren't just thumbnails of about 1/3 of the screen. I'd rather have the whole thing on the page than having people click on it. Overall pretty well done though. here's mine - http://www.smore.com/46nn-debt-snowbal http://www.smore.com/46nn-debt-snowbal

rsaunders100 14y ago

Great site, I agree with the name change, I too was confused by it. My app generated an error. I presume its because its not available in America (only UK): http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles/id448049851?mt=8&uo=4 http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles...

rsaunders100 14y ago

Great site, I agree with the name change, I too was confused by it. My app generated an error. I presume its because its not available in America (only UK): App link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles/id448049851?mt=8&uo=4 http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cycle-paths-for-british-isles... Smore link: http://www.smore.com/app/gateway/appstore?source=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fgb%2Fapp%2Fcycle-paths-for-british-isles%2Fid448049851%3Fmt%3D8%26uo%3D4 http://www.smore.com/app/gateway/appstore?source=http%3A%2F%... Also it might be worth linking in the iTunes link generator: http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/ http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/