7 ms·

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

93 points by jndsn402 11y ago

themartorana 11y ago
I'm not sure I agree entirely on the press thing - although my experiences are from owning a mobile game company, not a mobile app company. For games, online press is great to start to be recognized within the community of peer groups/companies, but has never moved the needle for us, user-wise. We haven't been featured either, but that's made things harder on us. Getting featured is still huge for visibility. We're pressing for it pretty hard when we release our next game. It's 90% likely we won't get one, but its a huge win if you can pull it off. (It does increase the already silly graph of first-week downloads vs. the-rest-of-time-ever downloads, but it definitely makes sure that second part averages a bit higher.)
- prawn 11y ago
  What has moved the needle for you? We had a dev relations contact and got featured worldwide with Hexiled, then a smaller feature later when we added more language support. I argue with my dev partner about press - I think the best tactic is more decent apps in the store trying to get a home-run feature by honing the app style, rather than begging little app reviewers for coverage. I think if your feature gives your virality a launch pad, that's the best bet. We had the feature, but at the time our app was flawed and we had not yet introduced a couple of sharing functions.
  - raphael_o 11y ago
    Totally agree with that. The key with the App Store is to get a perfect storm of PR and feature to rise above the noise at least for a few hours/days. Then it's up to the product. Without this storm, even a good product (unless it has an immediately high viral coefficient) risk oblivion.
  - archagon 11y ago
    Out of curiosity, if you're willing to share, how did you get in touch with a dev relations person at Apple for (what looks like) your first game? I'm going to release my first big app soon (music creation) and having someone at Apple know about my product would be so helpful! I agree with your thoughts on tactics, BTW, which is why I'm working hard on polishing the UX.
    - prawn 11y ago
      Co-developer has built apps in the past and met a dev relations guy at a conference or WWDC or something. We give them heads up on product releases or major updates and they forward it to editorial teams (local or worldwide) for consideration.
      - archagon 11y ago
        Thanks!
M8 11y ago
Apps are now discovered outside of the stores.
- userbinator 11y ago
  ...which is the same way they were discovered long before they started being called "apps".
- tempodox 11y ago
  If you know where, please let the rest of us know (i.e. if the source has better discoverability than the AppStore).
  - minthd 11y ago
    for android you could best-app-market is pretty good. Also xyo and appolearning look interesting.
  - sjg007 11y ago
    Facebook in stream app ads.
    - tempodox 11y ago
      OK, I didn't say the source should be searchable with multiple criteria...
irl_zebra 11y ago
Those animated gifs throughout the article were awful. But as for the substance, does it really take knowing people on the inside to have a successful app these days? That seems surprising.
- mromanuk 11y ago
  > you need a relationship with someone in the Cupertino saloon. That is no advice at all, just a confirmation of how biased the app stores are. All the big guys can do that. How is supposed a small indie dev, across the world can success at this, now?
  - raphael_o 11y ago
    Look - it's really what business comes down to. Most of what seems to happen organically was actually facilitated by creating and maintaining relationships. But that's not the main point I was trying to make, rather that as developers, we need to understand the mindset of the team behind it. They think of themselves as store managers and they want to bring the apps that will do well with their users above revenue. Another point to seriously consider which I didn't incorporate in this post is that both Apple and Google will push forward apps that make use of their latest APIs in a way that they approve of, to serve as examples to other developers and increase traction of the new OS features (example: material design, Wear SDK, Apple Watch, etc.)
ThomPete 11y ago
If it was up to me Apple would shut down the Mac app store and give the audience back to the indie developers. They kind of already completely gave up on it because of the iOS appstore is much more popular and it's not really adding anything good to the consumer.
duncanawoods 11y ago
I wish Apple/Google/MS would realise that they could stop operating an App Store and start running an App Mall instead. Inside their Mall, different third party stores could focus on different niches and demographics with totally different criteria for including and rating apps with different UX to browse and discover products. Some could use expert reviews, some user reviews, others taste based recommedations. Its crazy to think there could ever be a "one size fits all" store for all types of people and all types of activity that digital devices are used for. Maybe an IGN store, a LifeHacker store, a ThinkGeek store, a Fortune store etc. Apple/Google/MS could spend their time on the simpler effort of curating and promoting good stores instead of good apps and offer them a typical referral fee on each purchase. I think everyone would benefit - better shopping experience for users, better niche surfacing for developers, new revenue source for tech reviewers, simpler curation job for the platforms.
- thirdsun 11y ago
  I never thought of it that way, but I really like this idea. In fact I enjoy keeping up with a few good curators - small labels in music for example. Beats most recommendation engines in my opinion.
- tempodox 11y ago
  I don't know about Google, but I can't believe how Apple, the “design is how it works” shop can leave such a gaping hole in a place where it conspicuously matters. Every casual AppStore visitor immediately realises that they have no chance in hell of finding anything. First Apple boasts how many million apps they have on the store, then they make 99%+ of it unreachable. Bummer.
  - softdev12 11y ago
    I also find it extremely misleading when the stores quote statistics such as "over 93 percent of all ios apps have been downloaded every month" as proof that people are finding the apps they want. What they don't disclose is that the majority of these downloads are probably just 1 time downloads by the app creator on their own device. http://www.padgadget.com/2013/06/10/50-billion-apps-downloaded-tim-cook-lays-out-apples-numbers-at-wwdc/ http://www.padgadget.com/2013/06/10/50-billion-apps-download...
coldcode 11y ago
We had good success at my last job at a big brand travel company, because our Apple rep really liked us. But me as an individual has no chance. I don't think Apple really cares about you as a developer as long as there are enough to make iPhone sales happen. It's sad though, I wish I could build an app discovery app which would be a lot of fun to do, but it's stupidly verboten.
- egb 11y ago
  How did you get your Apple rep? I have never quite found out how to "apply" to get one, or if it's all self-selected from within Apple...
  - jarjoura 11y ago
    From what I understand, once your app crosses the 1 million download mark, Apple's Developer relations will reach out to you.
  - coldcode 11y ago
    Our mobile travel app (before my time) was one of the first to ship on iOS, right around the launch of the app store. So they naturally appreciated it. If everyone knows your brand name, it's surprisingly easy to get people to do stuff for you.
Zigurd 11y ago
There is a lot of good experience presented in that article. But there is one place where they screwed up: It's easy to make apps for Android that scale up to tablet-sized screens. Failing to do that isn't Google's fault, and whinging about Google's preference to feature apps that run on tablets is unhelpful. Especially so since they previous, correctly, decided to build an Android design from scratch. If you do that right, it will run on tablets. Based on the tablet issue, their idea of building specifically for Android is still infected by a lot of iOS-itis.
- raphael_o 11y ago
  You have a point here. A lot has been done in the Android framework to enable developers to build app that will scale up and down elegantly. However, keep in mind that there is more than supporting the physical form factor to it. To build for tablets vs phone is a different product mindset, with different goals and user experience. I don't expect people to open BillGuard every day on their tablet, rather to take their time on weekends to go deeper into the more advanced tools for example. Since the app is used differently, the UX has to be thought through specifically to take advantage of the specific platform you're building for.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    That's a very complex issue. In some ways, Google's recent design trends and libraries, e.g. as in Inbox, do not take good advantage of large screens on the desktop or in tablets. I suspect Google aimed for a cross-platform UX first, before really tackling the screen real estate issue. On the other hand, a tablet layout that "flattens" a UI hierarchy by displaying a list Fragment to the side of a display/edit Fragment is pretty simple to do. Material Design works just fine for this, too.
dazzla 11y ago
IMHO most of the success was due to being featured. Being featured was mainly due to having contacts at Apple and Google. Having contacts is out of reach for most developers. There are only so many developers Apple and Google can have a relationship with and there are only so many apps that can be featured.
MilnerRoute 11y ago
Jesus. The road to success, judging from the article, boils down to this. "Know somebody who works for Apple App's Store who can help get your app featured on launch day."
- seiji 11y ago
  Everything is back room deals. Didn't Instagram have a months-long deal to be a "featured app" as long as they didn't make an Android version?
ksk 11y ago
I'm wondering if there is any marketing/sales strategy crossover from other domains which also have limited product placement opportunities - like supermarkets?
- richardbrevig 11y ago
  In supermarkets, I understand it's common to pay initially to get the shelf space so you can demonstrate your product will have traction.
dirkdk 11y ago
Apple cares about your app if it displays unique features of their platform. So build a new Apple Watch app, use extremely nice design, integrate with HomeKit. Otherwise, they don't care

93 points by jndsn402 11y ago

I'm not sure I agree entirely on the press thing - although my experiences are from owning a mobile game company, not a mobile app company. For games, online press is great to start to be recognized within the community of peer groups/companies, but has never moved the needle for us, user-wise. We haven't been featured either, but that's made things harder on us. Getting featured is still huge for visibility. We're pressing for it pretty hard when we release our next game. It's 90% likely we won't get one, but its a huge win if you can pull it off. (It does increase the already silly graph of first-week downloads vs. the-rest-of-time-ever downloads, but it definitely makes sure that second part averages a bit higher.)

prawn 11y ago
What has moved the needle for you? We had a dev relations contact and got featured worldwide with Hexiled, then a smaller feature later when we added more language support. I argue with my dev partner about press - I think the best tactic is more decent apps in the store trying to get a home-run feature by honing the app style, rather than begging little app reviewers for coverage. I think if your feature gives your virality a launch pad, that's the best bet. We had the feature, but at the time our app was flawed and we had not yet introduced a couple of sharing functions.
- raphael_o 11y ago
  Totally agree with that. The key with the App Store is to get a perfect storm of PR and feature to rise above the noise at least for a few hours/days. Then it's up to the product. Without this storm, even a good product (unless it has an immediately high viral coefficient) risk oblivion.
- archagon 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, if you're willing to share, how did you get in touch with a dev relations person at Apple for (what looks like) your first game? I'm going to release my first big app soon (music creation) and having someone at Apple know about my product would be so helpful! I agree with your thoughts on tactics, BTW, which is why I'm working hard on polishing the UX.
  - prawn 11y ago
    Co-developer has built apps in the past and met a dev relations guy at a conference or WWDC or something. We give them heads up on product releases or major updates and they forward it to editorial teams (local or worldwide) for consideration.
    - archagon 11y ago
      Thanks!

M8 11y ago

Apps are now discovered outside of the stores.

userbinator 11y ago
...which is the same way they were discovered long before they started being called "apps".
tempodox 11y ago
If you know where, please let the rest of us know (i.e. if the source has better discoverability than the AppStore).
- minthd 11y ago
  for android you could best-app-market is pretty good. Also xyo and appolearning look interesting.
- sjg007 11y ago
  Facebook in stream app ads.
  - tempodox 11y ago
    OK, I didn't say the source should be searchable with multiple criteria...

irl_zebra 11y ago

Those animated gifs throughout the article were awful. But as for the substance, does it really take knowing people on the inside to have a successful app these days? That seems surprising.

mromanuk 11y ago
> you need a relationship with someone in the Cupertino saloon. That is no advice at all, just a confirmation of how biased the app stores are. All the big guys can do that. How is supposed a small indie dev, across the world can success at this, now?
- raphael_o 11y ago
  Look - it's really what business comes down to. Most of what seems to happen organically was actually facilitated by creating and maintaining relationships. But that's not the main point I was trying to make, rather that as developers, we need to understand the mindset of the team behind it. They think of themselves as store managers and they want to bring the apps that will do well with their users above revenue. Another point to seriously consider which I didn't incorporate in this post is that both Apple and Google will push forward apps that make use of their latest APIs in a way that they approve of, to serve as examples to other developers and increase traction of the new OS features (example: material design, Wear SDK, Apple Watch, etc.)

ThomPete 11y ago

If it was up to me Apple would shut down the Mac app store and give the audience back to the indie developers. They kind of already completely gave up on it because of the iOS appstore is much more popular and it's not really adding anything good to the consumer.

duncanawoods 11y ago

I wish Apple/Google/MS would realise that they could stop operating an App Store and start running an App Mall instead. Inside their Mall, different third party stores could focus on different niches and demographics with totally different criteria for including and rating apps with different UX to browse and discover products. Some could use expert reviews, some user reviews, others taste based recommedations. Its crazy to think there could ever be a "one size fits all" store for all types of people and all types of activity that digital devices are used for. Maybe an IGN store, a LifeHacker store, a ThinkGeek store, a Fortune store etc. Apple/Google/MS could spend their time on the simpler effort of curating and promoting good stores instead of good apps and offer them a typical referral fee on each purchase. I think everyone would benefit - better shopping experience for users, better niche surfacing for developers, new revenue source for tech reviewers, simpler curation job for the platforms.

thirdsun 11y ago
I never thought of it that way, but I really like this idea. In fact I enjoy keeping up with a few good curators - small labels in music for example. Beats most recommendation engines in my opinion.
tempodox 11y ago
I don't know about Google, but I can't believe how Apple, the “design is how it works” shop can leave such a gaping hole in a place where it conspicuously matters. Every casual AppStore visitor immediately realises that they have no chance in hell of finding anything. First Apple boasts how many million apps they have on the store, then they make 99%+ of it unreachable. Bummer.
- softdev12 11y ago
  I also find it extremely misleading when the stores quote statistics such as "over 93 percent of all ios apps have been downloaded every month" as proof that people are finding the apps they want. What they don't disclose is that the majority of these downloads are probably just 1 time downloads by the app creator on their own device. http://www.padgadget.com/2013/06/10/50-billion-apps-downloaded-tim-cook-lays-out-apples-numbers-at-wwdc/ http://www.padgadget.com/2013/06/10/50-billion-apps-download...

coldcode 11y ago

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

egb 11y ago
How did you get your Apple rep? I have never quite found out how to "apply" to get one, or if it's all self-selected from within Apple...
- jarjoura 11y ago
  From what I understand, once your app crosses the 1 million download mark, Apple's Developer relations will reach out to you.
- coldcode 11y ago
  Our mobile travel app (before my time) was one of the first to ship on iOS, right around the launch of the app store. So they naturally appreciated it. If everyone knows your brand name, it's surprisingly easy to get people to do stuff for you.

Zigurd 11y ago

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

raphael_o 11y ago
You have a point here. A lot has been done in the Android framework to enable developers to build app that will scale up and down elegantly. However, keep in mind that there is more than supporting the physical form factor to it. To build for tablets vs phone is a different product mindset, with different goals and user experience. I don't expect people to open BillGuard every day on their tablet, rather to take their time on weekends to go deeper into the more advanced tools for example. Since the app is used differently, the UX has to be thought through specifically to take advantage of the specific platform you're building for.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  That's a very complex issue. In some ways, Google's recent design trends and libraries, e.g. as in Inbox, do not take good advantage of large screens on the desktop or in tablets. I suspect Google aimed for a cross-platform UX first, before really tackling the screen real estate issue. On the other hand, a tablet layout that "flattens" a UI hierarchy by displaying a list Fragment to the side of a display/edit Fragment is pretty simple to do. Material Design works just fine for this, too.

dazzla 11y ago

IMHO most of the success was due to being featured. Being featured was mainly due to having contacts at Apple and Google. Having contacts is out of reach for most developers. There are only so many developers Apple and Google can have a relationship with and there are only so many apps that can be featured.

MilnerRoute 11y ago

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

seiji 11y ago
Everything is back room deals. Didn't Instagram have a months-long deal to be a "featured app" as long as they didn't make an Android version?

ksk 11y ago

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

richardbrevig 11y ago
In supermarkets, I understand it's common to pay initially to get the shelf space so you can demonstrate your product will have traction.

dirkdk 11y ago

Apple cares about your app if it displays unique features of their platform. So build a new Apple Watch app, use extremely nice design, integrate with HomeKit. Otherwise, they don't care