The new game, which has yet to given an official title, will feature Perry’s voice and likeness and promises to “introduce players to a digital playground of global success and talent,” according to the press release.
“Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” was also a free-to-play game, but the game offered in-app purchases that allowed players to use real money to purchase additional playing time and virtual clothes with the game’s currency, “K-stars.”
The strategy worked well for Glu Mobile and Kardashian. “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” dominated the Apple App Store charts, peaking at the #1 overall spot and #4 in top-grossing apps. It raked in $US1.6 million in its first five days on the market, and has since been downloaded 22.8 million times, generating $US43 million in revenue from its June launch through the end of September.
Creating a mobile app is an obvious merchandising dimension for already famous hollywood stars, especially given spectacular successes like the multi-million dollar Kardashian mobile app. However, mobile apps often succeed without backing from famous people. But what about the reverse – could a successful mobile app help someone break into hollywood?.
Could a mobile app be your big break in a Hollywood acting career?
To some extent we’ve already seen at least one example of this – the blockbuster Angry Birds mobile app has spawned, among other things, its own cartoon franchise.
But imagine a game based on a copyrighted Sacha Baron Cohen character such as the dictator of the fictional nation of Wadiya. In principle the mobile app could help drive the rise in popularity of the character – just as Angry Birds spawned a cartoon franchise, so a successful mobile app could spawn demand for a movie franchise.
Crazy? Impossible? Well it has already happened – not with a mobile app (as far as I know), but with the blockbuster console game Halo. The game created demand for a movie – Halo: Helljumper, released in 2010.
The lesson is clear – if you want to be a Hollywood Star, consider creating a mobile app. The Katy Perry App will do well – but it is unlikely to be the same runaway success as the Kim Kardashian game. Why? Because the Kardashian game came first. There is a potential opportunity here – Contact Me if you want to be the person who seizes that opportunity.
How to boost your mobile app download potential through viral marketing
Everyone dreams of a little magic – instead of having to pay to promote your new newly developed mobile app, the word simply spreads. People tell their friends. Downloads spike, then keep climbing. Within a week, 100s of thousands, maybe even millions of people have downloaded your mobile app. Your Apple account balance soars – in a few weeks, you will be a millionaire.
What can you do to make this happen? There are two techniques I know of which help drive app promotion, because I have seen them work.
1. Facebook Mobile App Links
The first technique is Facebook App Links. Imagine if a user clicks a message in their Facebook news feed, and Facebook, I mean the Facebook App itself, recommends that a user install YOUR mobile app to view the Facebook message. This is an incredibly powerful technique for driving uptake. People trust that their Facebook mobile app is is on their side. If a trusted source like Facebook says “install another mobile app now”, a lot of users just do what they are told – and install the app.
The second technique I have seen work is a compelling mobile app promotional video. One of the most compelling promotional videos I have been involved with is the Invisible Alert mobile app promotion video.
Watch the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZnMMJT0n8U
If you watch the video, you will understand – the video simply demands that if you are a responsible parent, you will ensure your kids have a copy of the Invisible Alert iPhone App, to help keep them safe when you can’t be there.
How to create a viral video
Its one thing to create a compelling mobile app promotion video – how do you make sure people watch it? Creating blockbuster videos is not my field of expertise – I’m a mobile app developer. But the following is one of the best descriptions I have read of how to create a viral video – written by someone who describes exactly what they did to make their video go viral.
First, I posted to Facebook/Twitter, and submitted it to social news sites like Reddit and Hacker News. I personally asked many of my friends to share it. I tweeted it at well-known dancers. I emailed bloggers who had covered other viral dance videos.
Of all the things I tried, Reddit paid off. It got to the top of the GetMotivated subreddit. I did this by following the advice in this article.
Day Two: 800K views
Bloggers who had seen it on Reddit the day before started publishing articles about it. First Kottke. Then blogs like Mashable, Jezebel, and Huffington Post.
Blogs drove a ton of traffic. Each blog is a giant marketing engine with millions of readers and Twitter followers. It’s in their interest to get the article as many views as possible, because each view is an ad they can serve up. Understand how the money flows. It’s all about clicks and advertising dollars.
Day Three: 1.8 million views
It made the YouTube front page. I’m not sure how it got there, but I suspect the blogs were sending it so much traffic that YouTube’s algorithms picked up on it.
Try many things. You only need one of them to pay off in order for your video to go viral. For me, that thing was Reddit. Your thing might be different. Your goal is to get major blogs to write you up, because their marketing power is ridiculous.
I hope this helps. If you need a detailed marketing plan, I recommend you talk to a marketing / SEO expert – I can recommend a few names. But I can help with what I know – if you have any questions about the technical aspects of mobile app promotion, the technical intricacies of Facebook app links, or other social media possibilities, please Contact Me.
An clever new app allows users to make money from selfie pictures.
This has got to be one of those wow moments, when you see an idea so clever you wish you had thought of it yourself, an app which could revolutionise the modelling industry – a new mobile app which allows people to make money by taking photos of themselves.
How does it work? The idea is incredibly simple – you dress up in your hottest outfit, snap a selfie, then use the mobile app to scan the bar codes on all your clothes and accessories. Other people can browse the selfies, then use the app to buy the clothes and accessories if they see a look and style they want to copy.
“What we’re doing … is removing friction from path to purchase,” said Tadd Spering, founder and CEO of Stylinity.
A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers highlighted the importance of social media for retailers. According to the firm’s global online survey of nearly 20,000 shoppers, 62 percent of respondents said that interactions on social media had led them to buy more in “most” or “some” cases.
Read MoreSelfie sticks are the new Beatles
It also found that more than one-third of shoppers follow some of their favorite brands or retailers on social media.
And of course, people who demonstrate a natural talent for modelling clothes and accessories – my guess is they will very quickly find an offer of a modelling contract in their inbox. The potential for this app to transform how clothes are sold, and transform ordinary people’s lives, by opening exciting new career options… lets just say, watch this space.
The big takeaway from this innovative new mobile app, is that there is still plenty of room for new mobile app development ideas – we have barely scratched the surface of the tremendous potential of the mobile app industry. In addition, paying mobile users to install your app has got to be a good way of growing your user base.
If you have a new idea for an iPhone App or Android App, and would like to discuss the realisation of your mobile dream, please contact me.
A gathering backlash against some freemium mobile apps?
Freemium Mobile Apps – apps which are free to download, but which offer in-app purchases. A few days ago, I discussed different ways of monetising apps, and how the Freemium model appears to dominate the industry.
However there are signs of a potentially serious backlash against tactics some freemium mobile app developers are using, to encourage users to purchase in-game options.
… The thing is, our industry has become bad; society’s view of our industry has become bad. We try to get as much money out of the player as possible. That’s what the job of the [casual] game designer has become. That’s how people see us.
…What we’re doing is selling games to children. I think it’s so disgusting. We sell them $100 packages of fake currency and make their parents pay because we can easily manipulate them. This is the thinking of the gambling industry.
To put this into perspective, not every iPhone App project or Android App project which contains in-app purchases is “evil”. If you want to give people a taste of your app’s functionality, then it is entirely reasonable to present basic functionality in a free mobile app, then encourage people to purchase additional capabilities. For example, Angry Birds – you could play a few levels on the free version of the game, then you could buy the “full” version, then there was ONE in-app purchase option – the “great eagle”, which allowed you to blast through frustratingly difficult levels, to see the next level. Good clean fun – simple costs, you know what you are buying.
But clearly there is a line which it is dangerous to cross. If your app targets children – encourages them to spend ridiculous sums of real money buying food bricks for their pet dragon or walrus or whatever, so their faithful electronic companion doesn’t starve and die, to me this is a high risk strategy. There’s a real risk your mobile game might end up at the top of someone’s list of evil. Such a design might even trigger a consumer campaign to remove your product from app store or play store.
My advice is, everything in moderation. By all means throw in a few in-app purchases – its a fantastic way of boosting revenue. Who knows what apps we would never have known, without the financial incentive provided by profits from in-app purchase options.
If you would like to discuss app monetisation strategies, please feel free to get in touch.
Searching large text fields (as in thousands of words) for small key phrases is traditionally a difficult problem, especially when the search has to be performed by a mobile app, using an Android or iPhone handset’s limited computing power.
Linear Text Search
Your mobile app could search for your key phrase by checking every letter in your text, as the possible starting point for the phrase you want to find. This works when the text you are searching is short – but if you are attempting to search many thousands of words of text, a linear search is slow, even at modern computing speeds.
Search: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Key Phrase: lazy dog
Algorithm: check each letter Thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog
Text Map Search
The alternative is to partially pre-run the search when developing the mobile app. You can’t predict the keywords a user will enter, but you can create a searchable text map of the relationships between words and phrases in the text to be searched, to allow code to rapidly search the map, rather than having to check every letter of every word of the text to be searched.
Search: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Key Phrase: lazy dog
Algorithm: pre-run search L ->
La ->
Lazy ->
Lazy Dog
How do you pre-run a search? You could research efficient word search structures – suffix trees, and other exotic data representations. After a significant amount of effort you would be able to create a search engine, which was much faster than a linear search of every letter in your text.
The SQLite full text index engine is very fast – correctly configured, it can search 10s of megabytes of text stored in your mobile app, fast enough so your code can update a list of hits in realtime, as the user types into the search box (obviously its a bit smoother if the database search is running in a different thread). In my experience the limitation on search speed is usually how quickly your code can create tables of data to represent the search results, rather than executing the search itself – so during performance tuning, it is worth considering minimum phrase lengths (e.g. don’t start the search until the user has entered at least 3-4 characters), to limit the number of results which are likely to be generated by a given search.
Creating a SQLite Full Text Index table is very similar to creating a normal database table. If the text to be searched is fixed (i.e. doesn’t change when the mobile app is used), the text search SQLite database can be created when the app is built, and accessed immediately, as soon as the user starts the mobile app.
If you are thinking of developing an iPhone app or Android App, or any other kind of mobile app, which needs to present users with the ability to search a large chunk of text very rapidly, please contact me, for advice on optimal ways of implementing such a search.
What to do if your mobile app is rejected by App Store.
The dreaded rejection – you’ve commissioned your mobile app, developed it, tested it, then Apple rejects your creation – because you inadvertently violated one of their rules.
It happens – rejection is never pleasant. I’ve personally dealt with mobile app rejection on several occasions, in all cases at no additional cost to the client. A lot of the time the rejection occurs because the reviewer misunderstood app functionality – on more than one occasion I’ve negotiated a solution which did not require any change to the app functionality. In other cases, a minor change to functionality is required, to bring the app into compliance. Sometimes an app is rejected because of a malfunction – in which case the reviewer is doing you a favour, helping you to discover and correct a mistake, before your app receives negative reviews from the public.
1. Test, test, and test.
In every scenario for successful app submission, it all boils down to testing app performance and user experience. From bugs to crashes, the list of app rejection reasons is ridiculously long. The recent Forrester report on mobile app testing confirms that “successful app testing requires real devices rather than emulators; many development teams have learned this the hard way.” Engaging, high-quality apps can do wonders for your brand reputation, while poor-quality apps turn off even the most loyal customers. So do yourself a big favor. When you have built and tested your app to absolute perfection… test it again!
2. Plan for patience
Possibly the most frustrating aspect of app store submission is the time it takes to review. The inconsistency can be particularly maddening. The Apple App Store review process can take as few as 4 days, as many as 14, or anywhere in between. And that’s if your app gets accepted the first time. Google Play doesn’t take as long, but patience is still a virtue here. Unless you have an app store reviewer on your payroll, it’s a very good idea to plan for a lengthy review process, and hope for the best.
3. Understand the submission fields ahead of time
Submitting your app requires you to fill out a lot of information, and neglecting this step until the last minute has caused a review delay for many an app. Be sure to research all the fields you’ll fill out (app description, categories, keywords, copyright, screen shots, etc.) and get a good head start before you’re ready to submit, and eliminate this avoidable delay.
4. Monitor the latest app store updates
Apple has an annoying habit of changing their acceptance rules frequently, especially after new OS releases. This can easily lead to a lot of app rejection headaches, so it is important to have someone keep on top of the latest updates. Ensure that someone on your team is continually familiar with the Apple Store and Google Play submission rules, and save yourself some hair.
5. Create your own app store
Unlike individual developers, companies don’t necessarily have to subject themselves to the verdicts of the mobile elite. Enterprise app stores are a growing trend in today’s mobile world, as companies are finding the capability to host and distribute their apps internally. If you have the right cloud platform, this is a great way to make life easier, both for yourself and your end users.
If you would like more information on how to avoid having your newly developed mobile app rejected by mobile app store review, and what to do about it if your receive the dreaded rejection notice, please Contact Me.
JAPANESE researchers have developed a system for smartphones to alert epileptics at least 30 seconds before a seizure.
IT’S hoped the app would help patients take precautions in the nick of time and avoid injuries.
A team from Kyoto University which developed the system is collaborating with Kumamoto University and Tokyo Medical and Dental University to get the device commercially produced by 2020, the Nikkei financial publication reported on Thursday.
The innovation uses a small sensor placed close to the collar bone or heart to detect changes in heartbeat.
Just before an epileptic attack, changes in nerve cell activity affect the autonomic nerves that control the heart.
The system detects these through the sensor and wirelessly transmits the signals to the smartphone, which uses a special application to analyse them.
To determine if the heartbeats are abnormal, the system first creates a baseline profile by taking measurements under normal conditions.
When the heartbeat deviates, the system alerts the user through a sound or a vibration.
I know people who have epilepsy, and have witnessed several epileptic seizures. When the seizure strikes people have very little warning – they generally fall uncontrollably to the ground, which creates a very real risk of head injury or other serious injury as their body strikes the pavement or other hard surfaces.
A mobile app which gives people in this unfortunate predicament a few moments warning, so they can lay down, or pull over if they are driving, would be of immeasurable benefit to epilepsy sufferers.
Android Apps and iPhone Apps which provide medical functionality are generally very popular on App Store, if they offer real value to users. For example, some heart rate monitor apps, which use the mobile phone’s microphone to pick up someone’s heart beat, have received millions of downloads. However, before tackling a medical app you should ensure you have someone with appropriate medical expertise on your team – a medical app which provided inexpert information could be worse than useless, it might endanger people’s lives.
If you are a qualified medical practitioner, and have an idea for a new medical app, please contact me.
Microsoft – Down but not out in the Mobile App Development Space
Even if Microsoft never secures meaningful market share for its windows mobile phone, it looks like they have a plan “B” for making their mark in the mobile world – developing Microsoft branded iPhone Apps and Android Apps.
This past fall, Microsoft also [in addition to Microsoft Office Mobile for Android and iPhone] released three hugely promising Android apps: Torque, an Android Wear app that takes away the added step of having to say, “OK Google…” before you give your watch a voice command or ask it a question; Next Lock Screen, which adds more useful information and application shortcuts to your lock screen; and the Journeys & Notes app that lets you take location-based notes of places you’re visiting that can be shared with other people who visit that specific location in the future.
Microsoft really started to embrace mobile app development when it released mobile versions of its popular Office productivity suite and it hasn’t looked back since. And it’s not just that Microsoft is making good apps of its own but that it’s wisely decided to offer more integration with established apps that are already popular, such as its decision to integrate cloud storage service Dropbox with its own Office software instead of forcing users to only use the company’s own OneDrive.
The question of course – does Microsoft intend to abandon their frustrating effort to become a dominant mobile handset operating system, and focus instead on developing popular mobile apps? Is this a strategy to convince people that Microsoft know what they are doing in the mobile space – in the hope that people will consider Windows Mobile next time they upgrade their phone? Or perhaps Microsoft themselves haven’t decided what they want – maybe they’re just covering all their bets, pending further developments?
What is clear is that Microsoft have not given up on the mobile app space – and given their track record of dominating markets, they may yet surprise the market.
If you would like to discuss strategies for mobile app deployment – which platform you should target first, whether you should release multi-platform or one platform at a time, please Contact Me.
Apple iPhone has taken the lead in new handset shipments.
The release of Apple iPhone 6, a substantial improvement on previous models, has for now given Apple the edge in the mobile handset wars, for the first time since 2012.
Apple is now the top smartphone provider in the United States for the first time since the end of 2012. During the holiday quarter, Apple was responsible for 47.7 percent of all smartphones shipped. This compared to 47.6 percent for Android-based devices, 3.8 percent for Microsoft’s Windows Phone, and just 0.3 percent for BlackBerry, according to Kantar Worldpanel.
Between October and December 2014, the iPhone 6 was the top selling smartphone in the U.S., and also the most popular smartphone to give as a gift. Though not specifically addressed, we assume that Kantar included both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus shipments in the company’s analysis. Samsung’s Galaxy S5 was ranked No. 2.
One year ago, Android-based devices accounted for 50.6 percent of smartphone shipments in the U.S. At the time, iOS took 43.9 percent.
It is regularly claimed that iPhone apps make more revenue than Android apps, despite the fact there are more Android handsets in circulation. This seems to match my experience – perhaps on average, if you can afford an iPhone, you have more disposable income to spend on mobile apps. If Apple can maintain their lead over Android, this will also give them a handset advantage – an utterly compelling lead in the mobile handset world.
If you would like to discuss strategies for multi-platform mobile app development, the best order in which to deploy your multi-platform mobile product, please Contact me now
Google Glass has had a short but troubled existence, the story of which provides an interesting insight into the boundaries of socially acceptable, with regards to mobile app development and wearable tech.
Wearable technology is seen as the next frontier of consumer electronics. As the mobile phone market approaches maturity (i.e. pretty much everyone who wants a phone already has one), tech companies are keen to find new gadgets they can sell to us.
Google Glass was an experiment by Google Corporation to give us a continuous headsup display. In principle such a display would be spectacularly useful – instead of continuously looking down at your mobile phone map while walking to a new destination, bumping into other pedestrians every time you take your attention off what is in front of you, the Google Glass headsup display would allow you to see navigation directions superimposed on your normal field of view.
Google also wanted to incorporate a camera, to allow people to create video recordings. Since the video record was physically very close to user’s eyes, the video recording would be almost identical to what cameraman was actually seeing.
Video recording capability ultimately led to the downfall of Google Glass
Google thought that by making the Google Glass product really obvious, that people would know when they were potentially being recorded, which should alleviate public concerns about being covertly recorded. Unfortunately this tactic backfired. People who fell in love with their Google Glass accessory didn’t want to take it off – which created huge concerns about privacy whenever Google Glass users (who quickly became known as “Glassholes”) wore their Glass accessory into nightclubs and other places where people didn’t want to be recorded.
The Google Glass Code of Conduct
Google tried to address public concerns about privacy, by publishing a code of conduct about how to use Google Glass.
Glass-out. Glass was built for short bursts of information and interactions that allow you to quickly get back to doing the other things you love. If you find yourself staring off into the prism for long periods of time you’re probably looking pretty weird to the people around you. So don’t read War and Peace on Glass. Things like that are better done on bigger screens.
Rock Glass while doing high-impact sports. Glass is a piece of technology, so use common sense. Water skiing, bull riding or cage fighting with Glass are probably not good ideas.
Wear it and expect to be ignored. Let’s face it, you’re gonna get some questions. Be patient and explain that Glass has a lot of the same features as a mobile phone (camera, maps, email, etc.). Also, develop your own etiquette. If you’re worried about someone interrupting that romantic dinner at a nice restaurant with a question about Glass, just take it off and put it around the back of your neck or in your bag.
Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Glasshole”). Respect others’ privacy and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren’t allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you’re asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers.
Unfortunately either Google Glass users did not abide by Google’s code of conduct, or public hostility to Glass was too intense, because Google has decided to pull the product, pending a redesign.
Solving the Google Glass Dilemma
Google does not want to give up on their Google Glass product – many of the people who got their hands on a Google Glass absolutely loved it. The problem was a lot of other people hated the thought of being covertly recorded by nerds wearing high tech specs.
What will Google do to solve the issue of public rejection? Its anyone’s guess, Google are keeping their ideas for a redesign pretty close to their chest for now, but ultimately the problem which must be solved is the issue of privacy.
Critics of Glass (including myself) have advocated a redesign for a long time. When Google settled on the original design for Glass, it decided to make the product stand out. The company did so for multiple reasons, but one of the main ones was to avoid accusations of spyware: An ostentatious design meant Glass was borderline useless as a covert recording device An ostentatious design meant Glass was borderline useless as a covert recording device.
While that may have been true, the decision ended up backfiring. With the camera in plain view, the first question most Glass Explorers got from observers was, “Are you recording me?” The design, far from diffusing the issue, actually exacerbated it; many people’s abstract fears about technology dissolving privacy suddenly had a real-world avatar. Occasionally, violence ensued.
If Google is redesigning Glass “from scratch,” it invites a host of questions: Will the new version look more like a pair of glasses? Will Luxottica, which signed a deal with Google last year to produce Ray-Ban and Oakley versions for Glass, play a part? Or will Fadell go back to concept, and rethink exactly what problem the wearable is supposed to solve, possibly leading to something entirely different?
Whatever the ultimate answers are, it’s encouraging that Google is considering them; 2015 could be the year Glass gets its polish back.
All of us nerds are looking forward to seeing how Google solves this problem. Will they remove the camera, or do something to make it very obvious when the camera is active? How Google solves this problem will have implications for other wearable technology – ultimately nobody wants to have the whole world intruding on their privacy, but the personal headsup display is obviously a potentially very hot product, providing Google can find a solution to privacy concerns.
If you have a mobile app idea, or gadget idea, and would like to discuss technical feasibility and any potential privacy concerns, please contact me
