Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Armet.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So today we wanted to kind of, I guess, go back to basics a little bit, and I was trying

00:00:16 ◼   ► to think of some of the fundamental parts of being an app developer.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And one of the most essential, probably the most essential in terms of distribution, I

00:00:25 ◼   ► think part of development is iTunes Connect.

00:00:28 ◼   ► And I thought it'd be kind of interesting to just spend a week kind of just talking

00:00:33 ◼   ► through the various parts of iTunes Connect, and specifically just kind of the places that

00:00:38 ◼   ► we, you know, the ways in which we actually use it on a daily or ongoing basis.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Because I think there's a lot of little corners and things inside of iTunes Connect that are

00:00:50 ◼   ► things that I probably just take for granted, having done this for so long, but could hopefully

00:00:53 ◼   ► be useful or interesting more generally.

00:00:57 ◼   ► And so, you know, if you're playing along at home and want to open up iTunes Connect

00:01:02 ◼   ► and follow along, you can probably do that.

00:01:04 ◼   ► But at a high level, you know, we just kind of walk through the various sections.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Because I think it's, you know, when you open up iTunes Connect, you get this little like

00:01:10 ◼   ► launch bar, launch pad, launch pad, there we go.

00:01:14 ◼   ► It's like whatever that Mac thing is, where you get all the little icons screened to launch

00:01:19 ◼   ► icons.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And we have, you know, there's the help and agreements and users, payments, sales, analytics

00:01:24 ◼   ► and my apps.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And I think we just kind of go through there.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I guess we can start with resources and help.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Do you ever go to resources and help, Marco?

00:01:33 ◼   ► Only if I actually need to file some kind of trouble ticket.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Like and this is very rare.

00:01:38 ◼   ► This might happen like once a year where, you know, some like a test flight build will

00:01:43 ◼   ► get stuck or, you know, something like when I launch subscriptions, the app was approved,

00:01:50 ◼   ► but the subscription wasn't.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Like the end-app purchase wasn't approved even though it was tied to it and it's like

00:01:55 ◼   ► basically whenever there's what appears to be a bug in iTunes Connect, I will go there.

00:02:01 ◼   ► I used to have to go there on the rare occasion that I would file extra-value review requests.

00:02:06 ◼   ► But I haven't filed one of those since we got fast reviews in the last year because

00:02:10 ◼   ► I haven't needed to.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:12 ◼   ► And I think that's basically the same experience that I have.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Like and I will actually say iTunes Connect, like customer support is typically pretty

00:02:19 ◼   ► responsive and good.

00:02:20 ◼   ► You know, if there are these weird issues or bugs and problems, like I've had things

00:02:25 ◼   ► where it seems like it's, you know, been stuck in processing for the App Store for longer

00:02:30 ◼   ► than it should or whatever and I reach out and I mean, who knows if they're actually

00:02:34 ◼   ► the ones changing it, but it seems like it, you know, things get resolved fairly well.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And starting out, there is a tremendous amount of help documentation and videos and screen

00:02:44 ◼   ► casts and things in there.

00:02:46 ◼   ► So.

00:02:47 ◼   ► >> There's videos?

00:02:48 ◼   ► >> Yeah, they do.

00:02:49 ◼   ► They do a lot of stuff about how to use iTunes Connect.

00:02:51 ◼   ► Like it's a pretty good thing I imagine if you're starting out.

00:02:56 ◼   ► And you know, it's and I think some of it's also there's a lot of good content that's

00:03:00 ◼   ► come out of WDC sessions because there's usually like an iTunes Connect related track or section

00:03:06 ◼   ► of talks that are probably good to talk to as well.

00:03:09 ◼   ► >> Man, where do you find the time to be such a good student of everything?

00:03:14 ◼   ► >> I'm not a, well I haven't said that.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Knowing that the videos exist is very different than actually having watched them all.

00:03:20 ◼   ► >> Still, like I have hardly poked around these areas at all because you know, most

00:03:24 ◼   ► of the time there's a million other things that I want to do besides navigate iTunes

00:03:28 ◼   ► Connect for fun.

00:03:29 ◼   ► >> Maybe I just need a hobby.

00:03:32 ◼   ► >> Maybe we found your hobby.

00:03:35 ◼   ► >> Yeah, my hobby is going is looking around at documentation.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Anyway, moving on.

00:03:40 ◼   ► The next one is agreements, tax and banking.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Which for me, this is the place that I go, it seems like I don't know, every three or

00:03:48 ◼   ► four months and have to click a bunch of I agree buttons to just say that yes, I, whatever

00:03:54 ◼   ► the new terms are, like I, it's probably not a great thing, but I never really understand

00:04:00 ◼   ► what the changes are or like what's going on because it's one of those, whatever they

00:04:03 ◼   ► are, I need to accept them because if I don't accept them, I don't have any apps and if

00:04:07 ◼   ► I don't have any apps, I don't have any business.

00:04:08 ◼   ► So I'm very much Lando Calrissian in this situation.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Like I can't really, there's nothing that I can do to change the deal, so I just hope

00:04:18 ◼   ► it doesn't change any further.

00:04:20 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually read the terms as they change because the

00:04:26 ◼   ► same boat is like, well, we don't really have a choice in whether we accept these terms

00:04:30 ◼   ► or not.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Either we accept the terms or we don't do business here anymore.

00:04:35 ◼   ► So it's like, whatever they say, I'm gonna have to say yes, so why spend any time actually

00:04:40 ◼   ► reading them?

00:04:41 ◼   ► And if there's anything incredibly obscene in there, other people will find it and will

00:04:45 ◼   ► be tweeting about it and blogging about it and stuff.

00:04:47 ◼   ► So I don't actually, like it's kind of selfish, but I don't need to spend my time looking

00:04:51 ◼   ► at that because I know that A, I don't really have any choice and B, other people will look

00:04:56 ◼   ► at it to find anything outrageous.

00:04:57 ◼   ► >> Yeah, and then I think otherwise.

00:04:59 ◼   ► I mean, it's funny, I was thinking when I was preparing for this episode, I was looking

00:05:03 ◼   ► around and it's like, this is where you put in your banking information and your tax ID

00:05:08 ◼   ► information and all these things that for most of these I set up for my original, when

00:05:13 ◼   ► I first created my developer account eight years ago and have never changed.

00:05:17 ◼   ► But there's all this stuff in there that I imagine is relevant when you're first getting

00:05:22 ◼   ► set up.

00:05:23 ◼   ► That's where you go to tell them what your employer identification number is.

00:05:26 ◼   ► That's where you go and tell them where to direct deposit your proceeds in and so on.

00:05:31 ◼   ► >> Oh, yeah.

00:05:32 ◼   ► I would say too, this area in particular, and this applies honestly to all of iTunes

00:05:37 ◼   ► Connect, but it is way better than it used to be.

00:05:43 ◼   ► When I first set up my very first developer account back in 2008, things were very different

00:05:48 ◼   ► than when I set up Full City for the magazine in, whenever that was, 2011 or something,

00:05:55 ◼   ► 12, I don't know, something like that.

00:05:58 ◼   ► And then even between then and when I set up Overcast a couple years later, it was even

00:06:04 ◼   ► dramatically better then.

00:06:05 ◼   ► And I haven't set one up since then, but I imagine it's like, so much of this used to

00:06:10 ◼   ► be so much worse and more cumbersome than it is now.

00:06:13 ◼   ► Even stuff like, do they still do the Dun and Bradstreet requirement, the DUNS number?

00:06:18 ◼   ► >> I believe so.

00:06:20 ◼   ► >> Even that, I had to do that twice, once for Instapaper and once for Overcast.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I don't think I ever even did it for Full City.

00:06:26 ◼   ► But even that, when I first had to do it, I had to actually go and manually register

00:06:31 ◼   ► with Dun and Bradstreet, which by the way, is a massive scam company.

00:06:36 ◼   ► You're better off, basically whenever you have to deal with Dun and Bradstreet for anything,

00:06:40 ◼   ► the correct answer is hang up the phone.

00:06:43 ◼   ► That is always the right option, because they'll call you and tell you things like, this is

00:06:47 ◼   ► about your business credit report, it's really important that you complete this, and that's

00:06:50 ◼   ► all a scam.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Just so you know, you don't have to do any of that.

00:06:54 ◼   ► The correct answer is, you get your stupid DUNS number if you need it for Apple and you

00:06:58 ◼   ► do nothing else with them ever.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Anyway, between the first time and second time I had to use them, Apple basically created

00:07:04 ◼   ► a whole automated form to register yourself with them through iTunes Connect.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I assumed something like that is probably still there.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And it was so, so much easier that way than it was when I had to do it the first time.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And so, all this stuff is getting way, way better over time.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And moral of the story, do not do anything you don't have to do with Dun and Bradstreet.

00:07:23 ◼   ► If they call you, hang up.

00:07:24 ◼   ► >> Yup, exactly right.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Try and avoid them as much as possible.

00:07:28 ◼   ► And it's probably worth pointing out along those lines, if you were setting up a new

00:07:34 ◼   ► app as a new company, it's worth pointing out that a lot of this stuff does actually

00:07:40 ◼   ► probably take a couple weeks, potentially, to get done.

00:07:43 ◼   ► And so if you're launching a new app and you have a particular date or event or thing that

00:07:47 ◼   ► you have in mind, you may just need to start that before the app is ready and finished,

00:07:53 ◼   ► just to make sure that it's actually gone through in process.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Because I remember, I think, for Feed Wrangler, I set it up and it's like I wanted to launch

00:08:00 ◼   ► sooner, but then it ended up, you know, it took a week for Dun and Bradstreet or somebody,

00:08:06 ◼   ► some part of this process to happen, and there was something I could do.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And so it's probably good to keep that in mind, that you may need to get this all set

00:08:15 ◼   ► up.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Because I think you can submit an app before it's all ready, but you won't be able to actually

00:08:19 ◼   ► appear on the App Store until your business entity is all nice and happy with Apple.

00:08:27 ◼   ► The next section is the Users and Roles section, which, as an independent, initially I would

00:08:33 ◼   ► probably have thought, like, I don't really have anything to do there, like, there's just

00:08:37 ◼   ► me.

00:08:38 ◼   ► But it turns out I actually have spent a fair bit of time in here, and it's fairly useful.

00:08:43 ◼   ► So for example, the three kind of users that you can set up in iTunes Connect are Access

00:08:49 ◼   ► Users, or I think I'll call them iTunes Connect users, which is really useful if you are ever

00:08:54 ◼   ► integrating any external service with your iTunes Connect account.

00:08:58 ◼   ► So if you use AppFigures or AppAnnie or any of the, like, sales importing tools and things

00:09:04 ◼   ► like that, I would highly recommend setting up a separate Apple ID that, whose sole purpose

00:09:12 ◼   ► is accessing those reports, and you can set the permissions for that user so that all

00:09:17 ◼   ► they could do with that access is download sales reports.

00:09:23 ◼   ► And so you're not, if someone, if somehow your login information was compromised at

00:09:28 ◼   ► AppFigures or somewhere externally, all someone could do is know what your download numbers

00:09:33 ◼   ► were, they couldn't go in and delete your app or close your developer account or anything

00:09:39 ◼   ► like that.

00:09:40 ◼   ► So definitely an important thing to do.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - And that's a real thing, by the way.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Like, a few years ago, one of those big services, it wasn't AppFigures, I think it might have

00:09:47 ◼   ► been AppAnnie, was compromised, and they did lose all, like, they compromised everybody's

00:09:53 ◼   ► passwords who were signed up with that service, and a lot of us had to go reset Apple ID stuff

00:09:59 ◼   ► because of that, and fortunately, I had done the correct thing and had the only sales and

00:10:04 ◼   ► marketing user in there, but heard from a lot of people who didn't, and this was a few

00:10:08 ◼   ► years ago now, but it's something that you should always keep in mind.

00:10:12 ◼   ► If you have to give your iTunes Connect login to some other service to do some useful thing

00:10:16 ◼   ► for you, make sure it's not your main one and make sure it can't do anything useful.

00:10:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, especially because the authentication for all of those, I believe, require them

00:10:24 ◼   ► to store your password directly, because it's not like, you know, it's not some, like, OAuth

00:10:30 ◼   ► panel or something where you authorize it.

00:10:33 ◼   ► You'll actually have to give them the password, and they have to store it somewhere because

00:10:36 ◼   ► they need to then provide it to iTunes Connect.

00:10:39 ◼   ► So like, double E, so just go in there and set up a user account.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Actually, I've been tempted, and I just never actually have gone through the process of

00:10:47 ◼   ► doing this, of actually setting up, you know, like, different logins for myself even, you

00:10:55 ◼   ► know, so that I have a, like, an apps one that I go in for when I'm, you know, submitting

00:11:00 ◼   ► apps, and I have one that's a different one for maybe when I'm doing other kind of work,

00:11:04 ◼   ► just to kind of partition that a little bit.

00:11:06 ◼   ► That's probably a bit unnecessary, but I've definitely, it's something that I think about

00:11:10 ◼   ► that, you know, your iTunes Connect main user is a very powerful and important thing for

00:11:14 ◼   ► your business, so be very thoughtful and careful with how you deal with that.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And then you can set up TestFlight beta tester and groups and manage users in here.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I tend to mostly just manage this on the apps side of things, which we'll get to in a minute,

00:11:32 ◼   ► where you can set up TestFlight builds for a specific app, but I imagine if, you know,

00:11:37 ◼   ► this is the place where you can set up, you know, different testing groups or tiers and

00:11:41 ◼   ► things.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I've never really gotten into there.

00:11:43 ◼   ► And then the last thing you can set up here are sandbox testers, which is, like, just

00:11:49 ◼   ► a pool of infinite sadness, because the only reason you have to set these up is when you're

00:11:54 ◼   ► trying to test, like, foreign currency in-app purchase stuff.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Or just testing in-app purchases at all, right?

00:12:02 ◼   ► Well, so I tend to test in-app purchases, like, the honest answer for how I test in-app

00:12:07 ◼   ► purchases now is I create a TestFlight build, add myself to it, and then just do the in-app

00:12:14 ◼   ► purchase in there.

00:12:15 ◼   ► That's so much easier.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Because, and I don't know why this doesn't apply to development builds, too, but, like,

00:12:21 ◼   ► TestFlight builds just do the obvious thing.

00:12:23 ◼   ► They let all the purchases happen as though you're purchasing them, but then they don't

00:12:29 ◼   ► actually cost money.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And, like, that's great.

00:12:32 ◼   ► You know, I wish there was a little developer, you know, like, in the Settings app on your

00:12:36 ◼   ► iPhone, there's a little developer area once you've enabled development for a phone, where

00:12:40 ◼   ► you can change a bunch of, you know, preferences and things there.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Like, I wish I could just go in there and say, you know, "What's my local currency for

00:12:49 ◼   ► purchases?"

00:12:50 ◼   ► And, like, reset purchases or restore purchases, like, set things up there.

00:12:54 ◼   ► But until then, we have this sandbox testing place where, for certain kinds of testing,

00:12:58 ◼   ► where you are trying to set up something, because you can, you know, if you need to

00:13:02 ◼   ► set up a user as though they're, you know, Swiss, this is the place that you can go and

00:13:07 ◼   ► configure all that stuff.

00:13:09 ◼   ► But CHF is very wide.

00:13:10 ◼   ► It takes up a lot of space.

00:13:12 ◼   ► It will fill your table cells.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And so it's one of those things that, if you need to do that kind of stuff, this is where

00:13:19 ◼   ► you have to go and do it.

00:13:20 ◼   ► But I have great sympathy for you, because every time I've had to open up that section

00:13:23 ◼   ► of iTunes Connect, it just makes me sad, because it's so complicated, and you have to log out

00:13:28 ◼   ► on your phone, and when you log out, you know, out of your normal, out of whatever, you're

00:13:33 ◼   ► sitting there, like, logging in and out of Apple IDs on your phone.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:13:37 ◼   ► This is one thing where I can say, like, you know, we've talked in the past about how,

00:13:40 ◼   ► like, having separate development devices, having a whole lot of extra development devices

00:13:44 ◼   ► really isn't that necessary most of the time.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:47 ◼   ► One thing, one area I would say is absolutely the right idea is when you're doing in-app

00:13:49 ◼   ► purchase testing.

00:13:50 ◼   ► My rule is, I never, ever, ever will sign into a sandbox account on my main phone, because

00:13:58 ◼   ► that only leads to problems where, like, sometimes for the next three weeks, you'll just get

00:14:02 ◼   ► random password dialogs saying environment sandbox, asking you to re-enter your store

00:14:06 ◼   ► password no matter what you've done, and it's like, it is so buggy and annoying to have

00:14:11 ◼   ► those random, you know, store authorization dialogs cropping up all over the place for

00:14:15 ◼   ► weeks or months or years afterwards.

00:14:17 ◼   ► So that's one thing.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Like, keep sandbox testing away from your main phone.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:23 ◼   ► And the nice thing, too, about using it on a developer phone is, like, even if you just

00:14:26 ◼   ► do it on a development phone, you still will sometimes have these crazy cyclical errors

00:14:32 ◼   ► or issues with, if you switch between multiple sandbox users.

00:14:37 ◼   ► And the nice thing about a developer phone is, if everything starts to fall apart, you

00:14:40 ◼   ► can just, like, complete, like, hard reset the device, like, blank all the data out and

00:14:45 ◼   ► start again.

00:14:46 ◼   ► And that's a great, I mean, it's not usually a viable solution for getting around iTunes

00:14:51 ◼   ► password prompts to just, like, reset your phone, but with a developer phone, at least

00:14:55 ◼   ► you can actually do that, and it's a viable solution.

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00:16:58 ◼   ► So the next area, we start to get into the money side of iTunes Connect because there's

00:17:04 ◼   ► things that are related to the app and then the things that are related to getting paid.

00:17:08 ◼   ► The payments and financial area is...

00:17:11 ◼   ► It took me a while when I was first starting out to realize why Apple sort of split this

00:17:15 ◼   ► out because there's payments and financial and then there's sales and trends.

00:17:19 ◼   ► And it's best I can understand, the payments and financial reports area is the kind of

00:17:24 ◼   ► actually reconciled final transaction part of this where at the end of every month or

00:17:31 ◼   ► financial month, because financial months aren't real months, Apple will bundle up all

00:17:37 ◼   ► of your sales, all your proceeds for the month and write you a check, direct deposit that

00:17:43 ◼   ► money into your account.

00:17:45 ◼   ► And the payments and financial reports part is where you see that kind of rolled up finalized

00:17:49 ◼   ► data.

00:17:50 ◼   ► That's also where you get details about currency conversion stuff, because obviously if you

00:17:57 ◼   ► sell an app in a foreign country, the exchange rates where you ultimately get that will vary

00:18:02 ◼   ► depending on the time of the month it is.

00:18:05 ◼   ► And so this is where that final conversion will happen and you'll get a consolidated

00:18:09 ◼   ► number.

00:18:10 ◼   ► It's also where you get to know when they're going to pay you, which is thankfully less

00:18:14 ◼   ► vital now as it was when I was first starting off with the app stuff where knowing the actual

00:18:19 ◼   ► exact day when the payment was going to come in was very helpful for timing and planning

00:18:24 ◼   ► cash flow and stuff like that.

00:18:26 ◼   ► When things are a bit tight, it can be really helpful and so this will tell you that.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And also this is where I go if I have any kind of revenue share deal with an app or

00:18:36 ◼   ► something, where it's perhaps not crazy uncommon to say go into something with someone

00:18:42 ◼   ► else and have some kind of revenue share agreement, you'll be basing those on the numbers you

00:18:47 ◼   ► get out of the payments and financial reports tab.

00:18:50 ◼   ► Don't base it on the sales and trends tab.

00:18:52 ◼   ► That kind of stuff will never reconcile correctly with what you're actually getting in your

00:18:57 ◼   ► bank account.

00:18:58 ◼   ► And so payments and financial reports is where you go to actually get the number that you

00:19:03 ◼   ► could use to base any kind of actual financial distribution from.

00:19:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would definitely echo that.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Whenever you're doing any kind of revenue share thing, I've always structured, whenever

00:19:15 ◼   ► I've had to do something like that, I've always structured it as you or I get X percentage

00:19:20 ◼   ► of what Apple actually deposits into the bank account.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Everything else is like, this is all guidelines, but we actually calculate the number based

00:19:28 ◼   ► on what Apple deposits.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Whatever number that is, then you take X percent of that and it makes things a lot easier.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause otherwise, 'cause this is getting into the next area, the sales and trends area,

00:19:39 ◼   ► this is the place that you'll actually probably spend most of your time.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Honestly, on a weekly basis, I probably go into here far more than almost any other place

00:19:47 ◼   ► in iTunes Connect, because this is where you can see your real-time sales data.

00:19:55 ◼   ► It's real time as of yesterday, essentially.

00:19:58 ◼   ► And you can get all kinds of, yours is your daily sales, you can slice the data over a

00:20:04 ◼   ► lot of different perspectives, and so you can look at it by country or by app, by date.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Honestly, for me, I do most of my actual, my tactical analysis of my sales, I do using

00:20:20 ◼   ► the, I think it's called the Auto-Ingest API.

00:20:24 ◼   ► There's an API that the app iTunes Connect provides where you can download your daily

00:20:27 ◼   ► sales reports in an automated fashion.

00:20:31 ◼   ► I think we've talked about this before, where I have this crazy spaghetti of script that

00:20:37 ◼   ► takes in those things and processes them in ways that I care about, and then I end up

00:20:41 ◼   ► with a spreadsheet at the end, and that's how I do a lot of that.

00:20:44 ◼   ► But what I love in the sales and trends area is that it has the sales data for all of my

00:20:49 ◼   ► apps since I created my developer account.

00:20:52 ◼   ► So for me, that's eight years or something like that of data in there, which is just

00:20:56 ◼   ► really useful for every now and then I'm trying to understand an app's history or I'm writing

00:21:03 ◼   ► a blog post about something, or I'm just curious and seeing, being able to zoom out and get

00:21:09 ◼   ► a better perspective.

00:21:10 ◼   ► That's something that I, even though the sales and trends data is so focused on what happened

00:21:16 ◼   ► yesterday, in a weird way I find it most useful to just zoom out and really get these broad

00:21:21 ◼   ► perspectives of what did the last two years of this app's life look like, and trying to

00:21:26 ◼   ► use that to inform the decisions I make.

00:21:28 ◼   ► - For whatever it's worth, I actually almost never use the iTunes Connect sales and trends

00:21:32 ◼   ► area.

00:21:33 ◼   ► I've been a user of app figures forever, and I'm very happy just letting them do it.

00:21:38 ◼   ► I find that their interface of presenting things is just easier for me to get around,

00:21:46 ◼   ► easier for me to find what I need, and I really appreciate their daily emails.

00:21:52 ◼   ► The app figures' daily email of like, "Here's how much you sold yesterday."

00:21:55 ◼   ► That is basically my barometer of how I'm doing in my business.

00:22:00 ◼   ► I've done it since the early days of Instapaper, and it really tells me, 'cause I start to

00:22:05 ◼   ► learn, what do I expect a day to look like?

00:22:08 ◼   ► And I just always have this idea of what have sales been around recently?

00:22:13 ◼   ► And so every month when it's time to get that monthly deposit or do numbers for the month,

00:22:19 ◼   ► I'm usually not really surprised by any part of it, because every morning I've been getting

00:22:23 ◼   ► an email saying how much I sold the day before, and I know roughly what that means relative

00:22:29 ◼   ► to like, how am I doing this month?

00:22:32 ◼   ► Is this an up period?

00:22:33 ◼   ► Is this a down period?

00:22:34 ◼   ► Is this going in the right direction?

00:22:35 ◼   ► Do I need to make changes?

00:22:37 ◼   ► So I actually hardly ever use iTunes Connect directly for that.

00:22:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I think it's just a question of preference for something like that.

00:22:47 ◼   ► I've tried a couple services like that.

00:22:48 ◼   ► I've tried app figures.

00:22:49 ◼   ► I think they're used to have, this is the one I tried before that, but for me it's never

00:22:55 ◼   ► quite stuck.

00:22:56 ◼   ► I either go full custom in the, I have my crazy scripts pulling something in and processing

00:23:01 ◼   ► it, or I go entirely just using their stuff, and that works for me.

00:23:06 ◼   ► But I know, one thing I will say is you can get a similar email from iTunes Connect on

00:23:12 ◼   ► a weekly basis.

00:23:13 ◼   ► That's one of the notifications you can set up where they'll send you an information like

00:23:17 ◼   ► that.

00:23:18 ◼   ► It's not that interesting, but you don't want to sign up for a service like app figures.

00:23:21 ◼   ► You can just set iTunes Connect to do that, and you'll get it on a weekly basis, which

00:23:25 ◼   ► in some ways is useful, because a lot of apps have a weekly seasonality to them.

00:23:31 ◼   ► I know a lot of my apps do better on the weekend rather than during the week, so it's usually

00:23:35 ◼   ► helpful to just see it on a rolled up basis like that.

00:23:40 ◼   ► The next area is the app analytics area, which is a pretty complicated and sophisticated

00:23:48 ◼   ► thing, and we've talked about a lot of the things in it over time, but I feel like this

00:23:52 ◼   ► is just a fun place to, I don't know, I know I'm a bit of a numberphile to, like, I just

00:23:59 ◼   ► love this kind of thing, but you can just go in there and dig around and try and understand

00:24:04 ◼   ► what's going on with your applications.

00:24:08 ◼   ► The main reason I'll go into it here is I want to take a look at, for example, what

00:24:12 ◼   ► is my conversion rate from someone seeing my App Store page to downloading the app,

00:24:20 ◼   ► and how do they compare app to app, because there's definitely going to be a difference

00:24:24 ◼   ► between a free app and a paid app, for example, but I have a couple of free apps, and so I

00:24:28 ◼   ► look at those and I start to think, this app has a 20% better conversion rate compared

00:24:36 ◼   ► to this other one.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Why would that be?

00:24:38 ◼   ► I would use that information to try and make tweaks to my screenshots, to my description,

00:24:43 ◼   ► or just in general think about what's going on there.

00:24:48 ◼   ► And the reality is, like, App Analytics, this particular type of App Analytics, it's really

00:24:52 ◼   ► App Store Analytics is the place where it's really valuable, because a lot of the data

00:24:57 ◼   ► in here is not available anywhere else.

00:25:00 ◼   ► Like, there is no other place that we can go to get the number of impressions that our

00:25:06 ◼   ► app received in the App Store.

00:25:09 ◼   ► They do other stuff too, they do kind of the in-app stuff where the retention values and

00:25:14 ◼   ► number of sessions and that kind of stuff that you could theoretically do in a third-party

00:25:18 ◼   ► thing like Fabric or Roll yourself, but the actual App Store optimization stuff is in

00:25:28 ◼   ► this area and it's the only place we can get it, and so it's definitely worth your time

00:25:32 ◼   ► to dig around a little bit and just try and understand what's happening in the App Store,

00:25:36 ◼   ► because usually that otherwise is a complete black box.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and some of the things in there are things that you can't, like metrics that

00:25:44 ◼   ► you can't get any other way.

00:25:46 ◼   ► So things like how many views your product page gets and stuff like that, and the conversions

00:25:49 ◼   ► from there.

00:25:51 ◼   ► You can measure a lot of this stuff yourself in your own in-app analytics, but some of

00:25:56 ◼   ► the data like that you just can't get outside of Apple, so it is nice for that.

00:26:01 ◼   ► This is one area too where there have been many substantial improvements over even the

00:26:06 ◼   ► last six months.

00:26:08 ◼   ► This area is getting better quickly, and it used to be nonexistent and now it's getting

00:26:14 ◼   ► good quickly, so I'm happy with analytics.

00:26:16 ◼   ► Yeah, and I will say it's an area that Apple seems to be investing into, which I very much

00:26:24 ◼   ► appreciate too, that it did.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Like you said, it is getting better and it's just, I love that it allows me to make more

00:26:29 ◼   ► informed decisions.

00:26:31 ◼   ► When I was recently looking at localizing, I think it was Workouts++, I was looking at,

00:26:38 ◼   ► I was trying to guess which countries I should localize into.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Analytics has some really great information about what's not just my sales, because my

00:26:48 ◼   ► sales data by country is very heavily skewed to the apps, the countries where it's localized

00:26:54 ◼   ► into and it has to have been a successful purchase.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Whereas I can look at what countries are people looking at the page but then not completing,

00:27:03 ◼   ► and that's a good indication, for example, of a place that I might want to look to localizing

00:27:06 ◼   ► my App Store description or my screenshots.

00:27:09 ◼   ► That kind of information is just incredibly valuable and only available in here.

00:27:15 ◼   ► And the last area, and this is an area that we'll probably end up doing a whole episode

00:27:18 ◼   ► about, is the actual apps area.

00:27:21 ◼   ► This is where you can go in and you do all of the actual, when you want to submit a new

00:27:27 ◼   ► app or an update to an app, you go in and enter the information in here.

00:27:31 ◼   ► This is where you get, this is one of my favorite buttons in the whole of iTunes Connect, where

00:27:35 ◼   ► you can push the new app button, which is awesome.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I love pushing that button.

00:27:40 ◼   ► It always gives me a thrill to do.

00:27:42 ◼   ► - I mean, you are the best person in the world at pushing that button.

00:27:45 ◼   ► - I've done it many, many times.

00:27:49 ◼   ► So I love that part of this area.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And sometimes I was trying to think of things in here that you may not be aware of.

00:27:55 ◼   ► There's a great section where it shows you the history of an app, somewhere you can actually

00:28:00 ◼   ► go through and see for each version that's been approved in the App Store, the dates

00:28:05 ◼   ► for that.

00:28:06 ◼   ► I mean, maybe that's not that useful.

00:28:08 ◼   ► It's not tactically useful, but there have been times when I've wanted to go back and

00:28:12 ◼   ► reference that.

00:28:13 ◼   ► And it's nice that iTunes Connect exposes that to you.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And you can see, for example, when it went in review and then when it was approved.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And so if you're kind of curious to look at the change of that time over time, there is

00:28:25 ◼   ► a place to do that.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And this is also the place where you'll go to do things like promo codes or in-app purchases,

00:28:34 ◼   ► changing the price, test flight stuff.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And then now this is where you'll go if you want to respond to reviews.

00:28:40 ◼   ► But this is the, in some ways it's the least iTunes Connecty part of this.

00:28:45 ◼   ► So much of iTunes Connect seems to be focused on kind of the business and marketing side

00:28:49 ◼   ► of things.

00:28:50 ◼   ► And much of the app side of it is, feels a bit more like Xcode to me, where it's really

00:28:56 ◼   ► just detailed about a specific app and the development process for that app.

00:29:02 ◼   ► - So why don't we make that next week?

00:29:03 ◼   ► We'll make that a part two, which is the actual app section of iTunes Connect.

00:29:06 ◼   ► - Sounds good.

00:29:07 ◼   ► - All right, well tune in everybody next week, 'cause we're out of time this week for iTunes

00:29:11 ◼   ► Connect part two.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Electric bugalo?

00:29:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Anyway, thanks everyone for listening, and we will talk to you next week.

00:29:18 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:29:20 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:29:20 ◼   ► [