Under the Radar

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

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

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 as we are recording this, we are about a week away from the "See You on the 7th" event,

00:00:17 ◼   ► which is expected to be sort of like the big fall Apple event.

00:00:21 ◼   ► They used to be pretty typical that Apple would do a couple of events in the fall.

00:00:26 ◼   ► They seem to be moving to just one.

00:00:27 ◼   ► So, like, next week on the 7th is going to be kind of it, probably, this year.

00:00:33 ◼   ► And so, while the actual speculations about what's going to be announced and those types

00:00:38 ◼   ► of things are mostly hardware-related, so we're not going to probably talk too much

00:00:41 ◼   ► about that, but it seemed like a good time to talk through sort of the concepts of what

00:00:46 ◼   ► to expect, what to prepare for, and what to think about going into next week.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Because what will probably happen, at least this is just based on past history, hopefully

00:00:56 ◼   ► predicting future results, is they'll have the actual announcement.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I think it's at 10 a.m. Pacific next Wednesday.

00:01:07 ◼   ► And they'll announce all the things, and that sometime a few hours after that, they'll release

00:01:12 ◼   ► all the GMs of everything.

00:01:14 ◼   ► So it'll be the GM of iOS, watchOS, Sierra, tvOS.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Those will all go out, so we can download them and do all of our final tests and checks

00:01:24 ◼   ► and all those kinds of things for hopefully all the app updates that we've been working

00:01:28 ◼   ► on.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And we'll have the opportunity to work on that.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And then sometime, probably that night, it always drives me a little bit crazy because

00:01:38 ◼   ► I live on the East Coast, and so all of these things are happening West Coast times, and

00:01:41 ◼   ► so the opening of iTunes Connect to submit new binaries built with the new stuff will

00:01:47 ◼   ► sort of open sometime late that night, usually.

00:01:51 ◼   ► I'm trying to think, last year it may have been something like 10 p.m. my time, something

00:01:55 ◼   ► like that.

00:01:57 ◼   ► It opened up, and so at that point, you can build your new app and you can submit it to

00:02:01 ◼   ► the App Store because usually the new OS updates will be released to the public about a week

00:02:08 ◼   ► later.

00:02:09 ◼   ► So in this case, that'll be around the 14th, and in anticipation of the iPhones and any

00:02:16 ◼   ► new hardware that's coming out, launching probably the following Friday.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So typically in the last few years, they've staged it so that iOS updates come out first,

00:02:26 ◼   ► those go out over the air to all the existing iPhones in the world, and then the iPhones

00:02:31 ◼   ► will launch a few days later.

00:02:32 ◼   ► And ideally, your app will be ready to go on day one.

00:02:36 ◼   ► On the plus side, that's probably easier this year than it's ever been because App Review's

00:02:40 ◼   ► so fast now that before, when App Review length was about a week, if you didn't submit in

00:02:47 ◼   ► that first wave of people, so when they open up the floodgates at, say, 10 p.m. on Wednesday,

00:02:54 ◼   ► if you weren't in that first wave, you may actually not be ready to go.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Usually they do a great job, they would try as hard as they could, you kind of got the

00:03:00 ◼   ► impression that during that week, App Review was all hands on deck.

00:03:04 ◼   ► But still, it was always important to try and be in there really soon so that you were

00:03:09 ◼   ► ready on day one.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Whereas this year, if App Reviews are going to take a day or two, you may even be able

00:03:13 ◼   ► to get a couple of rejection approval cycles through in that time.

00:03:18 ◼   ► But that's sort of what I'm expecting for next week.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Does that make sense to you based on past experience?

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's the most likely to happen for sure.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I mean, one thing that is worth observing this time is this is going to be the first

00:03:30 ◼   ► big rush of submissions since the App Review delay dropped suspiciously from one week to

00:03:37 ◼   ► less than one day.

00:03:38 ◼   ► So it'll be interesting to see basically how much the influx of submissions affects

00:03:44 ◼   ► that time, whether it really makes it spike back up to maybe a week or maybe does it keep

00:03:49 ◼   ► itself nice and fast the way it has been for these last few months.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Also, I think it'll be interesting to see what the rejection controversy of the year

00:03:59 ◼   ► will be.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Like every year, every time there's a new version of iOS that adds new capabilities,

00:04:06 ◼   ► the whole bunch of people try to take advantage of those and some of the things people try

00:04:10 ◼   ► to do, Apple decides that's not within what we had in mind or that's not the kind of thing

00:04:16 ◼   ► we want to allow.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And so even if there wasn't necessarily a rule that explicitly prohibited it during

00:04:21 ◼   ► development before, oftentimes new rules will be created and established during this initial

00:04:28 ◼   ► fall rush.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Because it's not usually like evil or anything, it's usually just like Apple didn't realize

00:04:35 ◼   ► that, "Oh, you know what?

00:04:36 ◼   ► We didn't think about that thing that you just did with this new ability we had and

00:04:40 ◼   ► we don't want you to do that."

00:04:43 ◼   ► But inevitably this always causes lots of grief for all the people involved, the developer,

00:04:47 ◼   ► Apple, and all of us who read about it and complain about it because ultimately these

00:04:52 ◼   ► are all really messy policies and messy problems that are hard to get right on all sides.

00:05:00 ◼   ► And so I think it'll be interesting to see what that will be.

00:05:02 ◼   ► There's a lot of new stuff available that you can play with now, a lot of new app capabilities

00:05:06 ◼   ► you can do.

00:05:07 ◼   ► The entire Messages app store, to me it's fascinating.

00:05:11 ◼   ► I'm really curious to see what happens there.

00:05:14 ◼   ► I'm also really curious to see whether there will be a big rush of iOS 10 apps on day one

00:05:22 ◼   ► or for day one.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Because it seems to me, and this could just be anecdotal or the people I hang around with

00:05:29 ◼   ► or whatever else, this is based on nothing except my own intuition and anecdotes, but

00:05:35 ◼   ► it does seem to me that there is less of a push to get your stuff out there on day one

00:05:42 ◼   ► recently.

00:05:44 ◼   ► As the app store economy becomes, as we discussed last episode, as the economy becomes a lot

00:05:47 ◼   ► more challenging and a lot of indies just have bowed out or have had to take consulting

00:05:53 ◼   ► work to pay a lot of the bills and a lot of, you know, there's basically, I think there's

00:06:00 ◼   ► less upside now to rushing your stuff out and being there on day one for new platforms,

00:06:06 ◼   ► new capabilities, new iOS versions, things like that, because the app market has cooled

00:06:11 ◼   ► down so much for people like us.

00:06:15 ◼   ► But I don't know, you know better than I because you are almost always out there on day one

00:06:20 ◼   ► with new stuff.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Do you think it's still worth getting out there on day one and do you expect a lot of

00:06:26 ◼   ► people will or is it either not worth it or can people not really afford to spend that

00:06:31 ◼   ► much time on it?

00:06:33 ◼   ► I think so it is always, yeah, I've done a lot of getting ready for day one and this

00:06:38 ◼   ► year my plan is, I originally had been hoping to have my next new app ready for day one,

00:06:44 ◼   ► it doesn't look like that's going to happen, but instead I'm just going to have updates

00:06:48 ◼   ► for iOS 10 and watchOS 3 for my main apps will be ready on day one, you know, they're

00:06:54 ◼   ► essentially ready now, I'm in the final stages of testing and I've been focused on that and

00:06:59 ◼   ► I think though that makes a lot of sense that if you have an existing product that has a

00:07:03 ◼   ► new capability that it can take advantage of to be ready on day one, that's like, it's

00:07:08 ◼   ► sort of you're in a doubly good situation there on the one side, like in this case,

00:07:13 ◼   ► for a lot of my apps watchOS 3 is the big new thing and it's so great for me because

00:07:19 ◼   ► my apps can really take advantage of that and be a lot better, so a lot of my apps are

00:07:26 ◼   ► going to be switching to, they're going to require, still require iOS 9, but they're

00:07:30 ◼   ► going to require watchOS 3 because watchOS 3 is just so much better and so I'm looking

00:07:36 ◼   ► forward to just dropping support for watchOS 2 and plowing ahead there and it'll be better

00:07:40 ◼   ► for developers and then I think also it's also beneficial to you because if you have

00:07:45 ◼   ► an existing app, especially one with a reason, you know, any kind of existing audience following,

00:07:53 ◼   ► whatever and you do an update that takes advantage of the new stuff, I think it's easier to

00:07:58 ◼   ► get on Apple's radar for being featured or being in that group of, you know, things like

00:08:04 ◼   ► or even not from Apple, just from the press, like it's easier to kind of get that little

00:08:09 ◼   ► boost of attention, but other than that, like it is a, I think there was a time when trying

00:08:16 ◼   ► to fight for that, that day one, like being the first to do something, maybe mattered

00:08:21 ◼   ► more, but I will certainly say I don't think it matters nearly as much as it used to, to

00:08:25 ◼   ► be in that first wave of things because in general it's so difficult and the volume of

00:08:31 ◼   ► apps coming out on the app store is so high that in some ways it's worse to be in that

00:08:39 ◼   ► first wave.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Like this is always the tension that I've always felt when I come in, I come towards

00:08:42 ◼   ► the end of the summer is on, there's the upside of being in that first wave is like there's

00:08:47 ◼   ► that, there's a built in audience looking for new stuff, both on Apple and their editorial

00:08:52 ◼   ► team as well as in the press as well as customers like, you know, I got a brand new phone.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I wonder what I can do.

00:08:58 ◼   ► Oh, it can do this cool new thing.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Great.

00:09:00 ◼   ► I want to take advantage of that.

00:09:01 ◼   ► But on the downside, you're competing against all the people trying to take advantage of

00:09:07 ◼   ► that built in audience at the same time.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And so you're like the, the focus that you could get on yourself is so much more diluted

00:09:15 ◼   ► that even if you are ready and you are in that first wave and you do get some attention

00:09:19 ◼   ► from some, some other things, you're going to be sharing that with, you know, tens or

00:09:22 ◼   ► 20 of the other apps.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Like you're going to be one of the, you know, here's the 10 new apps for iOS 10.

00:09:29 ◼   ► You need to be aware of like the, you're going to be in a slide show.

00:09:31 ◼   ► You'll be, you know, you're on that slide show on the verge or something.

00:09:33 ◼   ► You're not, whereas if you wait a couple months and you release your new app in November,

00:09:39 ◼   ► say, you may actually just get attention on your own in a way that is probably a bit more

00:09:46 ◼   ► constructive, especially when, you know, as like, this is a really busy time for the,

00:09:50 ◼   ► for the press in general.

00:09:51 ◼   ► And so they're not quite as much looking for articles to write.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Like if you do it later when new things are a bit slower in the news cycle and you're

00:10:00 ◼   ► just, you know, it's, it's nice for them to have something interesting to write about.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Like that has a great benefit too.

00:10:04 ◼   ► And there's always been that tension.

00:10:06 ◼   ► There's always been that tension between if you're in that, like that new group, it's

00:10:10 ◼   ► like your, your potential is bigger perhaps, but you're, the risk of getting lost in the

00:10:16 ◼   ► noise I think is also higher.

00:10:18 ◼   ► And I think so in general, like the fact that I'm not, I'm going to miss day one with my

00:10:23 ◼   ► next app.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Like I, there's a time when I'd probably be worried about that at this point.

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'm not really worried.

00:10:28 ◼   ► I'm like, that's fine.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I'll release it sometime this fall when it's ready and go from there.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And I'm not too worried about being ready on day one, except for, you know, for the,

00:10:38 ◼   ► for the iOS updates that I have now.

00:10:40 ◼   ► And obviously if you have an app update that is necessary, you know, so if your app doesn't

00:10:45 ◼   ► work correctly on the new platform or a situation like that, you obviously want to be ready

00:10:50 ◼   ► on day one so that you don't have the situation where everyone installs iOS 10 and your app

00:10:56 ◼   ► stops working.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Like it starts crashing on launch or something.

00:10:58 ◼   ► Like obviously you want to be ready on day one if that were the case.

00:11:02 ◼   ► But in general, you can just kind of take it easy at this point, I'd say.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And the good thing about that latter case too, about like if your app actually doesn't

00:11:08 ◼   ► work on 10, you probably know that already because that probably happened during the

00:11:12 ◼   ► beta period.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And so many people are on the betas these days that you can generally be sure that if

00:11:17 ◼   ► your app, if the, if the previous version build of your app, like if the, you know,

00:11:21 ◼   ► building with the iOS nine SDK, but happened, but running it on iOS 10, if that has worked

00:11:27 ◼   ► during the betas, it'll probably work during the GM.

00:11:29 ◼   ► So you can be reasonably assured of that, you know, most of the time.

00:11:33 ◼   ► But you know, I too have, have faced a similar dilemma of like, do you want to join the rush?

00:11:38 ◼   ► Do you want to compete in the rush and, you know, try to catch that big wave early on?

00:11:43 ◼   ► And ultimately I don't know how big the wave is.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Like the idea here is that you are competing with all these other, you know, attention

00:11:54 ◼   ► grabbing sources here and all these other apps that are vying for features and press

00:11:59 ◼   ► reviews and everything else.

00:12:01 ◼   ► The whole idea here is you're competing for that in order to get that, that massive

00:12:05 ◼   ► wave of people and that the wave is, the assumption is that the wave is big enough that it's

00:12:09 ◼   ► worth it, but I'm not sure the wave is big enough because like what I, what I've seen

00:12:14 ◼   ► over the last, you know, well heck over the entire app store basically is, you know, there,

00:12:19 ◼   ► there are obviously years where iPhone and iPad growth is better than others.

00:12:23 ◼   ► And also the market has had fewer and fewer new customers I think over time or at least

00:12:29 ◼   ► recently that, you know, it seems like there's a lot of the, a lot of the iPhone and iPad

00:12:34 ◼   ► sales are selling to people who already had them and who were just upgrading.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Basically people who already had Apple IDs who might have probably already heard of and

00:12:41 ◼   ► bought or not bought your apps.

00:12:43 ◼   ► And so what I've seen over time is, you know, major holidays like Christmas and major

00:12:49 ◼   ► new iPhone and iPad releases used to cause big spikes in my sales and/or downloads.

00:12:56 ◼   ► And over time the size of those spikes has actually decreased that in recent years those

00:13:01 ◼   ► spikes aren't actually that substantial.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And so maybe the right calculus here is to not compete for this big wave with all, with

00:13:10 ◼   ► everybody else because the wave isn't that big anymore or at least it's not big enough

00:13:16 ◼   ► to make it worth all the competition and fighting for all the attention.

00:13:21 ◼   ► And so for me personally, I mean, this could always be wishful thinking because I'm not

00:13:24 ◼   ► going to be ready on day one either, not even close.

00:13:26 ◼   ► I have done only a very small part of the work on Overcast 3.0 so far and it's most

00:13:31 ◼   ► likely going to be a spring release not a fall release if I had to take a guess now.

00:13:36 ◼   ► But I, you know, I think that's ultimately not that bad of a thing because as you said,

00:13:42 ◼   ► like there's so many people vying for the attention on day zero of the new release and

00:13:46 ◼   ► the new phones being released that like I, as a user, as a person who loves apps and

00:13:52 ◼   ► reads blogs about apps and stuff, I get overwhelmed with all the announcements that are made and

00:13:57 ◼   ► I usually end up forgetting more than half of them.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And I have to imagine that'll happen to a lot of other people too because there's

00:14:03 ◼   ► just so much that happens during this time, so much is released that, you know, you could

00:14:10 ◼   ► score big and get a lot of attention from it, but I think it's much more based on luck

00:14:15 ◼   ► at that point than the rest of the year when there's less competition per day for attention

00:14:21 ◼   ► and you have generally a better chance of being noticed.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think there's something to be said too for it's that looking at what you're

00:14:29 ◼   ► trying to build and understanding if the, if it is truly a new, I guess.

00:14:37 ◼   ► So I'm thinking about a little bit of the history with one of my apps, pedometer plus

00:14:41 ◼   ► plus, which is a step counter.

00:14:43 ◼   ► And I remember quite specifically how that app came to be because it was one of those

00:14:48 ◼   ► cases where being there on day one turned out to be perhaps not essential, but very

00:14:53 ◼   ► important for the way that it gained traction.

00:14:57 ◼   ► And so several years ago when the Apple first added a motion coprocessor to the iPhone,

00:15:04 ◼   ► they would go all the way through the summer, like in WDC, and there was no sign in any

00:15:09 ◼   ► of the SDKs or in the GM or in the betas or anything about this new capability that was

00:15:14 ◼   ► going to come out of the new phone.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And at the event, Phyllis Shiller gets on the stage and says, "Hey, it has this motion

00:15:19 ◼   ► processor that can count steps."

00:15:21 ◼   ► And that evening, or I guess a few hours after the event, Apple updates the new GMs and I

00:15:25 ◼   ► go into the beta diffs and there's this whole new class, CM pedometer, and it was a way

00:15:30 ◼   ► of measuring and tracking steps.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And at this point, there's no hardware that exists that can do that.

00:15:36 ◼   ► The simulator doesn't do it.

00:15:38 ◼   ► And I was like, "You know, but I think this is kind of cool.

00:15:39 ◼   ► I'd like to make a pedometer using this API."

00:15:42 ◼   ► And so I spent the next week, without any hardware, working on a version of the app

00:15:49 ◼   ► that ultimately would become Pedometer++.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And I remember that iPhone launched.

00:15:55 ◼   ► I stayed up until, like I said, not quite overnight.

00:16:00 ◼   ► I got up maybe at like 2 or 3 in the morning, I went to line up at my local Apple store.

00:16:04 ◼   ► I went, I got an iPhone, I ran back to my office, I plugged it in, checked this app

00:16:09 ◼   ► that I'd been working entirely theoretically the past week on, made sure that it worked.

00:16:15 ◼   ► As soon as it showed any kind of step counting, I just submitted it to the App Store and hoped

00:16:19 ◼   ► for the best.

00:16:21 ◼   ► And it turned out that was a big boon for that particular app because there were no

00:16:27 ◼   ► apps at all that were taking advantage of the M7 chip at that time.

00:16:31 ◼   ► And so when people in the press, when people who had just bought these new phones were

00:16:36 ◼   ► looking to see if it's, like, what is this new thing and how does it work, I was able

00:16:41 ◼   ► to be an app that people could go and try.

00:16:44 ◼   ► And so it was important to be in that first wave because there was this pent-up demand

00:16:49 ◼   ► for that, that being in, if I had released the same app a few months later, there wouldn't

00:16:55 ◼   ► have been nearly that same initial interest.

00:16:58 ◼   ► And so that was a new situation, something completely new and something that being there

00:17:02 ◼   ► on being the first sort of mattered.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Whereas a lot of updates or a lot of apps that if you're doing something that wasn't

00:17:10 ◼   ► completely impossible before, if you were doing just an update to an existing app or

00:17:15 ◼   ► it's an app in an existing category that takes advantage perhaps of the new stuff but isn't

00:17:21 ◼   ► completely new and revolutionary, then waiting probably doesn't matter as much.

00:17:26 ◼   ► But I'm definitely, you know, every year I will go to the event, or go to the event,

00:17:30 ◼   ► I'll watch the event next week, and one of the things I will certainly always be paying

00:17:34 ◼   ► attention to is, like, is there something new that they're announcing here that hasn't

00:17:37 ◼   ► been in the betas that is going to magically appear next Wednesday, and is there an opportunity

00:17:43 ◼   ► there?

00:17:44 ◼   ► And if there is, maybe I'll chase after it, but if it's not in that category where

00:17:48 ◼   ► you have something very specific that wasn't possible before, it's probably fine to just

00:17:53 ◼   ► let it go.

00:17:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm curious to think, like, what, you know, for what we have heard in the rumor

00:17:59 ◼   ► mill about these new iPhones and possibly new watches, I wonder, like, what kinds of

00:18:05 ◼   ► things might that be that become available next week that we don't know about yet?

00:18:10 ◼   ► And according to the rumor mill, I think the rumor dual camera or dual lens camera on the

00:18:16 ◼   ► big phone, the plus-size phone, that might be something interesting.

00:18:19 ◼   ► You know, lots of people use their phones as cameras, that's a really big business dealing

00:18:23 ◼   ► with camera apps and photo processing and everything else, so anything that is enabled

00:18:27 ◼   ► by a substantially better camera might be a really new category to go into later, but

00:18:33 ◼   ► of course there's going to be lots of competition in that, but--

00:18:35 ◼   ► - And even there, like, the tricky thing is, whatever that new capability that camera has,

00:18:40 ◼   ► the built-in Apple camera will probably be able to do it.

00:18:44 ◼   ► - Oh, exactly, yeah.

00:18:45 ◼   ► - 'Cause I think that's the thing where it gets really interesting, is finding an opportunity

00:18:48 ◼   ► where there's a new capability that Apple isn't themselves addressing at all, like,

00:18:54 ◼   ► that intersection is where really interesting app opportunities exist.

00:18:58 ◼   ► - And of course, and the watch also, like, you know, if the watch hardware comes out

00:19:03 ◼   ► as rumored sometime soon, who knows, and if the rumors are true that it has hardware GPS

00:19:08 ◼   ► and maybe some other upgrades, like, would that also enable new stuff?

00:19:11 ◼   ► - It's like, maybe, it's tricky, 'cause, like, so many of these things, I think about, you

00:19:18 ◼   ► know, with the watch and GPS, and maybe I'm just not creative enough, but it's a tricky

00:19:22 ◼   ► thing to imagine a totally new thing that you could do with that, like, it's useful

00:19:26 ◼   ► for the watch to have GPS, but because it requires your iPhone to be near to it, to

00:19:34 ◼   ► do anything with the data, unless you're doing it sort of retrospectively, your iPhone's

00:19:41 ◼   ► had a GPS in it since the 3G, I think, or something like that, and so it's not a brand

00:19:48 ◼   ► new, totally new capability, and so it's tricky to imagine what that would be, it's like,

00:19:55 ◼   ► it'll probably make existing apps better, and those kinds of changes are ones that I

00:20:00 ◼   ► think are less exciting from a, like, new category perspective, you know, even like

00:20:05 ◼   ► you're seeing with the camera, like, there's lots of existing camera apps, and so even

00:20:09 ◼   ► if you took advantage of the new dual camera system in some amazing and awesome and cool

00:20:14 ◼   ► way, you're going into a already saturated market, it's not a new market that didn't

00:20:22 ◼   ► exist before, where suddenly, rather than competing against thousands of apps, you're

00:20:25 ◼   ► competing against ten apps, you know, that would be exciting, that would be interesting,

00:20:30 ◼   ► but if you're, if it's just something that has been done before, but is just now better,

00:20:34 ◼   ► that's a harder sell, I think.

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00:22:27 ◼   ► Okay, so, I guess one of the things that seemed like it made sense for us to dive into is,

00:22:33 ◼   ► if you have decided to, you know, join the rush and be in there in the sort of the wild

00:22:42 ◼   ► craze to be in on day one, there's an interesting aspect to that that I don't think is very

00:22:48 ◼   ► well documented, just sort of generally, and so it seemed worth talking about, and that's

00:22:52 ◼   ► the process that goes into being featured by Apple.

00:22:57 ◼   ► So this is, you know, I guess in many ways the goal, or at least it's a nice confirmation

00:23:02 ◼   ► that the work you've been doing is, you know, is good, is worthwhile, is perhaps going to

00:23:07 ◼   ► have some success.

00:23:09 ◼   ► When you submit your application to the App Store, and you then get an email back from

00:23:14 ◼   ► Apple saying your app is being considered for promotion, which I remember, you know,

00:23:20 ◼   ► the first time I got one of those, I mean, it's like dancing around my office, like,

00:23:23 ◼   ► that is so cool to, because up until that point, so much of your development process

00:23:27 ◼   ► has been, you know, fairly isolated or lonely, like you've shown it to your friends, but

00:23:32 ◼   ► obviously they're going to be nice to you because they're your friends, but Apple has

00:23:36 ◼   ► no interest in being nice to you in that regard.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Like if your app isn't good, they're not going to feature it, and so it's really cool to

00:23:44 ◼   ► get that external validation when you get an email, and the way that process typically

00:23:48 ◼   ► works is you'll get an email back and it'll say, you know, "Hey, your app is being considered

00:23:53 ◼   ► for promotion within the App Store, and they need some things from you."

00:23:58 ◼   ► And it's important to probably emphasize that they say "considered for promotion."

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's anything that, any interactions you have with Apple in this sort of process are entirely,

00:24:09 ◼   ► there's no guarantees that they may or may not end up actually featuring you, it's just

00:24:13 ◼   ► going to depend on what makes sense, what you give back to them, you know, like a lot

00:24:17 ◼   ► of times I get the impression that there's different groups, you know, they're trying

00:24:21 ◼   ► to put together different campaigns or collections of apps on their end, and if they don't get

00:24:27 ◼   ► enough of apps in one category or just they decide to go another way, maybe they'll just,

00:24:31 ◼   ► you know, sort of, that particular promotion that they were thinking about may not ever

00:24:34 ◼   ► run.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But what they'll ask you for is essentially that banner that you see in the App Store.

00:24:40 ◼   ► So if you open up the App Store right now on your phone and go to any category or the

00:24:44 ◼   ► featured pages, you'll see, like, the not-the-app-icon display, the kind of the bigger rectangles

00:24:52 ◼   ► that usually have the app's name and some kind of artwork associated with it, and essentially

00:24:57 ◼   ► Apple is just asking you to make that banner for you.

00:25:01 ◼   ► And so if you get one of these emails and you get that artwork, usually they'll give

00:25:06 ◼   ► you, say, something along the lines of, you know, "You have a couple of days to get back

00:25:09 ◼   ► to them," I would definitely encourage you to work hard to get something back to them.

00:25:15 ◼   ► It's definitely -- I wouldn't push it in terms of if they say they need it by next Thursday,

00:25:20 ◼   ► I'd get it to them next Wednesday.

00:25:21 ◼   ► You know, you want to be responsive and doing everything you can on your end, because I

00:25:28 ◼   ► imagine you're not the only one they're sending that email to, and so anything you can do

00:25:32 ◼   ► to make their life easier is going to just increase the chances that you're going to

00:25:37 ◼   ► end up being featured that much more.

00:25:39 ◼   ► But you'll put together this big PSD file, you'll send it back to them, and then you

00:25:44 ◼   ► wait.

00:25:45 ◼   ► And the waiting part is definitely always a little bit disconcerting.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Like, you'll often find -- someone else will tell you that your app is being featured because

00:25:54 ◼   ► you just never know when it's going to happen.

00:25:55 ◼   ► There's not a lot of visibility into that.

00:25:57 ◼   ► >> Enoch: And they don't tell you, even if they choose it.

00:25:59 ◼   ► No one tells you unless you notice it or someone else does.

00:26:02 ◼   ► >> Exactly.

00:26:03 ◼   ► >> It's not like a conversation you're having.

00:26:07 ◼   ► You get the email that says, "Give us this thing," and you upload the thing into iTunes

00:26:11 ◼   ► Connect, and then you just wait.

00:26:14 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:26:15 ◼   ► It used to be FTP servers, and before it was email attack sprints at one time.

00:26:18 ◼   ► The system has gotten a lot better over the years.

00:26:22 ◼   ► So a couple things.

00:26:23 ◼   ► Number one, most app metrics services, things like app figures, the one I use, they will

00:26:30 ◼   ► usually have a way to track whether you're featured, so you don't have to be checking

00:26:34 ◼   ► every store in every country with every category and every page.

00:26:37 ◼   ► So usually they will have a way to track that, which is nice.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Also, Apple will occasionally request things for their social media accounts, and you and

00:26:46 ◼   ► I have both had this happen.

00:26:47 ◼   ► So that's like the App Store account on Twitter, and I believe there's also one on Facebook.

00:26:53 ◼   ► And the requirements are pretty different for those than for the regular promotional

00:26:56 ◼   ► artwork.

00:26:57 ◼   ► They have a lot of restrictions on them that basically mean that you will probably have

00:27:01 ◼   ► to make something brand new just for that.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Oftentimes you will have to go to a designer just for that or license a new stock photo

00:27:08 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:27:09 ◼   ► That's one of the ones I did.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Those are probably not worth it in my experience so far.

00:27:16 ◼   ► So basically these artwork requests, it is almost always worth responding to them completely

00:27:21 ◼   ► and quickly, but it is not probably worth having to go hire a designer for a whole lot

00:27:29 ◼   ► more time or buy new assets or create all new assets if it's going to be a lot of

00:27:35 ◼   ► time or expense to you, because the chances of you getting featured are already not probably

00:27:39 ◼   ► above 50%, and the chances of you getting featured in a place that drives enough downloads

00:27:45 ◼   ► to matter is pretty low as well.

00:27:48 ◼   ► And so keep your head straight when you get these requests.

00:27:52 ◼   ► Don't go totally nuts trying to serve them with the most amazing stuff in the world,

00:27:56 ◼   ► because the possible upside usually is fairly small, and the ones that have the larger upsides,

00:28:03 ◼   ► like the big App Store banners, are actually the easiest ones to make usually.

00:28:08 ◼   ► So don't go nuts.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think that's probably fair to say.

00:28:12 ◼   ► I think it's important to, anytime you get an opportunity, and this applies probably

00:28:17 ◼   ► to a lot of press publications as things as well, but in general, if you have an opportunity,

00:28:22 ◼   ► someone's asking for assets from you to help them promote you, that's pretty much

00:28:27 ◼   ► a good thing.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And yeah, I wouldn't go crazy.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Whenever I get the social media ones that ask for things, I'll go to a stock photo

00:28:36 ◼   ► site, I'll find a relevant image, I'll format it in the way they need it and send

00:28:40 ◼   ► it off, and it's maybe a couple hours' work.

00:28:43 ◼   ► You could imagine going down the road of doing a lot of heavy work there, but it's probably

00:28:48 ◼   ► not going to pay off.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Because the difference between an amazing feature banner and just a basic feature banner

00:28:56 ◼   ► is probably relatively small in terms of traffic, and like you said, the social ones I found

00:29:02 ◼   ► have some impact maybe on downloads, but not very much.

00:29:07 ◼   ► There's something not nearly as powerful as being promoted in the App Store, which

00:29:12 ◼   ► is an app someone has launched because they're looking for an app, and then they see a promotion

00:29:17 ◼   ► for an app, so they're ready in the "I want an app," "Oh look, here's an app,"

00:29:21 ◼   ► "Oh, let me get this app."

00:29:23 ◼   ► That's always going to be more powerful than someone's on Twitter looking at the

00:29:27 ◼   ► news or on Facebook looking at pictures from their friends, and then they see something

00:29:35 ◼   ► about an app.

00:29:36 ◼   ► That's just never going to be as compelling, so I wouldn't worry about it quite as much.

00:29:38 ◼   ► Exactly, yeah, so keep your head on straight, don't get your hopes up too far, but respond

00:29:43 ◼   ► quickly.

00:29:44 ◼   ► That sounds about right.

00:29:45 ◼   ► All right, that's all the time we have for this week.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Thank you everybody for listening, and we will talk to you next week.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Bye.

00:29:50 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]