Tuesday 30 October 2012

Mobile App - Conception to Market

STEP 1: THE IDEA

Time required From one ‘eureka!’ second upwards. The hugely successful Angry Birds was the 52nd game developed by Rovio. Most app developers fail several times before they succeed.

Audioboo app
Developer Mark Rock
App Audioboo
Downloads 1.4 million
Format iPhone/iPad, Android, Nokia Ovi
Price Free
What it does Lets users record and publish  ‘Tweet’-style voice messages
‘Audioboo became the germ of an idea when my mother died and I realised I’d never hear her voice again. The mobile app was designed to capture the narrative of people’s lives in audio form. It was our first mobile app, first consumer proposition and first foray into audio. Our lack of knowledge about the area we were launching in was probably our biggest asset. Within three weeks journalists were using it to report from the protests at the G20 Summit in London and we’ve just grown from then.’

Problem Halved
Developer Rob Shoesmith
App Problem Halved
Downloads 10,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price £1.19
What it does Solve problems by social networking
‘I was in a rut working as a bin man. I was browsing the App Store and came across an app called App Incubator by a company called MEDL Mobile that allows users to pitch ideas for iPhone apps. If the people at MEDL like your idea they pay full development costs and give you 25 per cent of any profits generated. Over a period of two weeks I must have sent in 30 ideas. I got an email back to say they were interested in Problem Halved. It was actually one of the first ideas I submitted.’

London Tube Deluxe
Developer Malcolm Barclay
App London Tube Deluxe
Downloads 380,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price 59p
What it does Journey planner and provider of real-time updates about London Underground services.
‘I first thought of tracking the status of London Underground trains after being caught at Camden Town Tube station. The Northern Line had gone down and I was stranded. It annoyed me so much that I didn’t have a simple app on my then first-generation iPhone to tell me this. I thought, ‘Surely someone has to write an app for this.’ Then I thought, ‘Hey,  I am a programmer! Why don’t I just write it?’ I set about it the next day.’

Awareness app
Developer Robert Follis
App Awareness
Downloads 50,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price £1.19
What it does Allows external sounds to come through the headphones while listening to music
‘The idea of Awareness came from reading about runners and joggers being killed in traffic accidents while wearing headphones and lost in their music. We knew we could do something technological to help. We have two audio engineers who’ve been working in music since computers hit the recording studio – but it was iPhone 4, with its built-in mic and multi-tasking, that made Awareness possible.’

Tap Top Chat 2 app
Developer Nick Kuh
App Tap To Chat 2
Downloads 500,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price 59p
What it does Instant messaging app for Facebook and Google Talk contacts
‘I met my business partner Chris Ross at the Brighton iPhone Creators group in November last year. The collaboration was agreed over a coffee. We took a good look at all the competition and realised they were all very similar. None met the main requirements of the average ‘chatter’: keep it simple and visual. This became the focus of Tap to Chat before a single line of code was written: create a powerful but very simple-to-use chat app.’

STEP 2: MAKING THE APP

Time required A few hours to several months.
Equipment PC/Mac, Android or iPhone handset
Subscription Developing Android apps is free, Apple apps charges a £59 a year developer licence.

Flick Football app
Developer Oli Christie
App Flick Football
Downloads 3.7 million
Format iPhone/iPad
Price 59p
What it does Shooting game – swipe your finger over the screen to curve the ball around the wall
‘We needed a variety of different people with different skills to make this game. I had none myself – just a sketch of an idea. I had been a copywriter in a previous life, so I wrote all the commentator’s comments, all the copy that pops up when you share the app with a friend via Facebook or Twitter or email. The design of the Flick Football app was the part that took the longest to crack. I found a developer to programme it – but his ‘pay’ was that he became a partner. We then hired a designer, a 3D artist when we needed one, and got a friend to do the voiceovers. None of us worked in the same office – we all worked from home and stayed in touch via the net.’

Zombie Pong app
Developer Phil Lethbridge
App Zombie Pong
Downloads None, pending release (July 7)
Format iPhone
Price 59p
What it does Cartoon zombie game
‘I decided to see if I could write a game without learning a single line of computer code – and it’s about 25 per cent finished already. I use a software package called GameSalad that lets you assemble a game almost like a jigsaw, without having to learn any computer code. I spend about three hours a night on it, and I’ve been working for months. Every time I touch it, I find something else I’ve forgotten – I wouldn’t have been able to do it without internet forums. When I get stuck, I ask for help – and there’s a lot of guys out there, working on apps with GameSalad, who’ve been a huge help.’

Journeywatch app
Developer Tom Hill
App Journeywatch
Downloads 13,000
Formats iPhone/iPad, Nokia Ovi
Price Free
What it does Network of support and advice for intrepid travellers
How long it would take to set up was worked out in meetings with the app developers – an Asian company I contacted. The process took about six weeks from start to finish. The costs were reduced by developing in Asia. It would have been difficult to develop on a start-up budget in the UK given the relatively high costs. The entire process – developing more than one app and creating a website (journeywatch.com) to back them up – has been a bit like climbing a mountain. Once you scale one peak you see higher peaks before you – and then you realise you are nowhere near the top.’


Tumblbox app
Developer Ben Tattersley
App Tumblbox
Downloads 1,000 +
Format WebOS
Price 70p
What it does Lets you update blogs on  the move
I’m only 17, and Tumblbox was the first ever app I designed. Anyone can use existing web design or development skills to write apps for webOS. That’s why I chose it. When I heard that they were releasing a software developer’s kit I immediately joined the developer programme. It’s free – you can submit apps at no charge. All you need is a text editor and you can start working. To anyone who wants to create their own application, I’d say give it a try. It costs nothing but your time and you will end up with a very useful and portable skill set.
'To anyone who wants to create their own app, I'd say give it a try. It costs nothing but your time,' said Ben Tattersley (Tumblbox)
'To anyone who wants to create their own app, I'd say give it a try. It costs nothing but your time,' said Ben Tattersley (Tumblbox)
London On A Plate app
Developer Charmain  Ponnuthauri
App London On A Plate
Downloads None, app pending release
Format iPhone/iPad
Price £3.99
What it does Restaurant reviews/locator for of the capital, as well as recipes
‘I first thought London On A Plate would work as a book idea. I spent 18 months trawling the doors of publishers and had no luck. Then after an agent suggested I make it an app, I tried to find online publishers, but then by chance a friend introduced me to a developer, and we exchanged his development skills for shares in the company, and then this led to a small seed loan from a friend. From there we made a partnership with the concierge company Quintessentially, who manage our shopping pages.

STEP 3: SUBMIT YOUR APP

Time required Between one and two weeks.
Requirements For Apple, you must specify what devices the app is designed for and the lowest firmware requirement (ie, the earliest operating system it will run on). Obscene content will not be accepted. Because you can install apps to Android devices from websites, as well as Android Market, there is no strict submission process – although Google takes action against apps that damage or control Android devices.
Malcolm Barclay (London Tube Deluxe) ‘Apple are very easy to work with once you know how the system works. They are generally very fair; if your app is rejected, they tell you why. The system is geared toward the customer; they think a lot about the end user and making things easy for them. It’s key to their success.’
Say What You See app


Developer Jon Hamblin
App Say What You See: The Collection
Downloads 500,000+
Format iPhone/iPad
Price 59p
What it does A visual puzzle game.
‘The submission process is a quality-control mechanism that Apple has to ensure all apps are of a sufficient quality, although with several thousand apps going through the process every day, they can’t possibly test for every eventuality. When you submit, you also have to set certain criteria: what devices you want the app to work on, the firmware requirement and, importantly, the release date. When we submitted our App to Apple, the programmer forgot to specify the release date, which meant it suddenly launched into the App Store ahead of schedule. That was annoying, but not a disaster. What was a disaster was that he’d set the target firmware incorrectly, so people whose devices weren’t technically capable of playing the game were allowed to download it, resulting in a lot of extremely cross customers. The fix took minutes. Then we had to submit it all over again...’

STEP 4: PR AND MARKETING

Methods Apple Store promotions, Twitter campaigns, Facebook sites, ‘launch evenings’
Cost From free – to near-limitless amounts of champagne and canapes to journalists...
Mark Rock (Audioboo) ‘We were lucky because we managed to have a Twitter chat with Stephen Fry during development and he became a beta [test] user. That’s the kind of digital gold dust that money can’t buy. He’s currently posting audioboo messages from the set of QI most nights. We had no cash for marketing  or PR, so social networks became our channels for getting the word out. And our users became quite passionate about the app, so it sold itself.’
Malcolm Barclay (London Tube Deluxe) ‘The best thing Apple can do for you as a developer is promote your app in iTunes – it will send sales into the stratosphere. When my Tube app was promoted in the US store it went from well outside the top 100 in the travel section to number two, and this for an app that is only useful in London.’
Rob Shoesmith (Problem Halved) ‘Without editorial exposure it’s very difficult for apps to get noticed. I knew that working as a bin man while developing an app was going to make for a good story so I spent three months researching suitable media to share my experience with. I spent roughly 30 hours a week for those three months planning the media campaign. You need a good app and a great marketing campaign.’ 
Minecraft has earned £20m in one year. 'I never expected it to do this well,' said Markus Persson
Minecraft has earned £20m in one year. 'I never expected it to do this well,' said Markus Persson

STEP 5: MAKING MONEY

Setting purchase price Paid or free? Many apps have a ‘lite’ free version, which allows users to upgrade to  a ‘full’ paid-for version later.
In-app purchase Games such as Angry Birds allow you to pay 59p to skip levels. 
Advertising In-game advertising can be a huge source of revenue, particularly in apps that work  inside Facebook.

Minecraft app
Developer Markus ‘Notch’ Persson
App Minecraft
Downloads Over nine million
Format PC/iPhone (upcoming) /Android (upcoming)
Price £14.99
What it does Game in which players create, then defend, a landscape out of blocks
‘When I started work on Minecraft, I expected it to be about six to 12 months of work, and that it might hopefully earn enough money to fund development of the next game, whatever that would be. I never expected it to do this well (Minecraft has earned £20 million in one year) and I’m trying to learn as much as I can from the success. I had recently quit my job as a game developer to be able to focus more on indie game development during my free time, and I was looking for a new game to develop by myself. I built Minecraft as I went along – I make sure to play the game a lot, and I’ve built my share of towers, and flooded my share of caves. If something ever doesn’t feel fun, I’ll remove it. If it’s no fun, I’ll redesign it. Once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code for free so others can develop it further.’

Bloons TD4
Developers Barry Petrie and David Hamilton
App Bloons TD4
Downloads Over five million
Format iPhone/iPad
Price £1.79
What it does Balloon-popping game,  with monkeys
‘Our company spawned out of a university project called Babygrow – a Tamagotchi-style game nurturing a digital baby. We juggled day jobs for four years while designing our first games. It meant we worked around 70 hour weeks but we were finally able to go full time when we started getting into the iPhone, as we were no longer reliant on publishers to get us to market. As well as the hard work, don’t think you’re going to create one app or game then become rich overnight. It is a really competitive market and although the opportunities for becoming an overnight millionaire are still in existence, the odds are stacked against you. If you can create a quality product, though, then there is money to be made. And who knows, if you start to gather fans for your game then number two, three… ten may be the one that sets you up for life.’
Nick Kuh (Tap To chat) ‘Once our original version of Tap To Chat was bringing in about £5,000 per month we both agreed to book in a two-week, intensive block of time to build the next version. The toughest part of the market is probably user-expectation. It’s amazing and strange that you can pick up a mobile app that could potentially change the way you communicate with your friends for less than a can of lemonade. It can be hard when you have people demanding you justify why they should spend 59p on your software, when they are sending said demands from their email account on a £600 tablet. Tap To Chat has generated about £30,000 in the five months it has been in the App Store. We are aiming to at least double or triple our monthly revenue with Tap To Chat 2. The exciting thing about the current mobile climate is that the barrier of entry – especially for Apple – is the cost of a machine and a £59 developer licence. Combine that with a great idea and  a great implementation, and suddenly you could be selling millions of copies all over the world and sailing off into the sunset on a shiny new yacht.’

Solo Synthesiser
Developer Matthew Rosenfeld
App Solo Synthesiser
Download More than 100,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price Free (paid upgrades available)
What it does Create unique sounds and play music
‘By putting money aside when I was an employee elsewhere, we started out self-funded. It meant there weren’t publishers or investors wandering in and saying: ‘We’ve been reading all about this “iMyFaceVille” thing, we think you should do stuff more like that.’ Also, it turned out to be good practice for the economic downturn. Nowadays the company, Wooji Juice, is funded by people buying the stuff we already finished. I’m a big fan of this because it keeps us pointing in the same direction as the people who use/play our apps and games. With some developers, all they’re really trying to do is build the company up to sell it. But then their ‘customer’ isn’t the person buying their app, it’s the stock market.
'Our customers, the people we think about when we’re designing new products, are people who use our apps or play our games. We do what I call ‘stepping-stone’ development. A lot of people quit their jobs because they have a magnum opus ‘dream project’ they never got to make at their day jobs. The whole company lives or dies by its success, so you’re on for a hugely stressful six-year gamble. It’s harder now for tiny developers like Wooji Juice to shine against giant corporations with big advertising budgets and a scorched-earth policy. So we’re not in the same Lottery-winning category of success as Minecraft’s Notch, but not starving either.’
Oli Christie (Flick Football) ‘My company Neon Play was launched in June 2010 with the aim of becoming the No 1 independent mobile games studio in the UK. In under a year, we’ve launched over 32 iPhone and iPad games, with 18 million downloads of both free and paid apps. We have had six UK No 1 games, including Flick Football, Paper Glider and Traffic Panic. We are now starting to make games for Android, Nokia, Windows and BlackBerry devices. I privately financed the start-up of Neon Play from savings and this has now been paid back within a year. The temptation is to read about Angry Birds and Doodle Jump and think ‘I could do that’. Of course, there are bedroom developers who have had that lucky break and a big hit, but it is very hard. Even hardened games companies are struggling to make an impression on Apple’s App Store. Don’t give up your day job yet.’

STEP 6: REFINING THE PRODUCT

Time required An update can take one minute, a complete rethink two months.

Boardgame Remix
Developer Alex Fleetwood
App Boardgame Remix
Download 22,000
Format iPhone/iPad
Price £2.99
What it does Creates new games out of old classics
‘Reach is vital, and a great game that’s trying to build an audience from scratch is going to struggle. So let’s say you conquer that, and you make a brilliant game that’s immediately popular, that’s still not enough.  Even those apps that do have great success tend to have very short shelf-lives in terms of sales. If you look at app chart positions, most fall away very quickly. Engaging with your customers, releasing updates and new versions, and giving away content will mobilise your customer base and give you a shot at longevity.’

'Downloads were slow at first on the Monday... then by the following Tuesday we were at No 1,' said Jon Hamblin (Say What You See)
'Downloads were slow at first on the Monday... then by the following Tuesday we were at No 1,' said Jon Hamblin (Say What You See)
Jon Hamblin (Say What You See) ‘A fan emailed to ask us why we’d created such a compromised app. It turned out that he was also a programmer. We got chatting, and he offered to fix the app for us, but on one condition – we rip the entire thing up and start again. It was a painful decision, but in the end we decided to do it. For two months, he and I worked on the app, slowly rebuilding it.
'We added some new features, tweaked the thing to within an inch of its life, and then tested, tested, tested. We released the app on a Monday, and downloads were slow at first. Then we started shooting up the charts.
'By the following Tuesday, we were the No 1 free app on the App Store, with over 50,000 downloads a day.
'By the following Tuesday, we’d broken 500,000 downloads and were making thousands of pounds a day from the paid-for version. We’d done it.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1393862/How-App-millionaire.html#ixzz2AlYGEeBP
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Why there is saying Mobile App Ideas Make you Millionaire

It has long since been a proven fact that if you can deliver a product in demand to the market place, the sales of that product can reap huge profits. Depending upon the type of product you are offering, you could end up becoming a millionaire based on sales and profit margins.
For those that come up with ingenious ideas for a mobile app, there may very be millions of dollars in download sales when the demand is there.
And here is some news: anyone can become involved with the mobile app industry. As long as you can come up with a mobile app idea, develop it, and offer it to the mobile app marketplace, you can rake in potentially huge sales from downloads. Mobile app marketplaces want to make money too which is why they will provide a forum allowing an unknown designer the chance to offer a mobile app for sale.
To say you can become a millionaire from a mobile app is not an exaggeration. Consumers have spent $15+ billion dollars on downloading apps. A creative designer that can tap into this market may find sales far exceeding even their wildest expectations. If you can deliver just one mobile app that connects with consumers, the sales could easily pull in millions of dollars. The reason for this is pretty simple: people love their apps. Check out the story 60 Minutes did on The Mobile App Revolution.
Mobile Apps have become “must have” accessories to a mobile phone. One person sees others are purchasing apps so he becomes a consumer to become part of the “in thing” in mobile technology. A great deal of demand in the market is the result of this aspect of consumer technology culture. So, you could call the booming market for apps the logical result of the desire to be technologically with it. Factors such as this contribute to the boom in the mobile app marketplace. For an entrepreneur, this consumer drive to have all the cool apps can create an amazing opportunity for a designer to amass millions. Once again, you can achieve this result if you present an original app that has something to offer the market.
There is also a segment of the mobile app consumer base that can be dubbed “completes”. They just have to have every app that is released. Such a segment in the market contributes to the boom and to the entrepreneur with something new and unique to offer, this could prove to be a reliable segment of the market that can deliver sales.
What truly fuels all this demand? Apps serve many different purposes. Some are for entertainment and others can be a great help with business endeavors. The key here is that consumers may have a want or a need for a particular mobile app that gives them enjoyment or helps make their life a little easier. If they come across an app that delivers what they want they will buy it. The booming mobile app business is proof that consumers will pay for an app that appeals to them.
Take Angry Birds for example, that mobile app is a relatively simple game that became an overnight sensation and has been downloaded a reported 1 billion times!! 1 billion times 99c, you do the math.
Information based apps that provide news feeds would be a perfect example of how a mobile app concept can catch on in the marketplace. There are info apps that provide news feeds on finance, sports, and entertainment. No matter where you may be, you never have to be out of the news loop if you have an app on your mobile phone that helps keep you informed. You could say that game apps ensure you never have to feel bored since you can always kill time with one. People can find a great many benefits to using an app. This has contributed to the huge boom in mobile app purchases. Consumers do not see them as just a novelty but something that can greatly contribute added value to a mobile device.
Another factor contributing to the huge boom in app sales is that they are not very expensive to purchase. Most apps can be purchased for only a few dollars. When the cost of a cool, eye-catching mobile app is easily affordable, consumers will make an impulse buy. Of course, the mobile app does have to have some value or else it won’t sell. Those that do come up with original and creative ideas likely won’t have much of a problem appealing to consumers.
Creating an app is easy thanks to the availability of mobile app maker programs. These mobile app makers allow you to create the code for the app relatively easily. Once the app is made, you can offer it for sale.
If you have created a mobile app the marketplace smiles on, you just might be well on your way to becoming an instant millionaire.