Following on from the relative success (about one sale per day at the moment) of the Response sticker pack for iPhone (see previous post), we have released another called Movie Quotes.
My favourite quote – “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” Let me know if I have missed any great quotes that should be included.
You can check out the sticker pack on iTunes or via the iMessage app store on your phone.
In a recent post we mentioned that had released a sticker pack for the new iMessage store. No doubt these will sink without a trace amongst the millions of sticker packs being approved, but we did notice one issue when we purchased our own pack to try it out.
We purchased the pack on iTunes and then assumed it would automatically load onto our phone. Apparently not! So then we tried to find it on the iMessage store from our phone. Response didn’t even show up in the search results when we searched for “Response”. This is disturbing for a couple of reasons, firstly it doesn’t bode well for sales if you can’t find it even if you know its name. Secondly, even if you manage to find and purchase it, how do you download it if you can’t find it??
There is a way, but it isn’t straight forward – hence the post. The easiest way to find your sticker pack is to open the app store app on your phone or iPad, tap on the Updates tool bar and then tap “Purchased”. You can download and install the sticker pack from there. The following describes how I found this out…
Start by opening the iMessage app, tap on the icon that looks like an A made out of pencils (no I don’t get it), and then tap on the grid looking icon in the bottom left of the screen.
This will open up the screen shown below. Tap on the “+” store icon.
Which will display the iMessage store. Tap on the Manage segmented control (i.e. button) at the top of the screen.
I expected to find the app I had purchased here. Nope. You need to scroll to the bottom and tap on “Purchased”. This will take you to the app store app, where you can download and install your sticker pack.
DISCLAIMER! Self promoting post follows! I wanted to try out the new iMessage functionality so I whipped up a sticker pack of my favourite quotes. If there is something you would like to see in there let me know and I’ll add it to the next version. Don’t forget those 5 star gushing reviews!!
*** AD FOLLOWS ***
Got an iPhone or iPad? Use iMessages? Want to have a bit of fun with people you text with? You can drag these stickers over your friends text and rewrite history!! Never lose another argument again!
Includes some of my favourite quotes like “Get to the chopper!” or “The sea was angry that day my friends”! So if you want to be so hot right now, then you need to download Response. Just click on the link below.
Check out the NEW Response sticker pack from Reefwing Software!
For many people the whole point of writing applications is to see them published in the App store and available for download from iTunes. Before you quit your job and go out and buy matching Porsche 911’s you would be wise to get a few months of sales data under your belt. Like most endeavours, there is a bell curve of app sales. Everyone hears about Angry Birds developers making $70m, but there is a lot less media coverage at the other end of the bell curve.
In a recent survey of more than 1,500 developers in 83 countries, it was found that the average per-app revenue is roughly $1,200 to $3,900 depending on the platform. Additionally, the survey noted that an app has roughly a 35% chance of generating between $1 to $500. This obviously means that most developers cannot rely on app development as their main source of income. However, it does mean that if you put the effort in you can make enough to fund your development habit.
Our own experience is that you can never tell which Apps are going to be regular sellers (LifeGoals) and which will sink like a stone (LifeMovie). The Reefwing stable of Apps currently nets us around AUD$10k per annum, which is sufficient to purchase a MacBook Air, a new iPad, external development costs (Apple Developers Licence, App Sales Analytics, web-site and forum costs, etc.) plus a bit of change for the highly caffeinated beverages which programmers run on. Working mainly on on our contracted 3rd party apps we only work on these on the odd night and weekend so with more application we imagine the rewards would be better. The thing that we are no where near recovering is the time spent developing. The average App takes us about 3 months from start to finish and while the proceeds roll in for some years to come, it isn’t really passive income because sales quickly decline if you aren’t frequently updating your app.
However, lets face it – we would code if we didn’t get paid anything so anything we do get is a very pleasant upside. There is also something addictive about tracking the daily “sales” of you app (even if it is free).
The other thing that most developers don’t realise, is that the apps which are successful in the App store, have as much time and money spent on marketing their Apps as they do on developing them. There is the odd exception but these are an exception. Books have been written on this subject and we will provide our thoughts on the best approaches to marketing in another blog post.