So do we.
Puzzle Fun Pack: Wild Animals! is apparently huge in Portugal. We have no idea exactly why (other than it offers wonderful gaming value, delight, and wildlife fun – transcending borders to appeal to kids across the globe) but we’ll take it. Obrigado!
In Part 1 of our “asks of iTunes Connect and the iTunes App Store” series, we presented the argument for more data for app developers, and pushing for the move towards more sophisticated information to design, build, and market our iPhone and iPad apps.
With Part 2, we’re looking to address some opportunities that lie within the social space for iTunes.
CONNECT DEVELOPERS WITH CUSTOMERS
In it’s current state, the iTunes App store is a bit of a black box for developers. We design and build apps that we think people will like, we submit them into the App Store, and we wait to see what happens. When people buy our apps, we don’t know who they are, where they came from, or if they’ve bought our apps before. Sometimes we know if they like our apps, but usually we don’t.
In the past few years, we’ve had two negative reviews on apps that had issues with functionality or install. We had no way of contacting these people – the only clue we had was their iTunes username left within each review. Through some intense Google searching, we were able to trace those usernames to other usernames/email accounts, and finally contact both of them. We addressed both of their issues, and both changed their reviews from 1 star to 4-5 stars, with revised review write-ups. We are happy to jump through hoops to offer service to our paying customers, but we shouldn’t have to. And if someone gives us a 1-star rating without a written review, we have zero visibility into who they are or why they didn’t like our product. That’s not helping anyone out.
Over the past few years, the iTunes Store has grown into the Swiss Army knife of online entertainment. With the addition of the App Store, Apple has brought the ability to create, share, and sell software like never before. The iTunes store is obviously functional for it’s current purposes, but the supporting framework for app developers, iTunes Connect, has been under pressure to keep pace.
For those that don’t know, iTunes Connect allows developers to submit and manage their apps, as well as serving as the sole source of reporting for daily/weekly/monthly sales, financial reports, and more. The earliest target for criticism was approval timelines from the tool (which have seen obvious improvements), but that spoke more to the processes of the store vs. the tool itself. Any developer can tell you that the next stage of evolution for the iTunes Connect service is well overdue.
We’ve found with the current iTunes Connect system does an adequate job of suppling some of the information that we need, but in a less than elegant manner. Sales data is supplied in daily text files, no graphs, trending, or tracking over time. Reviews, ratings, and other touchpoints are only accessible through the store interface itself. Promo codes are created through a four step process ending in a text file and aren’t trackable.
So now that the iTunes App Store is obviously a hit, it’s time for Apple to get serious and create iTunes Connect 2.0. Every developer has their own wish list, but we’ll be tackling a few topics in the next few blog posts, starting with data in this post.
Developers have the opportunity to become more sophisticated in how they design, build, and market their apps. For Apple, the benefit lies in keeping developers happy, and increasing the size of the moat that they’ve created to keep the Android, Blackberry, and Windows app stores far behind them.
THE DATA ASK
Apple should create a system that can report in-store behavioral and attitudinal information to app developers, much like traditional web analytics reporting. Creating a system won’t be cheap, so let’s start with the short putt where the data is already being collected: ratings and sentiment. Tell us how our apps are doing with iTunes Store ratings and review reporting across all geographies. Let us know how our apps are reviewed vs. other apps in our category, and how the people giving us a good/bad review typically review other apps. Speaking of reviews, the biggest missing piece here isn’t just the data and reporting, it’s letting us contact unsatisfied customers for support or assistance. These our are customers – make it easy for us to digest and respond to feedback.
Now on to the fun asks: let’s get some behavioral data from the store. We’re talking visits, visitors, app page views, and time spent on our app pages for starters. More importantly, let’s get into the actionable data like traffic sources. When someone views our FunkBox Drum Machine app page, where did they come from? Was it an external link, a New Release list, a Top 100 list, a Genius recommendation, Tell-A-Friend functionality, or a new review site? What’s the purchase conversion once they land on the page (and how does it differ by referral source?) Give developers tools to slice the data by geography, demographic, and segment by types of apps they buy. Give us iTunes Store search data. How often are we appearing in results, and how often are people finding us through those searches? Are customers more likely to purchase that way? Are there valuable keywords that apply to our apps that we’re not listed under?
Now that the covers have been taken off the iPad, it’s also time for sales data based on device type. Give us all the above information, and the ability to see who is buying/installing on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad (and overlap.)
Each of these data asks are trivial on their own, but combining the pieces of data together can help give us a better picture of our customers, and build better apps by using data. Instead of simply throwing an app into the iTunes ether and crossing their fingers, developers would have the tools to begin actively managing their apps as products. It’s silly that today we can tell more about our customers from high-level analytics on our Youtube videos vs the iTunes store.
In future posts, we’ll tackle the remaining asks we have of iTunes Connect, including social opportunities and tackling improvements to the store itself. There’s so much that can added to make the guts of the store a truly remarkable opportunity for developers. In the meantime, let us know what you’re looking for from iTunes Connect, and what we’re missing.
Online news reports and forums are filled to the gills with iPhone developers claiming to be seeing astronomical improvements on app approval times since the new year. The old days of no transparency and months of waiting are finally over, they proclaim.
So what are we seeing? Well, we’re seeing improvements, but nothing through the roof quite yet.
Our latest app, the FunkBox Drum Machine, was submitted to Apple about five days ago, and was just approved this afternoon. Our wait times were never that bad to begin with – we were seeing weeks, not months.
With this latest release, we’re definitely seeing an improvement, especially how fast the app gets placed “in review”, which took all of three hours. But we then waited for five days before getting released into the iTunes App Store. Other developers are reporting updates to apps being approved in a few hours, and brand new apps in twenty four hours. We sure didn’t see that.
Sure, we may have got caught up in some Apple employee getting us into their approval queue and then heading out for the three day weekend, so this may not be the best time to test out the store’s approval timeline improvements. We’ve got another app to submit in the next few weeks, we’ll hopefully get some twenty-four hour goodness on that one. The trend is definitely heading in the favor of iPhone developers, sounds like Apple is listening to the community and responding.
We were very excited to launch babyCalm in the iTunes App Store two weeks ago. For those that aren’t familiar with babyCalm, it’s a pretty simple app that uses sound, visuals, and vibrations to help calm fussy babies.
WHY WE USE IN-APP ANALYTICS
With every app we build, we try to anticipate how our customers will interact with our apps, and how to best exceed their expectations. Unfortunately, with the current feedback systems in place (support email, iTunes Store reviews), we don’t always get a full picture of what’s going on with how people are really using the apps we build. So, to get a better picture, we’re using Pinch Media (who just merged with Flurry) analytics to track user behavior within the app and figure out what’s working, and what’s not. How are our apps performing? Do people like them? Are they using the apps like we thought they would?
START WITH GOALS
With any data analysis, you need to start with goals. If you don’t have a clear idea of questions you are trying to answer, you’ll never get that answer. So, what are the goals for babyCalm? Well, put in the simplest terms, we want people to:
1. Buy the app
2. Like the app and use it frequently
3. Tell friends
We haven’t been updating this blog lately, but we are still hard at work cranking out new apps. Our latest two to hit the iTunes Store are Christmas Advent Games, a Christmas themed advent calendar puzzle game, and babyCalm, a healthcare and fitness utility app to help you calm down a crying baby.
Christmas Advent Games made the iTunes Top 75 Kids Games list in the US for over a week, and peaked in the Top 50 in the UK. babyCalm was just released yesterday and is the first app we’ve made that isn’t a game or entertainment related, so we’re interested to see how it does.
These will be our last two apps that get released in 2009, so it’s probably a good time for us to thank everyone who has helped us out with their support and encouragement. Thank you so much!
That makes five Synthetic Bits apps out there in less than six months, and there are more on the way. We’ve even made it through our first major iTunes store re-design, as you can see by comparing the image clips of our new apps in the store above compared to the ones we posted in previous entries. Now we’re using all the experience we’ve gained from developing these first few simpler apps to get ready to start designing and working on some new and even more exciting things. The next two apps are already in development with some interesting new twists, and bigger projects await in the new year.
Thanks again for your support and happy holidays!
synthetictwits