Chris Kettle's Blog

Another $40 accessory this time its the iPad to Projector or Monitor.

The Dream: being able to project whats on the iPad screen to a Projector or Monitor. Perfect for Presentations and apps etc.

The Reality: Only apps thats permit the connection work. So far it’s Keynote and Movies.Not even PDFs in iBooks.

So rating 1/10. You should have the option to copy and show everything IMHO.

It’s been quite an eventful few weeks.

We launched our first paid for iPhone Application “My Movies” – with the aim to be the fastest way to find movie times on your iPhone.

We’ve had fantastic results to date – hitting the #1 Lifestyle App in the Australian App Store. This was a goal but not something I thought we’d hit in the first week with next to no advertising. A push to facebook/twitter friends, I still haven’t messaged my address book.

We got featured in the AIMIA Mobile Newsletter (well worth joining if you haven’t) www.aimia.com.au

So what have we learnt!

1) That people would rather write a negative review in the App store than contact us about the problem. The ones that did we were able to figure out exactly what bug was causing the problem and fix it.

2) There is no way for us to contact people through reviews, so we can’t fix their problems.

3) The % of people who review the app is so low, but the influence they have on people purchasing the App is high.

4) That the results you get back from Apple are 24 hours behind any marketing that you do, which makes it hard to know what is working and what’s not in this real-time web.

5) Checking the App Store constantly on position is very addictive and unhealthy.

6) That we went from submitted to approved in 4 days.

7) We’ve had sales in 10 different International App Stores including UK, US, Singapore, Russia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa.

8) That Apple only pay you when you reach a $$$ threshold in each App Store, so we will never see any revenue from Singaporean customers until the threshold is met (unlikely anytime soon). This must mean that Apple have tens of millons of dollars in kept fees. So our choice is to either make it free for secondary markets or put the price up to $50. It would be nice if we could give it to charity – Mr Jobs.

Some thoughts..

Paid / Not Paid App

I have been criticised privately by peers for not making the App for free. At present I still think its the best decision to have made it $2.49 as I don’t think we would have sold any less for $1.19. After Apple take their cut, there isn’t much left over – we still have to purchase the content, and cover the development costs (it’s the most expensive app I’ve ever paid for).

I would like to make it free if we could find the right advertiser to associate with (if that’s you please get in touch).

iPhone / iPad

Since having an iPad we have to make an iPad friendly version, I think all developers should now be thinking this way when developing for the iPhone now.

Upgrades

Our Upgrade to 1.1 is still waiting for review, longer than the first version.

New Features

Got some great new features in mind sitting down with our developers tomorrow to see what we can do. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Store Choices.

I’m not entirely sure if the people who have bought the App from different countries are located in Australia or elsewhere. Makes me wonder if they are developers trying to copy the app, which would make sense to keep the IP hidden – but its still baffling me.

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To buy the App – look for My Movies in the App Store. It’s the one with the Popcorn.

So…

iPhone apps on an iPad = crap

iPad apps on an iPad = amazing

iPad without a wifi connection is torturous

iPad without a cam is bizarre its a great sharing machine and a cam for chat will make Skype my permanent phone connection.

IPad doesn’t melt legs when using on couch

Syncing iPhone apps user settings with same apps on iPad doesn’t exist

iPad doesn’t come loaded with weather

Ipad battery doesn’t seam to decrease

iPad remote by apple hasn’t been built yet… Why not ???

Why can’t I play my avi files on my iPad??

Why can’t I see a google map link from an address in a calendar??

What do I think…an amazing piece of hardware which hasn’t met my expectations….. Yet

Mildly amusing that @PepsiAustralia‘s twitter person doesn’t realise that every photo she takes is uploading to Twitter or is publicly available. Full gallery of – what looks like a stock sheet, and very strange other pictures are here: http://twitpic.com/photos/pepsiaustralia.

Shame nobody reads this blog yet – could be a good cock-up story in there. Maybe she’ll take some crazy random pics.

The funniest bit is that Coca Cola are advertising on the page. Check it.

CK

Nice phone…. but looking at my linkedin list – I wonder how many people will have jobs in 10 years with Google as they buy, strangle or swallow everyone in the path.

Back to the phone… what do we like..

Voice – I don’t know if you were on the SMS screen why you’d bother using voice recognition when most of us can just type it in, more accurate and quicker. Also unless your in a silent room will it really work. Or will it annoy the crap out of people on the train. Voice is really good when your either in a call or in the car – when your hands are pre-occupied ideally with the steering wheel.

Sat Nav – cheaper than buying a new one, always will be more up-to-date – linking friends out of your address book is bloody useful and with other apps, i.e. looking at houses to buy in a suburb or trying to find a petrol station, post-office etc. Its the one app that Android has over the iPhone and hope Google release it – why would they bother.

We shall see. Good on them for making it unlocked and Google Voice is a product I’d love to have.

iPhoto beats Picasa and it seems annoying that these cloud photo galleries are not a bit more open… do users really care. I just want my pictures accesible with privacy, in high quality and as back-ups – not too hard. I know people rely on Facebook – but not really hiq.

CK

Last year I had the chance to visit the Facebook offices in Palo Alto and wow there’s a lot of people there. Lots of people with their facebook drink bottles, facebook fleece coats and facebook ruck sacks.

At 30 I did feel like I was the oldest person there and I did want to ask them politely what each of them actually did?

On tech-crunch, they are now rolling out a user survey what they think of the new version. I think FB needs to harden up and make a decision based on their experts. Make it personalised. It really isn’t that hard.

I quite like the user who suggested:

Didn’t know it was possible. Black screen of death?

Going to apply to be a mentor…

http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/Pages/Home.aspx

Well there wouldn’t be anything more appropriate than knocking out 10 predictions for the decade..

1. Facebook to die sometime soon. The latest Optus ad has a mother checking up on her daughter’s facebook – which makes Facebook 1) not very cool anymore 2) the more and more brands trying to pretend to be cool by muscling in with the brand the more of a turn-off it is. I don’t want to be friends with my phone company, just provide the damn service I pay for. If Facebook floats they are only going to profit on the lack of privacy – Queue a different type of network…

2. Google to become ‘The Company’ and as we explore outer space, of course the space-ship will stop to look for Alien DNA (they could be building a better Search engine).. think about they already have a device called an Android – all we need is Ripley now.. (this will make sense if you have seen Alien.

3. That this blog doesn’t last 12 months..

4. That I don’t get to number 10.

5. That as we will probably all have access to every movie and piece of music (including the Beatles) in the house within a few years. And if downloading is not the answer there will be someone selling a X-Terabyte usb-stick with everything down at the local market. Hence the ‘desire’ to stop people illegally downloading will not fix the problem.

6. Good bye banner-ads. Good bye tv-ads. Hopefully we will all get a bit smarter aligning brands with content and experiences.

7. The National Broadband Network will be a waste of time and effort. My current experience with Telstra Next G wi-fi networks do everything very well in remote areas (apart from download movies)…so what is the point in reinventing the wheel. Surely it’d be quicker and cheaper to just build wi-fi towers and bring the accessibility cost down, which is the real problem.

8. That as everyone moves to mobile. The issues we’ve had about employees accessing inappropriate emails and sites at work will go, as everyone will be doing it privately. So pictures of boobs will never go away. Will probably increase workplace bullying / banter – so time to harden up.

9. We get rid of people being anonymous. This will at least a start to get rid of spammers and fraudsters and people who post hating anonymous comments. Yes, you will have to stand up for what you believe in and your employer will know about it.

10. That the makers of the Segway come up with a hoverboard…

10a.. the world leaders in ten years will have a great time explaining all their drunken photos and escapades as they become public. Hopefully as a society we don’t care so much about the private lives of others.

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