Chris Kettle's Blog

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.

______________________

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

http://info.energex.com.au/tracker/asp/lightningtracker.asp

Would be good to have a site where WE (the customers) tell the BUSINESS what we would like for their products.

i.e. a Foxtel / Austar iPhone remote record.

etc..

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