MyMovies – #1 Lifestyle Australian iPhone App – lessons learnt!
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.
