GITweekly

With my life careering out of control like a chicken riding a skateboard, I’ve tried to wrangle back control without harming said chicken. Enter the iPhone and its menagerie of apps for organising your life.

First I tried the super comprehensive Awesome Note. I envisioned myself creating an epic tome of organisation with maps and pictures, syncing to Google Docs, and shielding all of this highly classified data with pass codes. It didn’t happen. The thought of adding images to a task called “get some milk” just seemed a little absurd and tinged with a little over kill.

Keeping it truly simple. Seriously.

Enter GoTasks.

This free – yes free – app does exactly what it advertises and it does it well. Instead of aiming to be the be all and end all of task management and life organisation, GoTasks simply organises your tasks.

GoTasks lets you do all of the usual:

• Set due dates
• Categorise tasks
• See how many tasks are due just by looking at the iPhone badge
• Sync with Google Tasks – accessing multiple accounts
• Uses HTTPS to sync securely

But overall the killer feature is its elegant simplicity. This app has simply organised my daily work-flow. Its integration with Google has meant that any tasks added by iPhone appear on the iPad and online. Just beautiful.

I say forget the milk. Say no to making awesome notes for yourself and grab the app that dares to keep it simple stupid.

So here’s the thing. An iPhone with 1 Terabyte of storage is sitting in my hot little hands. Seriously. Except the hands being little. They’re more of an average man’s size. Honest. And it’s all due to a sub $4 app called Air Video.

Before you get all up and in my face about the deceivery – let me say this. I get tired of syncing my iPhone to take music off to fit more video on. It drives me bananas. But then I found my true love. Air Video.

This amazing app lets you set up your home PCs and Macs – and we’re talking plural here folks – to convert video files of multiple flavours into an iPhone friendly format. All on the fly. You don’t even have to wait until the file has completed its conversion before you start watching. It just streams beautifully from the remote computer into your iPhone. Aceness.

If you want a little more control over those legally acquired video files you can add them to a queue to be converted prior to playing. Add these files, from the comfort of the iPhone, straight into your iTunes library. They appear under the films tab. All saved for later on so there’s no need to use a program like iPodMe* to do the conversions – The Air Video server is a bit of a one stop shop really.

Here’s the rub though. And there’s always a rub – although this rub is our fault not Air Video’s. You’re supposed to be able to stream via the wonders of the internet to your phone – anywhere. But we haven’t been so successful yet – stupid old wireless router. UPnP capable routers should sort out any issues.

But anyway – for an iPhone with a near endless supply of video enjoyment – go and download Air Video. You can even try the free version – it only limits the amount of files you can see in the file explorer window. It’ll give you a good idea of what to expect from the great Air Video.

So in a word – getyourmitsonthis.

*We really do love iPodMe though. Top little bundle of freeware greatness.

So, here’s the rub. When I wrote that last post I wasn’t really prepared for the positive “droppings storm” that followed. So we’ve decided to muse some more, to further savour the roast that is App Marketing – We now present part deux.

Where were we before I rudely hit the publish button?

Marketing – in a dictionary-esque way – is what you do to sell your blood and tears. To get part of the way there we talked about simple icons and app names that said a lot with a little. The other important ingredient was the importance of “spellin’ stuff right”. Just remember baby Jesus and the tears.

Today we’re going to talk about thievery and corruption. We’re talkin’ devious. You must learn to cheat via flattery. And that sincerest form of flattery is to admire your opposition. Gaze longingly at them if you must.

Instead of programming up some objective C or Java greatness and punting it out into the ether without restraint – you must channel your inner grasshopper. Be patient and study three things to find the one answer.

The three are:

• What makes my competitor successful?
• How do they stand out above their opponents?
• And where are their flaws?

And the one answer you seek is:

• Why am I the one?

So by studying the three you’ll know that your customer is successful because, for example, their interface is more modern and clean. They stand out because they have Twitter integration. But you also realise that they are dearer than their opponents.

By knowing this you can become “the one” by exploiting those points of difference. Instead of rushing out and producing an app just like “them”, you’ll spend time creating a better interface, incorporate Facebook along with Twitter and price your app just under the leader.

Of course these are simplistic views of a complicated dilemma for the upcoming developer – but at the end of the day, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and the rest all do the same things. It’s called preparation and market research.

You may think you’re a hotshot, and it may just work out that way for you, but it never hurts to take a peek at what you’re up against. And, perhaps, decide if it’s really not worth it – do we really need another Foursquare clone?

So, until next time, I’ll leave you with this:

You must find out, by fair means or foul, why you are “the one”. Why your app is better than all others. If you cannot answer these questions or mould your app to fit those answers, now is not your time.

Just be patient grasshopper and in the immortal words of Zack De La Rocha – “Know your enemy”.

What does your marketing say about you?

Your product – all heart and all soul. The blood, sweat and the tears.

Be it a meat pie or a Pagani – the attention you show to the detail says so very much.

And for those slaving away in one of the newest and most aggressively growing niches, the smartphone app market, you only have limited opportunities to shine. Or most importantly – To stand out from your competitors.

So that’s where we’ll start. Where are your opportunities to stand out, to show your “pedigree”, to say to your customer – “Buy Now”.

The first stop is to understand the requirements of the manufacturer. Be it Google’s marketplace or Apple’s App Store – they all have their rules for having your app successfully accepted into their “home”. For Apple, a good place to start is their App Store Tips page.

A successfuly submission will comply with all of the software demands of the hardware manufacturers as well as have names and icons that are of reasonable quality. And it is here that your marketing truly begins.

You really have to start your wooing of the customer by thinking – what catches my eye?

What makes me me click on “that” icon and pass by others?

Bold primary colours. Simple yet logical symbols or “avatars”. Nothing busy. Readable and intelligent. These are the traits that have that magnetic power over the smartphone owner’s index finger.

Apps like Facebook and Google, for the iPhone, utilise symbols that draw recognition from their well trafficked sites. But they do catch your eye with their white letter on a blue background. The white adds a simple purity while the blue is everyone’s favourite colour, isn’t it?

And there’s the trend. Apple’s icons do it. The majority of the most successful apps do it. And they follow this amazing principle – Keep it simple stupid (KISS).

The calculator, camera, contacts, calendar, settings, photos and the rest adhere to the KISS principle – strictly. Simple colours. Basic, clean symbols. You just have to press them. You can’t go wrong by mimicking a company that prides itself on design.

Next comes the name. Why would I click on an app called “Cheese Collect” when the app next to it is called “Rat on the run”? The former isn’t even grammatically correct, while the latter rolls right off the tongue. Keep the name “catchy”, short, and make sure that it tells the user something about the app. Very few of the many apps that I’ve downloaded have had more than one word titles – statistically that has to be significant.

Lastly comes the “Blurb”. The jargon that your potential customer is going to peruse before their purchase. It introduces your app. It states its case. And it sweet talks. In a nutshell you’ve attracted the “bug” with the shiny lights and now you have to capture them.

Make no mistake – grammar and punctuation is key*. Spelling mistakes, missing words and poor translations stand out like the proverbial dog’s rude bits. And like “they say”, poor grammar makes baby Jesus cry. Maybe he’s a perfectionist. Or something.

Take Joggy Coach for example. Nice icon. Catchy and descriptive name. I clicked – attracted like a bear to the honey-pot. Stage 1 – a win for Joggy Coach.

Enter stage 2 – the sell.

Things fell over pretty quickly from here.

Masses of text, the use of …, awful punctuation and jargon that alienated me straght away.

Scrolling down to the features list just compounded the mirth and the mess. Using “etc”, “maping” not mapping, referencing Mario Kart (haven’t we all played that?), and in their words – “much more to come”.

What should they have done?

Look to your most successful opponent, in this case “RunKeeper“. They still have a wordy introduction – but it doesn’t ramble. It maintains your interest and builds your “desire” to “own this app”.

RunKeeper’s feature list is kept simple but comprehensive. And that’s part of the reason for clicking on the buy now button despite this app being 10 times the price of Joggy Coach.

Basically speaking, RunKeeper’s marketing was more polished and professional – in my mind it stands to reason that if the propaganda is top grade then so too must the nuts and bolts of the app. It must be better despite me never having used either app.

So, in the proverbial nutshell, how do I market my app?

• Maintain simplicity – remember the KISS principle.
• Make sure your icon catches the eye – primary colours and a simple image.
• Name your app in as few words as possible, but make sure it explains the app’s function.
• Don’t be cryptic.
• Rhyming works.
• Your app description page should be brief, logically laid out, and emotive – sell it but don’t be obnoxious.
• Employ a writer – at 50c to $1 per word they are well worth it to get quality – you may think you’ve got it in you to write the blurb but there’s a big difference between Objective C coding and Shakespeare.
• Check and double and triple check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Falling down here says to your customer that you’re not the quality choice in this very competitive arena.
• It’s the little things. People’s brains notice them. You need to win that subconscious battle.

Just spend the time to exude quality and simplicity. That is key.

*GITweekly does not always practice its preaching.