iPhone App Entrepreneur

The Ins and Outs of iPhone Analytics: What Every Developer Needs to Know – Part 2

This is a two-part series on iPhone analytics explaining how analytics works and what it can do for a developer who wants to integrate it into their iPhone application. Part 1 covers analytics basics and explains what information a developer can get and how it might be useful. Part 2 covers the important issue of privacy and what a developer needs to be aware of when collecting information from users.  

Part 1 | Part 2  

The Ins and Outs of iPhone Analytics: What Every Developer Needs to Know – Part 1

This is a two-part series on iPhone analytics explaining how analytics works and what it can do for a developer who wants to integrate it into their iPhone application. Part 1 covers analytics basics and explains what information a developer can get and how it might be useful. Part 2 covers the important issue of privacy and what a developer needs to be aware of when collecting information from users.  

Part 1 | Part 2  

Create easy iPhone GUI Mockups

teehan+lax has put up a fully editable Photoshop PSD file that allows anyone using Photoshop to explain their iPhone app idea. 

- Information came courtesy of TechCrunch

iPhone Press and Promotion - List of Websites

**iPhone Press and Promotion Website List Page can be found here**

The App Store has been open for over a month now and developers are moving out of the coding stage and into the sales and promotion stage. Many developers are seeing numbers drop over time as more and more apps are added, attention wanes, or popularity goes up and down. I've decided to start a running list of websites that review or profile iPhone and iPod Touch apps to help developers in their promotion efforts. This way, developers working on promotion or looking to launch their app can have a list of sites they should contact with pitches or press releases.  

I've tried to find contact information for as many sites as possible. I've also put a brief description based on my knowledge or a short visit to the site to help you know what each site is about. I've divided the list into general websites and those specifically catering to games, as the games category seems to be particularly active. 

The list will be updated as often as I can, but the comments are open for developers to post other sites they know of or corrections to the list. Site owners and bloggers can feel free to suggest their site in the comments as well. Always list the URL and any contact information. If there are submissions guidelines, please include them as well. 

Good luck to all iPhone app developers out there.

The Dangers of Under-Pricing Your iPhone Application

According to recent articles and ad-hoc surveys taken at Apple’s WWDC, many developers are looking to offer their applications for free. While free might sound good to the ears of anyone wanting applications, entrepreneurs in it for the long run should be wary of pricing their applications at $0 or far below costs. Here’s why.

Pricing methods of iPhone applications

Digital technology provides a sort of conundrum for entrepreneurs trying to price their products. On the one hand, the very fact that it is digital makes the supply almost infinite and the transfer costs low. On the other hand, each copy of an application still has the same amount of value for each user. 

Traditional methods would dictate a price that takes into account the effort used to make a product and the hopeful profit to be made based upon an assumed number of buyers. For example, pricing your application to return a decent hourly wage for the amount of work you put into developing it. Indeed, some developers have indicated they intend to use this method, or something like it, to value their products. 

However, this method begins to have problems once a brand or application becomes popular, because it devalues a product the more it is bought. For example, if you predict your app is likely to sell a hundred thousand copies, and it took you 10 hours to build, a price of $5.00 will net you an hourly wage of $50,000 ($35,000 per hour after Apple’s cut). Obviously, that is not a normal hourly wage for a developer. But choosing an hourly wage within reason, say $200.00 per hour, would dictate a price of $.02. 

Simple (and cheap) promotion of your iPhone application

Promotion shouldn't stop with the submission of your app to the iTunes App Store. Here are a few simple things you should not forget to do once your iPhone application is up and running.

Pre-Marketing your iPhone Application on YouTube

Publicity is something every entrepreneur should do, whether you’re planning on distributing your app for free or you want to work up awareness of something you plan on releasing for sale. Getting your name out and people talking about your application with YouTube, or any other video site is a great way to do that.