@drbarnard

Made, Is Making, or Will Make?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:50:00 -0600

Properly conjugating a verb helps distinguish among past, present, and future events. Mobile developers and the tech press seem to have an awful time with conjugation, often making bad decisions or writing misleading headlines on account of that apparent confusion.

Gas Cubby *made* $32,446.54 in the 30 days following March 25th, 2009—the day it was selected by Apple as the Staff Pick of the Week and featured prominently throughout Apple’s online ecosystem. I’m not actually sure what Gas Cubby *is making* because Apple doesn’t allow real time sales tracking. I do know that Gas Cubby *made* $266.34 yesterday and I hope it *will make* the same or more today, but using daily or monthly sales as a predictor of future earnings is perilous in the rapidly changing, cutthroat mobile app space.

After nearly 2 years in the App Store and having crafted countless spreadsheet models, I still have trouble accurately estimating future sales. Sales skyrocket when an app is covered by the press or featured by Apple, then seem to settle into a predictable pattern, only to plunge 50% or more for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop people from busting out a calculator for a little presumptive math. Let’s see, $266.34 a day x 30 means Gas Cubby *is making* $7990.20/month ($97,214.10/year). Interestingly, if you use those same calculations for March 25th, 2009, you’d get $93,215.10/month ($1.1 million/year). Try February 11th, 2010 and you’d get $5,381.70/month ($65,477.35/year).

The problem is, when a present tense verb is used with a specific duration of time that extends into the future, it turns into a sort of presumptive present tense (Wikipedia tells me that’s a modal tense, as opposed to a pure tense). Take for example the sentence “Bob is working today.” If you left it at “Bob is working” it would indicate his present state with no indication of what might happen in the future. Saying “Bob is working today” indicates his present state, but also leads to certain presumptions. Depending on the time of day the statement was made and Bob’s occupation you might assume that he’ll be working until 6PM, but there’s really no way to predict Bob’s future. So, if it’s March 2nd and someone says “Gas Cubby *is making* $7k a month” most people interpret that sentence as “Gas Cubby *will make* $7k in the month of March.”

Hearing that an Android developer *made* $13k in one month is encouraging for the platform, but to say that this particular developer *is making* $13k a month is subtly misleading. With all the press surrounding his blog post, I wouldn’t be surprised if Edward makes more than $13k in March, but as the press hype starts to fade and Google inevitably removes the app from its featured position, I doubt Car Locator *will make* anywhere near $13k/month. I’m not saying he can’t build a business around this app and innovate his way back into favor with Google and the press; but, if I were him, I wouldn’t quit my day job just yet.

When I started App Cubby in April of 2008 I jumped head first into the fray without any kind of backup plan; no day job, no savings. Then a month later I found out my wife was pregnant. I wouldn’t say I thrived under that pressure, but I survived and somehow managed to build a few great apps and learn a lot along the way.

The stress and countless 100 hour work weeks make me a bit more touchy when I see misleading headlines and presumptive math in the mobile space. Sure, a few developers have struck it rich—some deservedly, some not so much—but it’s a complex and ever changing market. I wish the tech press would take a more responsible approach to covering the space rather than sensationalizing the “mobile app gold rush.” The distinction between *made* and *is making* may seem subtle, but it’s important.

Greener Pastures in the App Store

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:55:00 -0600

Monday night I finally decided to pull the trigger on a decision I’ve been debating for quite some time. I moved Gas Cubby from the Utilities category to Productivity.

As the App Store grows, the “Top Paid” list (the top 100 apps by sales volume) in each category has become crowded with various levels of crap, soft porn, and cheap apps. I don’t know the exact number, but when Gas Cubby first launched in November of 2008, the Utilities category had less than 1k apps. Now it’s overrun with almost 10k.

The problem with the Utilities category is that most of the apps in the category, especially the popular apps, are priced at $1.99 or $0.99. That makes it difficult for an app like Gas Cubby ($6.99) to stay in the top 100 of the category even though it’s one of the top 20 grossing apps in the category.

Apple doesn’t display category specific Top Grossing lists (the top 100 apps by revenue) publicly in the App Store, but it’s easy to see them using an app like MajicRank, or with a bit of URL hackery. Here are several links to category specific Top Grossing lists (links work on the iPhone and desktop):

Productivity: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?id=25244&popId=38

Utilities: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?id=25284&popId=38

Finance: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?id=25172&popId=38

Now that Gas Cubby is in Productivity and showing up in both the Top Paid and Top Grossing lists of the new category, I have a few interesting data points to analyze. Monday night Gas Cubby was #75 on the Top Paid list and #19 on the Top Grossing list in Utilities. This morning, Gas Cubby debuted at #32 on the Top Paid list and #15 on the Top Grossing list in Productivity.

I had assumed that the sales volume in the Productivity category was going to be lower, but I was just hoping to break the top 50 and didn’t expect Gas Cubby to land so high on the Top Paid list. It’s also interesting to see the disparity between the Top Paid and Top Grossing lists for each category. Having only moved up a few spots from one Top Grossing list to the other, it appears that the top apps in both categories generate roughly the same revenue even though the Utilities category does significantly more volume.

Being able to analyze the Top Grossing list and compare relative position with my competitors has had a huge impact on my decision making process. In the past, I would freak out and drop the price or take some other drastic action any time Gas Cubby started sliding in the charts. But since Apple first introduced the Top Grossing lists in September 2009, Gas Cubby has been grossing significantly more than any of its competitors and has spent most of its time as a top 20 grossing app in Utilties. That extra bit of data has given me the confidence to ride out some of the scarier days aboard the App Store roller coaster. Even so, the App Store is all about visibility and I’ve been wondering what a new category might do for Gas Cubby.

Moving from #75 to #32 on a Top Paid list should give Gas Cubby more visibility, but it’s hard to tell without knowing much about App Store shopping patterns. Do more shoppers view the Utilities category than the Productivity category? The overall Top Paid list has been proven to drive significant sales, do shoppers even spend much time looking through the Top Paid list in each category? How much does being “above the fold” (first 25 apps on the iPhone App Store, depends on window sizing for the iTunes App Store) impact sales?

It’s obvious why Apple can’t allow developers access to raw App Store traffic and sales logs, but I do wish they would give us a glimpse into our own presence on the App Store (like how many users view our App Store listing each day and whether it was on the iPhone or in iTunes). As a developer I’m doing everything I can to “read the tea leaves” and optimize my position in the App Store. With access to so much more data, I sure hope Apple is working hard to improve the shopping experience for users AND optimize business opportunities for developers. Every time there is an Apple event looming, I get my hopes up that the App Store (and iTunes Connect) will get some love, but progress with the App Store has been slow… slow, but steady.

Touch Screen Edge Cases

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:25:00 -0600

While fiddling with the Nexus One last week, I was incredibly annoyed at how many times I accidentally tapped the Home button while trying to tap the space bar on the software keyboard. I posted this little note on Twitter about the issue: “DON’T EVER PUT BUTTONS FLUSH WITH THE BOTTOM OF A SOFTWARE KEYBOARD. PEOPLE WILL ACCIDENTALLY TAP THEM AND BE PISSED” (http://bit.ly/8MUQL2).

At the time, I felt something was fundamentally wrong with the “hardware buttons” (really just an extension of the touch sensitive area) being flush with the edge of the screen, but it didn’t dawn on me until today the particular problem it presents.

The unused edges of a touch screen serve to expand the “target” of any button positioned against them.

While typing on the iPhone I’ve been subconsciously tapping slightly below the bottom row of the software keyboard because it requires less precision. My fingers were using that muscle memory while typing on the Nexus One keyboard. By putting the “hardware buttons” flush with the bottom of the screen, the Google/HTC engineers made the bottom row of the software keyboard (or any other button at the bottom of the screen) inherently more difficult to use.

Here’s a video example of Palm having made the exact same mistake on the PRE: http://bit.ly/8gCqEO (starts around 00:40)

There are so many subtle things that Apple got right with the iPhone. Whether or not there was ever an iPhone prototype with more “hardware buttons” or a “gesture area” we’ll never know, but I do know that being able to visually define and re-define all aspects of an app’s UI within that 320x480 screen has let to some incredible fun and innovation.

Quick thoughts on the Nexus One

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:26:00 -0600

Overall I don’t think Apple has much to worry about with the Nexus One, but Google sure is trying. The thing is, my 55 year old mother LOVES her iPhone. I could never recommend something fiddly like the Nexus One to my parents (who took to the iPhone like a duck to water). The logarithmic growth in smart-phones is happening in the non-techie crowd and Apple clearly has the best device for that market and a huge lead in mindshare.