Of course, we’ve been telling our clients to maintain an updated Facebook presence for some time now, and the launch of Facebook’s App Center will now provide developers with yet another venue for featuring their quality products.  In fact, if the rhetoric is any indication, Facebook seems to be bending over backwards to facilitate developer interest in its new mobile ecosystem.  In the second line of its launch announcement, for example, Facebook spokesman Aaron Brady states “the App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful.”  Is there any doubt they’re giving developer interest and participation at least as much importance as they are to their clients searching for mobile apps?  Facebook already made its guidelines available for public consumption.  It also set up a comprehensive tutorial for developers who might want to use the new venue.

This is wonderful news for developers.  Given the saturation in the mobile app market, one of the greatest challenges for developers lately has been figuring out how to expose their products to the broadest possible public.  Getting featured in any of the existing app stores is difficult and seems to be based on luck as much as anything else.  The introduction of a new mobile app ecosystem with, at present, nine hundred million subscribers will certainly make it easier for quality products to be discovered and sold.

But we here at AppMuse are in the mobile app development business, and not the dinosaur-finding business, so we were delighted to learn of the creation of the company AppStori, which is essentially Kickstarter for mobile apps.  Of course, mobile app development itself is increasingly about exploiting niche markets and it’s nice to see Kickstarter’s success branching out to other, more specific domains.

Appstori has likewise learned a thing or two from its predecessor.  Unlike Kickstarter, app ideas that are submitted to Appstori go through an initial filtering process by the company’s review board, to ferret out mobile apps that probably wouldn’t be allowed into the app store anyway (porn, gambling, etc.).  Appstori’s cut is also slightly higher, coming in at 7% compared to Kickstarter’s 5%.

Otherwise the systems are almost identical.  Developers with a mobile app idea set a funding target, expose their idea to potential investors, and money only changes hands once that initial funding goal has been reached.  There are also benefits for those who offer support to mobile app entrepreneurs, such as branded merchandise and other app-related goodies.  Perhaps most importantly, Appstori provides an environment where mobile app developers can receive critical input regarding their product from a like-minded community, which can only help in fine-tuning the mobile app idea and giving it a much greater chance of success once it hits the app store.

Of course, if you have a mobile app idea, your first stop should be right here at AppMuse.  Contact us, and we’ll put you in touch with reputable developers who will provide you with three free quotes for your app idea, allowing you to know precisely how much you’ll need to make that idea a reality.

First, the numbers:  60% of children read or listen to stories on touch devices; 60% of children use mobile apps more than four times a week, and 24% do so every day; 71% of those apps are downloaded by parents, and 29% by the children themselves.

Taken together, the numbers tell an interesting story.  The 29% of children who do their own downloading tend to favor mobile apps with pure entertainment value:  games, videos, stories, etc.  To create an app that appeals to kids, then, developers will need to incorporate entertainment if they want it to do well.  On the other hand, the parents who download apps for their kids have a different agenda.  Bearing in mind that a full 58% of parents feel guilt when their kids use mobile apps at all, what those parents want are apps that include problem-solving, creativity, and focus on a specific subject area or a specific skill.  A whopping 83% of parents insist that the apps their kids use be interactive as well, so it’s up to developers to come up with apps that are active, engaging, and educational, rather than purely passively entertaining.

So if you’re planning on developing a mobile app for kids, in order for it to appeal to the broadest possible demographic you’re going to want to incorporate educational interactivity into something that’s also fun and entertaining.  And if you need any help getting started, give us a call!

1. Has this app been done before?  You’ll have to spend some time looking through the app stores, but unless you find an app that’s exactly like yours, you’re still in the running.  Remember, Instagram is an app that unites photo editing and social networking – both of which had been done to death – and it just sold for a billion dollars.
2. Who will use my mobile app?  When planning any product for market, ask yourself the following:  Do I need this?  Would I use this?  If the answer is “no,” then it’s back to the drawing board.  But if your mobile app speaks to a specific need – and the more specific, the better – then you’re right on track.  It’s also worth your time to read customer reviews for apps like yours to see what they’re missing.  If you see enough users writing things like, “Great app, but I wish it had X, Y, or Z,” then see if you can add X, Y, and Z to your app.
3. How can I make money?  There are a number ways to monetize your mobile app, and it’s wise to think about which of those will work best with your app idea.  Making your app free of charge is definitely a selling point, in which case you’re probably going to choose ad-based revenue or the freemium model.   If you think your app is one that people would be willing to buy, then consider a paid model, though we should probably note that such apps fare substantially less well on Android platforms.

Of course, if your mobile app is still in the idea stage, the smartest thing you can do is give us a call; we’ll set you up with three reputable developers who will provide you with free quotes for their services, so you can know exactly what you’re getting into before you get started.

Instagram as a company went into business a mere eighteen months ago, in an unimpressive warehouse in the San Francisco Bay area.  At the time, the founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were the only employees.  While impressive, their respective resumes weren’t unlike thousands of others in the California tech community, and while both had high hopes for their photo-sharing app, neither of them had a real appreciation of the size of what was to happen next.  The app’s initial download volume crashed the servers, and both Systrom and Krieger desperately contacted friends in the tech community to handle all the problems that accompany unexpected success.  Eighteen months in, Instagram has racked up an impressive member community numbering greater than ten million, which is why it managed to command such an impressive price tag.

A couple things bear mentioning.  To the layman, this may have seemed like two giant tech companies merging after a complicated negotiation, but at the time of sale, Instagram only had thirteen employees, making the sale worth seventy-seven million dollars per employee.  Second, development of the app didn’t require a great deal of technical sophistication.  It is basically an app that edits photos and makes them easy to share.  Our point here is that if you have an idea for a mobile app, you don’t need massive amounts of capital or an army of computer geniuses or even an especially revolutionary idea.  Instagram successfully found a niche that spoke to our little nagging needs and exploited it.  If you’ve got something similar in mind, drop us a line and we’ll get you started.

1. Release Your App on Thursday.  Apple features apps that appear on Thursday, and whatever you can do to get your app featured on the front page of the app store is necessarily a good idea, especially since this particular form of publicity is completely free of charge.
2. Hire a user acquisition expert.  Most developers focus on the quality of the app they’re planning to release, but adding a user acquisition expert to your development team can go a long way to getting it discovered by your target customers.
3. Multi-platform development.  The costs for user acquisition on Android devices have actually been dropping.  While Android apps are more difficult to monetize, it’s wise to seek the broadest possible appeal for your mobile app.
4. Put your mobile app on sale.  Sites like FreeAppADay and App-o-Day see millions of hits on a daily basis, which comes as no surprise, considering that they showcase paid apps that are being release for free on a short-term basis.  If you want people to see your app and start talking about it – and you definitely do – having your app featured on one of these sites can be a gold mine.
5. Have a great app.  This one is a bit of a no-brainer, obviously, but if your app isn’t something that’s going to excite the people you hope will use it, then it’s probably not ready for release in the first place.

Of course, if you’re still in the idea stage of your mobile app project, give us a call and we’ll get you started with three free quotes from reputable developers!

Of course, privacy concerns on the Internet are nothing new, but they seem to be taking more of a front seat lately.  Once upon a time naïve users had to do something imprudent – click on a suspicious link or type in bank information – before unscrupulous hackers could make off with all our data.  Now that we’re putting much of it out there freely, many are decrying the end of privacy as we know it.  Gizmodo believes, for example, that Google’s recent privacy policy change signals the end of its “don’t be evil” motto, and the U.S. Senate seems pretty keen to keep an eye on the Internet giants in order to ensure that the rest of us aren’t giving too much of ourselves away.

The most recent controversy surrounds the mobile app “Girls Around Me,” which accumulates and consolidates publicly available information from sources like Facebook and FourSquare.  John Brownlee of Cult of Mac recently demonstrated the Girls Around Me’s potential:

Completely creepy, and perfectly legal.  FourSquare has since stopped sharing data with the app, but it’s still a cautionary tale about what we should and shouldn’t be sharing in the digital world.

AppMuse wants to hear from you – tell us your favorite business app for the iPhone or iPad!  We’ll be picking one lucky winner who will receive a $15 iTunes gift card.

To Enter:

It’s simple – log in to Twitter and tell us your favorite business app and why you’re a fan.  Be sure to include @appmuse and/or #appmuse.  The app must be available on the iPhone and/or iPad.

Rules & Restrictions:

• The deadline to enter is Sunday, April 22, 2012.  All entries must be in by 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 22, 2012, in order to qualify.
• All entries must include either @appmuse or #appmuse in the tweet.  If you don’t, we won’t be able to be track your entry, which means you won’t be entered in the drawing.
• One entry will be chosen at random from all the qualified entries and win a $15 iTunes gift card.  The redeemable code will be sent to the winner via email.

Good luck!

Not to be outdone, auto manufacturers have taken notice.  Bluetooth connectivity for voice calls comes standard in most new car models, and for those where it doesn’t, third-party Bluetooth kits can be purchased for a reasonable price.  Additionally, many auto manufacturers are using mobile tech to keep drivers in constant contact with their automobiles.  Chevrolet boasts the OnStar RemoteLink app which allows drivers to start their vehicle, control the door locks, and check the diagnostics from anywhere in the world.  For its part, the myFord app is specifically designed for electric vehicles, and contains a wealth of information (battery charge, location of charging stations) in addition to its remote capacities and social networking perks, and Volvo claims to have designed “the most comprehensive and broadly available application in Europe when it comes to controlling and monitoring the car from anywhere at anytime.”

The problem with all these technological marvels is that while these functions are helpful, most of us are using phones in our cars for old-fashioned calls and texting … and that’s not so good.  In 2009 alone, nearly half a million Americans fell victim to “distracted driving” accidents, more than 5,000 of them fatally, which is why nearly everyone involved with road traffic – including auto manufacturers – supports bans on texting and voice calls while driving.  The same manufacturers who install GPS devices in your car that won’t take commands unless the car is at a stop are being frustrated by hand-held GPS devices (mobile phones, for example) that don’t have such restrictions.  A number of possibilities are being considered, such as disabling all cell phones automatically while driving, but technical and consumer issues make that solution a complicated one.  What we do know is that it’s safer to drink and drive than it is to text and drive, so if you have to take a call or send a text, pull over!

Discounts

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Be wary of outsourcers whose bids are conspicuously lower than their competitors; chances are they’re either trying to buy your business or simply don’t understand the scope of your product.

Settle on a fixed price

The profit-sharing option can seem tempting if you’re short on capital, but there are often pitfalls in such arrangements.  The conditions of the agreement might be vague, the goals of the project might not be shared by both sides, et cetera.

Beware Yes Men

If your outsourcer agrees too quickly to your proposals, tread lightly.  Raising questions and objections is the sign of a developer who’s committed to your project and who cares enough about it to make sure you’re getting what you’re asking for.

Expect Punctuality

If your outsourced developer doesn’t respect your time commitments when it comes to making a bid, how likely is it they’ll do so when it comes time to deliver the project?

In short, outsourcing a mobile app development project is an attractive option for entrepreneurs who don’t have enough capital to see a project through domestically.  With lower front-end costs come higher risks, however, so make sure you know what you’re getting before you sign over your money.  Of course, before you make any decisions at all, contact us first; we’ll put you in touch with three skilled, reputable developers who will provide you with free quotes for your mobile app project.