On app discovery

If you are a developer using Ansca Mobile’s Corona SDK, or if you’re thinking about it, we’ve got great news for you! Starting today, Ansca mobile developers will receive discounted rates when promoting their apps with Appsfire.

Ansca’s Corona SDK mobile toolkit empowers developers of all backgrounds to create games and applications for iOS and Android. In 2011, apps created with Corona SDK were downloaded over 35 million times across iOS devices, Android devices, and the Amazon Kindle Fire and NOOK Color.

Appsfire mobile apps provide intelligent recommendations based on users’ preferences, geolocation, social graph, and more, along with personalized recommendations based on the apps the user already owns. Millions of users worldwide enjoy Appsfire’s app discovery apps.

If you’re a Corona developer and interested in taking advantage of preferential pricing on marketing campaigns through the Appsfire network, please be in touch.

So developers: We wish you happy coding with Corona, and look forward to promoting your app!

Happy new year to All our dear users, partners, customers, friends and so many ambassadors of our service all around the world.

Looking back at 2011, we re very proud of what has been accomplished; but frankly, BS aside, we also feel some frustration when we contemplate all we wanted to do, that we could not do. That’s what you feel when you feel passionate about something. You’re never happy and want to do more. We’re focused on innovation users love and discovery and promotion of apps is still in its infancy [check our predictions to get a sense of it]

So we’ll save you the part where we ‘ll tell you how great we did. 2012 will be a great exciting year

Just a few reminders: 2011 was the year

• we rebooted with a fresh round of funding
• we introduced a brand new visual discovery experience
• We introduced OpenUDID as an alternative to the UDID, deprecated by Apple
• We introduced COMING SOON, a unique ad format for apps to pre announce their launch and support the range of ad units we already use.
• We introduce the Rating booster soon to be launched with more tools
• We were selected by Facebook as the only company in the app discovery field for launching their new coming Open Graph platform

So what about 2012? 2012 we’ll be the year where…..well… you see…

Stay tuned

update on web 28/12: although the freeze was supposed to end up tomorrow dec 29th, we observe rankings are dynamically changing everywhere back again and that app updates are popping up..

We’re are observing very erratic behaviors in the app store that is creating confusion for end users and developers.

Apple clearly informed the developers that during a few days iTunes connect (the developer section to manage your apps in the app store) would be frozen: you have no possibility to submit a new app, to modify the prices of your app, its description.  The Freeze is supposed to happen between the 22nd and 29th of December 2011.

All developers are set with this rule. But for some strange reasons there are many bugs confusing users. How do we know? users and developers tell us

PRICE FREEZE OR NOT?

For example prices of apps seem not to display consistently. Some apps appear as free or paid in the search results but when you go to the app page to actually download it you see a different result. Here is an example we were informed of by one of our users a short moment ago.

iDJ appears as FREE in search results, but then as PAID in the app description. But if you go to iTunes on the desktop it appears as FREE

Yesterday we stumbled upon Search out , a paid app which was marked as Free (in promotion) instead of Paid. We tried to download it. But as we did there was an error message saying that the download had to stop because “it is being modified”. If there is a freeze, there should not be any modification.

RANKING FREEZE OR NOT?

Another thing that is happening: the rankings are partially frozen but it only started yesterday Monday 26th. Apple was not clear in the communication about that. The reality is that many developers asked us about this too. What we saw last year is that rankings were not frozen. But this year something weird is happening

In some countries like France rankings are totally frozen

In the USA rankings seem to be partially frozen: the top 50 ranking does not seem to move but below it is moving, a lot, up until an hour ago. And its moving in a very random manner. See below the full reshuffle of rankings in just 10 minutes!

Finally this situation is not good for users: they don’t know there is a ranking freeze: they are going to see apps top ranked because they are artificially maintained top ranked. Apple should just remove the rankings during the Freeze. Or leave them but let all developers and users know about it.

SO? STORE FREEZE OR NOT?

Apple should fix this erratic store beahavior even if this is holidays: the App store is too important to leave it to such cases. It is not enough to warn developers. They should have a clear Freeze rule where nothing change at all even if you program a change. In addition Apple should also clarify the rules with their customers – the users

We can all take vacations: but if a store is open, it should be operating correctly.

update:

Several developers reached out to confirm the random behavior of the store and distorsion in prices of certain apps (probably trying to change their price during the period, but this is not confirmed)

Another surprise this morning: although itunes connect is supposed to be “Frozen” an app update just popped up. See below. did you see more? [we just found IMDB has an update]

In terms of mobile app predictions, Appsfire is not doing too bad. If you want to a proof, check our last year’s predictions. Not bad huh?

So here are our 2012 predictions for this year

1. 1.5 million live apps [iOS + Android] by end 2012. We were already predicting in september before others confirmed 1 million apps for 2011 [100% chances]
2. Native apps win over web apps, big time [sorry Dave Winer]: yes HTML5 is wonderful. but there is still no magical way to make decent money and get decent distribution our of web apps, since the App ecosystems are focusing on promoting native apps (only or first) and users prefer the experience of native apps [100% chances]
3. Apple will bring a new Apple TV with apps[a box, not a screen]. Will run iOS apps [some of them] and it will be much faster and awesome [90% chances]
4. iPhone 5/iPad 3: yes, it will land. will have NFC, with a new design, new camera, faster, more battery, more everything. Samsung will blush, then copy. iPad 3 is announced. includes Retina display [90% chances]
5. Android will crash iOS on market share, but iOS developers will still make more money than Android developers: not a prediction actually, but that will still be the case as Google is still not solving well the billing and piracy issues [not mentioning the fact that not educating their users to pay correctly is not helping] – 80% chances
6. Windows Phone gets its share of the market and beats RIM. Lumia 800 is a hit phone [70% chances]
7. SIRI will be available for iPhone 4 and 3GS. There is already a proof it is working [65% chances]
8. SIRI API becomes available. You will be able to launch and control 3rd party apps by voice [50% chances]
9. Apple relaxes App store rules: A lot more apps get in faster. But more apps will get rejected after being approved [65% chances]
10. Asia conquers the App Space: more top games, more top apps will be produced and marketed from the east and will shoot frontally traditional app giants [70% chances]
11. Instagram goes with massive funding, extend to video, android. Path rejects a second acquisition offer, gets massive funding too [80% chances]
12. Security is becoming a mess on Android: Google will buy Lookout or some other mobile security firm [70%]

Bonuses

• Most blog posts about app discovery will still start with “With over half million apps, finding the right app can be a real challenge…” [150% chances]
• It will still be considered as cool to make cool jokes around the APP word (eg:  ”APPY new year” , “this is APPENING now” )
• WWDC 2012 will sell out in 2 min and 13 seconds. Better then 2011 [ok maybe a bit longer..]
• Someone will finally make an app about 2012 app predictions [zero %]

Sarah Perez at Techcrunch, has a great post on a new kind of problem many users have on their smartphone [btw thanks Sarah for using a screenshot of one of our apps ] . What we call internally “App Re-discovery”: you download so many apps you can’t remember where they are (folder) or even what they’re called and you need to find them again.

Sarah suggests a better smartphone search engine that would index in a more relevant manner those apps. eg: you search “deals” you get groupon and Living Social

She also mention that smartphones require a better app management system

So here’s a crazy idea: give our devices a real search engine – one that’s as powerful as the app store’s engine, if not better. Apps should be keyword-optimized, ranked and rated by dozens of signals. The on-device app search engine should know what apps you have installed, how often you use them, how long you’ve had them, when you bought them, their ratings, your ratings, which of your friends use them, and everything the apps can and can’t do. For starters.

She’s right all the way. This is required and maybe apple or google will build this. But we saw with music that itunes even with ping has not gotten even close to that. Apple recently introduced a “purchased” section which allows you to better view what you have downloaded. But you don’t get more visibility than that and quite frankly this is not really helpful.

The reality is that this is a very hard problem to solve. Discovery like Re-discovery are not only related to how a search engine is built but also to how data about your apps are collected AND structured and presented. We spent 100% of our time trying to solve this and we don’t believe we’re there yet (although we think we re on the way)

Search is only one dimension to approach discovery. We observe on our own properties but also talking to some other players that only 30% of users find their app by using search. On the device it is very likely you use spotlight to find apps you don’t regularly use and that end up in your second or third homescreen. But there is also a better and smarter solution.

Here is what we learned for the past two years and that developers can already leverage today:

1. Users on mobile are not big fan of search: they much prefer the “browsing” model because it’s faster, simpler and does not require any input. You can see that in news (flipboard, pulse), but also with apps (browsing the lists or rankings). This is also why we made the choice to organize our apps by streams we build around relevant context (your friends, location, price drop, tastes,…). So build your app considering your going to be mostly found like this: great icon, great title, great screenshots. The icon in particular we’ll help you a lot in the rediscovery process because on mobile everything is more visual than textual.

2. Search in itunes AND spotlight are already built to work with keywords: if you are an app developer, it is critical you add the right keywords in your metadata. For example many apps that are not called “photo something” come out when i search photo. Apple or Google can’t solve that alone: they need the developer’s input. Add keywords where you can but in particular in your app title eg: BALAGRAM – photo utility for your phone instead of BALAGRAM (check LiveShare as an example)

3. Build a relation with users: too many developers think that once your app is installed on a device the job is done. You can only get attention on the device if you constantly capture this attention. And the best way to do it beyond building a great app is by creating a real relation with your users. An app should not be different from a web site in the sense that you need to keep your users informed, engaged and happy: build a notification channel, use push notification (optin of course) or newsletters, get a real feedback system in your app, animate your app..

Many apps struggle with that part and use the app update notes to do that. that is plain wrong. no one read update notes. It is easy to do better [we introduced a solution for that in private beta]

Rediscovery is going to be a more visible marketing problem in the next months. A whole generation of users are consuming apps more and more. Up until now, it was a manageable pain. But it will be less and less so.

Now there is something search is not good at today and there is no one single company who created this dimension (for now): in-app search

Sarah’s idea is to suggest that app search should be made possible thanks to a better indexing of the app metadata. But there is more. Imagine a meta-search engine that tells you in which of your native apps you can find the info you need: eg search “Ghost Protocol” and the engine will answer you that results are available in IMDB app, Allocine app that you own and in RunPee app that you don’t own. You don’t even need to know which app is good for that query.

Yes, you would not even need to know which app you need. The smart search engine would actually tell you which app you have or have not and point you right to the page result in the app 

What a great experience it would be. This is incredibly hard to build and even google is not even close to that.

In the meantime, use the tips above and you should already feel better

So 2011 is soon ending. And the “best of” start to blossom across the web

Nearly 300 000 news apps were published (out of which 260 000 still live) in the app store [for the curious 200k in 2010 and about 90k in 2009]. That’s a lot of new apps.

So, it’s time to look back before we look forward. The app world is getting better and better. So we took some time to review our favorites 2011 apps.

We’re not talking about updates of 2010 apps, but real new apps that were released this year.

You’ll find here a mix of gorgeous apps, sometimes very popular too (infinity blade II) and definitely some of our preferred apps which we find ourselves using very regularly. They also happen to be very popular among our community of users and highly rated in the app store.

Why 16? They fit in a home screen and we do recommend you try all of them (note: cardmunch is not available everywhere yet) – although we may add a few during the week based on your contribution

Enjoy the selection

Hanukah, the jewish celebration, is getting close. Prepare those candles and those Dreidels, get ready for happiness. But what you really really need, are the following apps.

And there is no Hanukah without gifts. So we’re offering you 10 versions of Menorapp a great little app for this coming celebration. Just look at the comment section of this blog post and get one of the promo codes [please just comment to say which code you have used]