Working on new features

I haven't posted in a while so I just wanted to give a little update on what I've been up to. One of a features that a FlashCardz user requested was an option to hide certain cards within a set of flashcards. So I've been working on adding this. When the update becomes available, it will require users to delete their old versions before installing the new one.

The great thing about this is that if you've already learned/memorized a card, but what to keep it in the stack for review later, you will be able to do this. It will let you focus on the cards that you don't know so well, then later bring back all the cards for a final review.

Over the course of a semester, a student can continue to add cards to a set and show only the ones that pertain to the test they are studying for. Then at the end of the semester, they can show all the cards in the set to study for the final exam.

Special thanks to Albert for requesting this feature.

Financial Reports - August

UPDATE: I posted the data a little early. I have updated the chart to include sales from Great Britain, Australia, Europe, and the rest of the world. Previously, I only had the data from Canada and the U.S.

August numbers are in, and there is an upward trend in units sold for FlashCardz and QuoteKeeper.

If you notice the number of units sold more than doubled compared to July. But it is important to note that July numbers only reflect the last week in July when these apps were released. I was pleasantly surprised to see the numbers for QuoteKeeper. My original thought was that FlashCardz would be much more popular, so it's nice to see QuoteKeeper holding it's own.

As for FlashCardz FREE, the data from Apple for the month of August shows 99 downloads from 12 different countries, the majority of which (81 units) is from the United States. The total number of users is somewhere around 350 which includes September, according to the analytics data I get from mobclix. The great thing about putting your apps on the App Store, is that iPhone users all around the world can download them, and Apple will handle all the currency conversions.

QuoteKeeper FREE was released in September so these results are not available.

By the end of next month, I will be able to compare the revenue from the paid and free versions of FlashCardz. As a reminder, the free version generates revenue from advertisements. The reason for the free version, was to offer people the opportunity to try before they buy. I suspect that the paid version will generate more money in sales than the free version from ads, but that remains to be seen.

Egg! has about 1500 users now, and seems to generate a little less than $1/day. After an initial spike, the number of new users is steadily increasing. My goal is to get to over 100,000 downloads for Egg!

August is the first full month of results up to this point, so comparisons will be more meaningful when I get numbers for September.

New Features Update

Over the weekend, new versions of QuoteKeeper & FlashCardz were approved. These include much requested features that I will highlight here.

1. Shake to get a random card. While viewing cards in FlashCardz or quotes in QuoteKeeper, you can shake the iPhone to get a random card or quote. This does not change the order, but jumps you to a new one in the list.

2. Shuffle the list. While in the edit mode pictured here, you can click "Shuffle" in the upper right hand corner and shuffle the list of cards or quotes. This changes the order and cannot be undone. And as always, you can rearrange the list manually, by grabbing the right side of an item in the list.





3. Shorter default text. When you create a new card or quote, the default text that appears has been shortened, so that you can more quickly enter your own text. I could have made it so that no default text appears, but it is important to maintain some sort of visual cue for users. I may explore a different solution to this in future versions.

Also, FlashCardz FREE includes these new features. QuoteKeeper FREE is still awaiting approval.

WebMD Review

Hypochondriac's rejoice! WebMD has released an iPhone app. I don't normally browse the Medical section in the App Store, but when I did, I found this. This is not an app that I look at every day, in fact the only reason I keep it on my iPhone is that one day it might save someone's life.

WebMD mobile does three major things: 1. Check your symptoms 2. Check your prescriptions 3. Gives First Aid Information.

If you go to the Symptom Checker for the first time it will ask you for your age, gender and zip code. I have no idea what your zip code has to do with anything, but I'm not a doctor either.

Depending on the gender you specify you will get a person pictured like this. You can touch different parts of the body and select from a list of different symptoms. Once you build up a whole list, you can touch the "View Possible Causes" button. From there you can read up on the different possible causes for your list of symptoms.

Next is the Treatments tab, that lets you search for different drugs by name, or by shape and color. Once you find the drug you're looking for, you can read about all kinds of relevant information such as uses, side effects, precautions, interactions, and overdoses.

And finally, there's the First Aid section. Just click on the relevant situation and it will pull up the relevant article. It's probably worthwhile to read through them before you encounter these situations, but it's still handy even if you don't.

It's a well done app and as I mentioned before it could save someone's life. I also like the symptom checker and the way it was implemented.

Overall Rating:

Fun at the BMV

As many of you know, yesterday was my birthday. To celebrate I thought I would head to the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) to renew my driver's license. When I get there, it turns out that I need my SS card, or some form of picture ID with my SSN. When given the option to put my SSN on my ID, I always opt not to, because if someone steals my wallet then they have my SSN too.

So, I wasted a trip to the BMV. No big deal, I'll just go back today. When I went in today, they inform me that since my out of state license expired yesterday, I now have to get a temporary permit and take a driving test, in addition to the written test that is normally required!

I take the written test. Passed on the first attempt. There are 2 other people taking that test at the same time. I finish before both of them (I'm good at tests).

I go to the next room, wait 15 minutes, and purchase my Temp Driving Permit that allows me to drive w/a 21 yr old licensed driver in the passenger seat next to me. $22 down the drain.

Back to the testing room, the man behind the desk processes my forms. (I see the same guy in the back still taking the written test.) The desk guy points to a sign on the wall and tells me to read it. It looks like this...

Keep in mind that it's been close to 20 years since I last did this, and on this particular day I drove a Toyota 4Runner SUV to the BMV. If I knew I was going to have to do this before I came, I would have borrowed my sister's MINI. Instead I roll up to the obstacle course and have maybe 4 inches on each side of the car from cone to cone. Personal embarrassment aside, if I fail this test, I have to reschedule 2 weeks later, and won't legally be able to drive by myself.

By some miracle, I navigate my behemoth of a car through the cones w/out knocking any of them over. I proceed with the rest of the road test and find myself back in the testing room. (The same dude is still taking the written test).

They send me next door, where they take my freshly minted Temp Driving Permit and $23, and give me a new driver's license.

The good news is that I found a new White Castle on the way home. I normally like to celebrate special moments with some Chick-Fil-A, but White Castle works too.

There are probably a lot of lessons you can draw from this experience:

• Don't let your driver's license expire.
• Study hard in school. (That same dude is probably still taking the written test).
• If you have to wait a little bit at White Castle, it means fresh fries!

Setting Expectations

One of the mistakes I made when I first posted my apps to the App Store, was failing to set expectations. This is important because when people come across apps, they have all kinds of wild expectations as to what it is and what it should do. If what they expect doesn't match up with what they experience in the app, they will come away with a negative impression of the app, which leads to negative comments a lot of the time. So it is up to the developer to do what they can to set the proper expectations for their apps.

Let me illustrate with a couple of my own apps. When I first posted Egg!, I didn't want to spoil the surprise and tell everyone what was inside. So I posted it with this description:

Just tap tap tap to reveal what’s hidden inside the Egg!

I have since added the following:

Egg! is for those times when you’re waiting for the movie to start, stuck in a boring meeting, or for when you have to entertain a small child and don’t know any magic tricks.

Adding this line, gives Egg! more context and helps people understand some of the rationale for it.

For FlashCardz, I added this to the description:

When I was creating FlashCardz, I took a look at similar programs on the App Store, but none of them was what I was looking for. There were some apps out there that did more than FlashCardz, but that didn't really concern me. I didn't set out to make the Swiss Army knife of flash card apps with all the bells and whistles. I just wanted something clean and easy to use, that let me make flash cards on my iPhone. This is my niche. People that want more will choose the other stuff that's out there, but there will be many people that find FlashCardz meets their particular need.

People naturally compare similar things to one another, so here I try to differentiate FlashCardz from the other stuff that's out there and give my perspective on where FlashCardz fits in. If people come in expecting FlashCardz to do everything they will be disappointed, but if they understand that it's not trying to do everything, then they can focus on what it does do.

So whether you're making the next great iPhone app or not, setting expectations will help people understand you and your apps better and reduce the negative comments from mismatched expectations.

Piratizer Review

Happy Monday! I found a funny app that should brighten up the start of a new week. Piratizer lets you turn people into pirates. Take a look.

You can add different hats, facial hair, and other pirate accessories. Each one can be rotated, resized, and repositioned.

The lite version doesn't let you save the new image, but I suspect the paid version does.


Overall Rating:

It made me laugh, so it gets 3 stars.