The (live) App Store challenge part 6
Building an app in one week and blogging about it in-real-time: The third version and first stats.
This is the seventh iteration of my App Store challenge. If you would like to find out what it’s all about, I suggest reading this article first.
Version 1.0.1 will be released shortly, and I think I’ve finished version 1.1.0 already. In this post I’ll go through what’s new, some early stats and feedback, and as always where this project is headed next.
Version 1.1.0
This third version of my app focuses on adding one more key feature: the reading list, in addition to some smaller improvements and changes.
The point of the reading list is to allow the user to save interesting articles for later reading. I’ve also come to realize there’s another use for this feature, and it’s something I personally like a lot. Basically you can quickly scan through the list of headlines one-by-one, and when you reach the end you’ll have a list of only interesting articles you can read now or later.
Implementing this wasn’t hard, but figuring out how to present it to the user was. I didn’t want to clutter the interface up or add the complexity of multiple views, so I decided to split the main table into two sections: one for the latest headlines, and one for the reading list. The reading list will always be on the bottom, unless there are no articles in it.
From a technical standpoint, all I did was make a new manager which takes care of archiving articles, delivering them to a controller upon request, and keeping track of which ones are currently stored.
Adding an article to the reading list is as simple as swiping from left-to-right on the cell, this will un-mark the article (remove the blue dot), so you can focus your efforts on the ones you have not yet seen. You can also manually un-mark an article by swiping from right-to-left, or by reading it.
I almost ended up making it so that once you add an article to the reading list (or by swiping from right-to-left), this source was hidden from the main view until there was a new article from that source. This way you would go through the list one-by-one, and ultimately end up with an empty list when you had seen all the headlines.
Not only did this feel very natural, but it also let the user actively engage with the content and provide him/ her with the feeling of having completed something when the list was empty. From reading the book “Hooked”, I knew this was important in customer retention.
I tried explaining the feature to some friends, but they didn’t quite understand it or why they would use it. Normally this wouldn’t stop me, but they made one valid point: if I had to explain to them what it was and why they would use it, it was too advanced.
I ended up removing this feature for now, but depending on the feedback I might try my luck at something like this later.
Apart from the reading list, I also replaced my web view with the one I found on GitHub. This also replaced the share sheet with the standard iOS one, which in turn gives the user more options.
You can now only share an article from inside it, as opposed to on the main list as before.
I also added a few loading indicators, so you know something is happening instead of looking at an empty table hoping for the best. In addition, I added error messages for when it can’t connect to the server.
Very last-minute I made the app universal, so you can use it natively on iPad. A few people had requested this, and since I’ve been using Auto Layout the entire time it was incredibly easy. It’s not yet optimized for the larger display, but at least it’s no longer just a scaled-up version of the iPhone app.
I had planned to make a walkthrough for new users, but I’ve read a few articles that don’t take too kindly on those. They point out that if there’s a need for one, the app is too advanced and not intuitive enough.
I don’t believe there currently is a need to explain to the users what the app does and how to use it, but it would be nice to make the on-boarding experience a little nicer by guiding the user through picking sources and such.
I have a preliminary design of what this could look like, and I’ve also got a pretty clever plan of how to implement it. Since I’ll be adding new features in every update, it’d be nice that even old users get a little intro explaining the new features.
I’ll achieve this by storing the last build in the User Defaults, and at every startup compare it to the current one. If it’s different, I’ll know they’ve upgraded. Then I can go into a Plist and get a set of view controllers corresponding to that update. I’ll present all of these consecutively, so it’ll feel like it was designed and not determined at run-time.
But since I don’t yet know whether I want a walkthrough, I’ll have to think about it. And it’s therefore highly unlikely that I’ll add it in 1.1.0, but possibly in 1.2.0.
Sales numbers and feedback
The app has been out for about a week now, and the sales haven’t really been through the roof. But considering the limited number of features, this was expected.
The first day started out at 8 downloads, which wasn’t bad considering it wasn’t approved until about 8pm.
The second day was a stunning 50 downloads, which somehow brought me into the top charts in 5 different countries (the U.S. included). Most notably was Finland, where I jumped above both Flipboard and Medium.
From there on it was just downhill: third day saw 8 downloads, and after it’s been a steady 2–3 downloads per day.
It could seem as if my ASO research have failed me, but I believe the app will do better starting with version 1.0.1 (new app icon, new screenshots, and more features).
Somehow I’ve managed to get a total of 17 reviews across different countries, which I simply cannot understand because I don’t have any incentive for people to download. But I’m not complaining.
Next steps
The current average review time for the App Store is 10 days, so 1.0.1 has about two more before it’s launched. When it’s out, I’ll immediately upload 1.1.0.
I’ll also start marketing at that point, trying out a few (free) techniques I’ve been thinking about.
I’m not gonna start 1.2.0 immediately, as I want to see how 1.1.0 does first. It also focuses on an Apple Watch app, so I’d like to wait until I get my hands on one and watchOS 2.
In the meantime I have three other apps I’d like to quickly make, so I’ll focus most my efforts on those for a few weeks.
If you’ve tried out Newsglance and have some feedback for me, I’d be more than happy to hear it! You can tweet at me or hit me up on Facebook. If you haven’t, I suggest downloading it for free here!
As always, if you liked this article, please hit that big ‘recommend’ button below and share with your friends. Thanks for reading!
