How One Indie Developer Got 2 Apple Featured Apps in Back-to-Back Weeks

featured-by-apple

Getting featured by Apple once is hard enough, but twice in back-to-back weeks? Well, that’s Jordanesque.

Meet Philipp Stollenmayer of kamibox the developer behind Pancake and Okay? the two apps that were featured back Apple in back-to-back weeks.

I interviewed Philipp via email and asked him how he did it.

#1: How did you come up with the idea for Pancake?

Philipp: Pancake looks like a stupid little game which it probably is, but a lot of thought went into it. The game combines aspects from top ranked high score games that I have tried to analyze for a while now.

I took these aspects, like on-toilet-playability or accessibility, and invented a ridiculous game around it. The game itself had been design within 24 hours.

#2: What technology do you use to build your apps (Unity, Objective-C)?

Philipp: Corona SDK. I had to learn coding myself because I am a designer, and Corona’s language is very easy.

#3: Tips on getting featured by Apple

Steve: You were featured two weeks in a row by Apple for 2 different apps. Give us some tips on how to launch an app and get noticed.

Philipp: I have a list of blogs that I inform when I am about to release a new app.

The most important aspect is getting featured by Apple though, you have no influence on that, but design is everything. Clean, flat iOS 8 design with a good app name and a well thought icon and you have good chances to be recognized by Apple.

#4: What advice would you give to other indie app developers?

I look at many new apps and I have never seen a well-designed app that didn’t have success sooner or later. Design is much more important than functionality, potential users look at your app for only a second to decide if they tap on it. Think about where your users come from and set your priorities.

Also, many apps are too difficult. Take a look at popular apps and you will notice that the first 15 levels are no-brainers. Make them so ridiculously easy that a fish could do it and you have a few levels that are played for sure.

#5: Any monetization tips? What’s working for you?

It’s a bit sad that paid apps don’t really work out any more because of the oversupply and the new value propositions in the App Store. I am happy with the outcome of the pay-what-you-want concept of Okay?, it proves that the users’ moral didn’t get lost between packages of gold and ad-loaded games.

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Steve Young

Founder at AppMasters

I started building apps in 2011 and my first app hit #8 under educational games. I started making a few hundred dollars a month, but had no idea what I was doing. Then in 2013 I decided to start a podcast so I could pick the brains of app creators that I admired including the co-founder of Shazam, Tapbots, Crossy Road, etc and that changed everything.

Now I run an app marketing agency where we’ve helped 28 clients get featured by Apple, 5X downloads with ASO, and get coverage on Techcrunch, Mashable, Venture Beat and other major publications. I also write about apps on The Next Web, Entrepreneur.com, and on my blog AppMasters.co.