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.
Thanks for this very interesting interview. Design is definitely the key to get attention and a good first impression. Another thing that is difficult to handle (from our experience), is to attract the app blogs’ writers’ attention, i.e. to pitch the app to them. Do you maybe have any suggestions for this too?
Here’s a post I wrote about reaching out to reporters:
https://appmasters.commmmm/pr-email-subject-lines/