AppifyWP little brother: AppifyWP LaunchPad

Looking to create a promotional web site for your soon to be released iOS application? There something new from the maker of the excellent WordPress Theme: AppifyWP and it is rightly called AppifyWP LaunchPad. There is a demo of the WordPress theme available here: http://lpdemo.appifywp.com/. The theme allows you to put screen shots and let people sign for a newsletter once this app is launched (using a builtin MailChimp widget). Once your application is on the App Store, you'll be able to buy the AppifyWP theme and upgrade keeping all relelated informations in place. This is cool, really. The best thing, this WordPress theme is free. Cool.

I'm personnaly using the paid version to promote Ultimate Password Manager. Have a look.

Three great learning resources for iOS developers

Please, do yourself a favor and go have a look at these great learning resources if you are into iOS development.

• WWDC Sessions Videos: Apple Developer Website.
• iTunes U: Stanford University Development course: Coding Together: Apps for iPhone and iPad.
• iTunes U: Stanford University Development course: iPad and iPhone App Development.

These are really great learning resources. 

Some news about me and my endeavours

It's been a long time since I posted news about me, my projects and endeavours as an indie iOS developer. Here it goes. 

First, my applications sales are flat since the beginning of 2012. (Ultimate Password Manager, Ultimate Password Manager Free and Password Validator). This is not very encouraging. Because of that, I'm not investing very much time in these. I'm only working on UPM to fix bugs or make small improvements. That is it. My next release should come out in july.

Second, I still have this idea of building a Tumblr client for browsing pictures only. In the past, I wrote many blog posts about this project. The problem is finding time for this project. Here and there I do take small notes about this application: how it should work, what it should do, etc. My interests in this project comes from building my first iPad application, using latest iOS version only (I'm may develop it only for iOS 6), learning to build a graphic oriented application and because I love browsing pictures on Tumblr. So, we'll see how it goes in the future. I'll keep writing about this on this blog.

Third, my involvement in this blog is not as much as i would love. I made the move from Blogger to SquareSpace a few months ago and I love this blogging platform. I paid for this a three years plan. I costed my quite a pile of money so I have to continue and mainting this blog. I guess I'll this an incentive.

Finally, I downloaded many of the WWDC 2011 and 2012 session videos in order to keep my brain alive and well on iOS APIs matters. I did subscribre to the Stanford University course: Coding Together: Apps for iPhone and iPad. Watching this in iTunesU.app on the iPad is quite an experience in itself. I encourage you to do so too.

Oh and I'm following quite a few iOS developers on my Twitter account to stay in touch with the best of iOS devs. Pretty interesing to read during events like the WWDC 2012 Keynote.

Until next time guys!

You know that I have this blog to maintain too: http://iosappdesigns.tumblr.com/

iTunes Connect App updated

Building your iOS application web presence - options compared

AppifyWP is a very popular WordPress theme that you can buy and install on any web hosting company offering a WordPress environment. You can read my review of AppifyWP here.

Another player in the field of application promotional web theme is Tapptics.

Today, I want to share my comments about a new service to help you build your application web presence in a snap, without resorting to a web design. The service is called ooomf.com. While the web service is still in its infacy, I think it fills the need for many indie iOS developers.

First, the service is very simple to setup: no need to know about things like web hosting or Wordpress basics. You register with the web service, create a web page for your application and upload artworks for the application screen, the application icon and the like. For now, the service main focus is to get potential application buyers to fill a form so they can be informed when the application become available on the App Store.

There is some features missing that I would like to be included in a 1.0 release:

• Social Network buttons on the main page should be included
• More theme styles
• More than one screen shots (with transitions choices)
• iPad applications support and more than one orientation
• A direct link to the App Store when the application becomes available

You can create as many application landing pages as required. Custom domain are supported as well as Google Analytics are supported and more features are planned in the near future. So, keep an eye on www.ooomf.com.

Poll: How often do you use Xcode Instruments?

Is this a wake up call? We barely make money if at all.

I can clearly see myself in the majority of developers who doesn't recoup investment dollars in developing or maintaining my iOS apps. Are you one of those too?

A little controversy with the Dropbox SDK

Yesterday on Twitter, there was some shatter about Apple rejecting applications that include the Dropbox SDK. MacStories has an excellent article on the issue which is summarized here:

Apps that integrate with Dropbox, in fact, can either authenticate through the installed Dropbox app, or, if not installed, open a web view to let users log in with the browser. The alleged problem with Apple is that the Dropbox mobile login page contains a link to go back to Dropbox’s main website/account creation page, and possibly purchase a subscription bypassing Apple’s App Store (and thus 70/30 revenue split).

At the same time of this controversy, release 3.2.411 was approved by Apple! My application (Ultimate Password Manager) is using release 1.2.1 of the Dropbox SDK in order to allow users to backup the encrypted password database to Dropbox. This is not a central feature of the application.

My take is that if your application's main feature is depending on Dropbox in order to work, Apple may reject your application. Release 1.2.2 should address this issue according to Dropbox Developer center. 

iOS developers expecting Siri APIs for WWDC 2012!

Here are the results of my latest poll: What are your expectations from iOS 6

The most promising expectations for me are Siri API's and an Apple TV SDK. The latter would create quite a stir this year because this would create a third App Store for Apple and would prepare Apple to position itself with a nice catalog of applications for a future iTV if ever Apple decide to launch one. Would be curious to read the HIG for Apple TV applications. 

An interesting interview with Justin Williams at MacStories

Please go and read this interview of Justin Williams, a pretty much well known iOS developer. Interesting point of view on the App Store ecosystem, demo applications on the App Store and more.