Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Giving birth to an App.


Forget about the pain, sweat and missed deadlines of creating an App. Launching it in the App store is the scariest thing ever.

I compare it with giving birth to a child. Will it be OK? Will it be healthy? Will it be normal? Will people love it? Will people really love it? And unlike a new baby which people are tactful about, iTunes actively encourage buyers to rate the Apps and write reviews. I know very well that it takes one bad review to kill an App dead. An App in which your hopes and dreams rest.


After a series of delays I found out last Sunday (20th December 2009) that we were viewable, finally, in iTunes. And since then I have been checking out reviews which have been springing up, not just in the App store but in numerous blogs too. What will people think? What will they write? This is personal. Any harsh words will cut me to the bone.

Last night, 22nd December) I received a detailed email from someone who had bought and started to use my App immediately on downloading. His name was, Simon and he had lots of intelligent questions/comments. You can see our email exchange here.

The main point of his email was the App was quite slow. I re-read the email as a dark cloud of gloom settled over me. What if others experienced this problem? I launched the App. on my own device and started to time the different tasks. It was much faster than Simon's. I was lifted and optimistic again. So I wrote back answering each question in as much detail as I could. Bottom line, there could be something wrong with his iPhone. And there was. Do you know what it was? It was that he had an iPhone 3G which is not only without video, but also far less powerful than the 3Gs. My relief was indescribable. I have warned people on www.edlapp.com that the App works best on the 3Gs but have to admit I had no idea it would be so slow on the 3G.

Reviews and articles are sprouting everywhere. All, so far, are good. But I am only really interested in and waiting for the bad ones, disappointments and those wanting refunds. The App. killers. The comments that put other buyers off buying.

I will keep you posted but do check www.edlapp.com for regular user reviews, good and bad, which we will use to build into future updates.

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1 comment:

  1. Siamak...and others in this world: I am a qualitative researcher working in the field of education. I have been working for some years with Qualitative Data Analysis software and watching the Web 2.0 world to see what will develop out of here for qualitative researchers.

    A friend just forwarded me information about the new App you have developed--and I purchased it from I-tunes. I am very excited by your product and look forward to trying it out...and introducing it to colleagues and students.

    You are working in the commercial field...but now you've got me curious to see what has been developing in the educational field (perhaps not under the title of qualitative research or ethnography...but labelled as assessment or special education...or something like that) that might be trying to do something similar to what this App does in regard to documenting, tagging, and collboration.

    Thank you for this great Christmas present. I've subscribed to your blog too so I can keep up-to-date on what evolves here.

    A grateful researcher in Massachusetts!

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