ksteineman | Mobile Minute

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 10, 2013 in Apps, Marketing, Mobile | 0 comments

When tracking your DAU’s just isn’t enough.

In the mobile world, companies are defined by their vanity metrics. How many monthly active users do you have? What’s your retention like? How many downloads do you have? These kind of metrics, while certainly surface level are usually what guides the Silicon Valley Mindset of, “get users today, make money off them tomorrow”. It is seriously crazy. Companies will amass millions of users, but still have no revenue model on how they’re going to monetize those users, yet somehow have raised millions in funding. Let’s take a deeper look. In mobile, DAU’s (daily active users) is often the standard by which app developers are judged. While the industry has yet to define a concrete term for ‘DAU’ analytics companies like Flurry use a rolling average, where a user is considered active if they’ve opened the app at least once in the past 7 days. Another would consider a user active if they use the app on a particular day. In any case, to determine mobile success one would...

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 9, 2013 in Mobile | 0 comments

Not an Apple fan? Don’t like Google Play? Windows not enough? Fear not – Ubuntu is on the way this October.

That’s right the Wall Street Journal has reported that the first new devices running Ubuntu’s mobile operating system will hit the market in October. Developers however, will gain access to the beta versions of the operating system as early as late this month, with a variant that is designed to run on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus device. CEO Mark Shuttleworth said the company will be targeting two geographically large markets at launch, while no other specifics were given, one might anticipate this would be US and UK. The new Ubuntu mobile OS is capable of being connected to a monitor and wirelessly connected to a keyboard, where it will function like a desktop computer. In this configuration, it will also be able to support Windows applications remotely served over corporate networks. The UI is said to have a similar approach to Microsoft’s new Windows 8 interface (where actions are initiated by swiping in from each edge of the device’s screen). Users will be able to multitask, while not leaving the current...

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 9, 2013 in Apps, Mobile, Startups | 0 comments

AppStori to offer $1,000’s in rewards

Haven’t heard of AppStori? They’re a Crowdfunding platform for mobile applications. Think Kickstarter, Indiegogo – but an emphasis on mobile apps. AppStori has recently had some exciting news too – having announced new partnerships designed to reward developers with free services from Amazon Web Services and customer engagement platform Appboy. Developers accepted onto the AppStori platform will now be eligible for “literally thousands of dollars in cash and services” from AppStori’s partners upon successful completion of a project. MillenialMedia, as an example, already offers developers $500 cash and $500 of credit on its advertising network. More recently, AppStori developers will now be eligible for $1,000 credit towards Amazon Web Services and six months of enterprise level service from Appboy once their project goes live. Appstori said in a statement, “These new partnerships, along with our existing relationship with Millennial Media mean that developers who list on our platform will get literally, thousands of dollars in cash and services from some of the leading providers in the mobile space,” “On top of...

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 9, 2013 in Apps, Marketing, Mobile | 0 comments

Happy Chinese New Year! [INFOGRAPHIC] for Developers wanting to enter the market

With the start of the Chinese New Years, year of the Snake starting to today one might ask ‘what do western developers need to know to make it in China’? After year-over-year growth analysts estimate that next year will be the year that China pulls ahead and starts dominating the app and mobile landscape in a big way. Maybe you’re looking to capitalize on this coming wave? Well good news. It’s not too late. The folks at pocketgamer.biz have put together this Infographic to lay down the logistics of the region....

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 9, 2013 in Apps, iOS Updates, Mobile | 3 comments

9 reasons your app might not ‘make the cut’ in the Apple App Store

As we all know. The Apple App Store compared to Google Play is a completely differently animal. Apple has a review process that is designed to keep the app ecosystem ‘healthy’ and to ‘protect users’ from low-quality or hostile apps. And, for the most part – it works. Side note: Google Play allows you to update your app with a much shorter review/wait time giving you the ability to test different implementations and make quicker iterations. In either case, for iOS before heading down the road of developing an app that is ‘on par’ with Apples Developer Guidelines, and then getting rejected for who the heck knows why.. Here are 9 things you may want to consider.. 1) Use of the word “beta” or associated words is a no-no. While Google has made it standard practice to launch services into indefinite “beta,” ..Apple can be very strict about any indication that an app is unfinished or unready for launch. There are countless stories of apps get rejected for being...

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 8, 2013 in Apple, Mobile | 0 comments

Apple and Samsung take 103% of 2012 Cellphone profits

Yes, you read that right. 103% of 2012’s cellphone profits, and 101% in Q4. When we break it down, to answer “how is more than 100% even possible?” it goes like this. Apple claimed 69%, while Samsung took 34%. A total greater than 100 is possible because of operating losses at companies like Blackberry, Motorola, and Nokia. Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley wrote, “We believe Apple’s value share of the handset market is even higher than our estimates…considering Apple’s dominant market share of the tablet market, as some Android OEMs such as Samsung and HTC include tablet sales in reported smartphone sales and profits,” “Given the current competitive dynamics, we believe Apple and Samsung will maintain dominant value share during Q1/13 with share gains for Samsung versus Apple expected in Q1/13.” Needless to say, Samsung is Apple’s biggest competitor (thanks to phones like the Galaxy S III, Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy Note II). To realiate, Apple has filed multiple patent cases as a strategic weapon against Samsung and Google’s...

Posted by ksteineman on Feb 6, 2013 in Apple | 0 comments