FaceNames 1.2 Rejected Today

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Hello,

FaceNames 1.2 and FaceNames Lite cannot be posted because they are demo versions.   Any reference to demo or beta needs to be removed from the binary and metadata.  Free or "Lite" versions are acceptable, however the application must be a fully functional app and cannot reference features that are not implemented or up-sell to the full version.  A screenshot has been attached for your reference.

Please upload new binaries and correct metadata using iTunes Connect.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program
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One in 20 Have Rated FaceNames Lite

So far one in 20 people have rated FaceNames Lite. I wonder if that is average for most apps?

FaceNames Promo Codes on iPhoneAppReviews.net

iPhone App Reviews.net did a short review of FaceNames. As an alternative to a more lengthly, formal review you can supply them with a few promo codes and they will list your app with the promo codes for their readers. Mine was just posted. It surprised to see a bit of a blurb written to go along with it. They are much better with the marketing talk than I am! Take a look.

Another Change of Strategy - Change to Business Category

FaceNames has had slow sales in the Education category. Let's try the Business category.

bit.ly

I signed up for bit.ly and created a bit.ly link for FaceNames Lite. I sent this link out on a tweet. The statistics that bit.ly collects is interesting. I had a number of hits from the UK immediately after I sent the tweet out.

FaceNames Lite Available in App Store

I just received an email from Apple letting me know that FaceNames Lite was available in the App Store. FaceNames Lite took 10 days for approval -- a bit more than the 7 days FaceNames took, but much less than the estimated 14 days they list on their site.

I've logged into iTunes Connect and changed the release date to today so that it'll show up on the first page of the recently released apps when it finally filters through all their servers.

Two Promotion Tweets

I've sent out two promotion tweets today. The first one was sent out at about 1 pm Pacific time.

• "FaceNames - flashcards from your address book - an #app for your #iPhone www.digitalscrivener.com"

Note that I made a mistake on the link... without the "http://" it won't be clickable in many twitter clients.

The second tween went out at about 4:30 pm.

• "Bad at remembering names and faces? FaceNames - flashcards from your address book - #iPhone #app http://www.digitalscrivener.com"

I like the lead on this second one... hooks the customer better.

In the morning I'll see how sales went today.

Experimenting with Promotion via Twitter

I'm experimenting with promoting FaceNames using Twitter. I'm creating tweets using #iphone and #app hash tags. A search on these hash tags brings up a slew of tweets about iPhone apps, so I think I'm playing in the right sandbox. Unfortunately there isn't an easy way to tell if the tweets are successful. I could, perhaps, use bit.ly to create a short url pointing to the FaceNames brochure web site -- bit.ly is, as I understand it, capably of tracking clicks. This would tell me the tweet is being read and acted upon, at least, even if I wouldn't be able to tell how many went to iTunes and bought it.

Use Caution when Updating an App

Oops! I submitted the version 1.1 binary for FaceNames yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not understand how the "Availability Date" field worked and set the date for a few days in the future. This action promptly removed FaceNames 1.0 from the store. This was NOT what I intended. Changing the date back to a past or current date caused FaceNames 1.0 to reappear (after an hour or so).

FaceNames Lite and FaceNames 1.1 have been submitted to Apple

I just finished submitting FaceNames Lite to apple. While working on the Lite version I made some significant under-the-hood changes to the paid version, so I yanked the earlier 1.1 submission and updated the binary. I hope both will arrive on the App Store on the same day.

FaceNames Free - Ideas

I'm trying to decide what a free version of FaceNames should look like. It needs to show the feature set but not be so complete that it the end user will avoid buying the full version.

Some ideas:

• Don't save the scores between sessions, but otherwise fully functional. Pro: User gets a good experience of the app for free. Con: It might be enough functionality that the user doesn't need to upgrade. Possible out: Add other features to the paid version, such as a timed quiz mode, and do not put these new features into the free version.
• Remove scoring completely - between uses and during use. Pro: ? Con: User only gets a partial feel for how the app works during a regular session -- instead of showing less well known people more often, it will show them people randomly.
• Limit the number of people that are added to FaceNames. Pro: Hmmm, not sure; no pro for the user, certainly. Con: This is a feature limited version of the app and I'm not sure Apple would approve it. 

Well, the best approach seems to be the first - to not save scores between sessions. Perhaps that's what I'll roll with - and differentiate the paid version from the free by add new features to the paid version as quickly as I can.

Submitted FaceNames 1.1 to Apple

Just finished submitting FaceNames 1.1 to Apple; just a few minutes into Friday, September 11th, 2009. Let's see how long an update takes.

Added "Features" List

I added a "Features" list to the FaceNames description. The features should help the buyer recognize that FaceNames scores the flash cards.

Features:
* Saves your score for each person
* Lower scored people are presented more often
* Remembers your score between sessions
* If you add new people to your address book they are added to FaceNames
* If you remove people from you address book they are removed from FaceNames

First Purchase

The first purchase was Sunday, Sep. 6th, by someone in France. I wonder if changing the category had anything to do with it.

Changed Category of FaceNames

I decided to change FaceNames primary category from Lifestyle to Education. I think this better reflects its purpose.

FaceNames is available on the App Store

FaceNames is an app for learning the names and faces of the people in your address book. I submitted it to Apple a week ago. It took only 6 days to get onto the App Store. Quick!