Posted by:


From Amazon

New Updates and Releases

Amazon Coins Now Available on Android

We recently extended Amazon Coins to all Android devices with Amazon Appstore installed. Amazon Coins is a way for Amazon Appstore customers to buy and enjoy Android apps, games, and in-app items for less. Customers can save up to 10% on apps and games by purchasing Amazon Coins, while developers continue to get their full 70% revenue share. Learn more about Amazon Coins for Android here.

SDK Update Available on the Appstore Developer Portal

We recently posted an update to the Appstore SDK. This update introduces two material changes. These changes include: Unity3D plugin and AdobeAir Plugin. Download the latest SDK to get the latest UNITY and Adobe plug-ins and remove the old plug-ins. Learn more about the update here.

Tips and Tricks

Setting Up the ADB Driver for Kindle Fire Devices

Setting up your Kindle Fire device for testing and debugging is a simplified process thanks to Android Debug Bridge (ADB) support. First, ensure your development computer has at least one package of Kindle Fire system images installed. This is critical because the package includes the vendor identification needed for ADB to recognize any of the physical Kindle Fire tablets. This is done through a series of easy steps. Read the full article on how to setup your ADB driver here.

Distributing HTML5 Web Apps in the Post PC World

In a world quickly moving toward mobile device adoption, there is a growing pressure for web developers to learn new languages in order to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of content delivery. For the past 16+ years, web has been the king of mass distribution. But now as app stores on mobile devices are driving huge monetization opportunities, how do web developers stay competitive in this new “post PC world”? The key is to understand how you can maximize your web app’s potential in the distribution vs. monetization model. Read the full article here.

Tracking Events Using the Amazon Mobile Ads API

When displaying ads in your apps and games, you may want to know how often you are actually displaying ads to your users, what types of ads are being displayed, and how your users are interacting with an ad. Thankfully, the Amazon Mobile Ads API includes events that can aid you in understanding performance of ads displayed on your apps. You have the ability to track when an ad is successfully displayed from the Amazon Ad Network, how long a user views an ad, and when your user opens or closes a rich media expandable banner ad. Learn more about tracking events here.

Posted by:


From Samsung

Dear Seller
This is the Samsung Apps Seller Office.
Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office.The changes detailed below will be introduced as part of our ongoing commitment to service improvement.
 Effective from
– April 03, 2014 (THU)
 Major changes
Added Feature for Registering Screenshots for Each Language
– In the second step of the application registration, when additional languages can be added, a feature has been added to allow screenshots to be registered for each language.
(Before) Application Title, Description, New Features, Tags
-> (After) Application Title, Description, New Features, Tags, Screenshots
– When you register a screenshot for each language, that screenshot will be displayed in the application details page of the Samsung Apps Store when it is viewed in the relevant language.
If you have questions, select Seller Office > Support > Contact us for inquiries.
The Samsung Apps Seller Office continues to be dedicated to providing better services for our valued customers.

Posted by:


When Nokia announced in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress that they were building a phone using the Android OS, it took a lot of people by surprise. Having previously chosen the Windows Phone OS as its platform choice, it was a curious choice to pursue and Android device as the “commoditization risk” had previously been a deal breaker. Nokia chose to mitigate some of this risk by forking the Android OS. This includes removing the Google Play store and supporting other app stores as well as removing & replacing Google APIs (and thus services like Google Maps and and plethora of others). For Google this is a strategy that they are seeing employed more often as both Amazon and Yandex are pursuing similar strategies when building on top of Android. What should developers see this move as good for them?

Nokia X (Source: Nokia)

First, even though Nokia has been decimated in many of the western markets, the growth of smartphones in these markets is slowing dramatically as they move closer to saturation. The real action is moving to emerging markets where Nokia still has a strong handset presence and high brand equity. Countries like Brazil, Mexico and India offer fertile ground for developers looking to find new consumers. We see Mozilla with their new OS targeting these same emerging markets as well.

Second, even with another fork in the Android OS, Nokia expects that 75% of existing Android apps will work on Nokia X without any modifications. Those that do require modifications, they’ll be relatively small versus those required to build for a different operating system.

Finally, it was the smart developers who took a chance on iOS before it launched that saw great rewards for taking that bet. While the Nokia brand is tarnished in many western markets, there are few opportunities left for developers to get behind big brands with established user bases in large markets. Nokia presents just that type of opportunity for developers. Make sure you don’t miss out on it.

Posted by:


The American Diabetes Association states that over eight percent of Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes. If you’re one of the approximately 19 million Americans affected by this condition, you can use mobile apps to help manage your blood sugar and other issues you face on a daily basis. Since Android and iOS offer thousands of health-related apps, researching which ones are most helpful allows you to make an informed decision before installing them on your device.

Glucose Buddy for Android and iOS
The American Diabetes Association rates Glucose Buddy highly for its comprehensive layout and ease of use. With Glucose Buddy, you can log your medication, carbohydrate and blood sugar intake and automatically send a report in PDF format to your healthcare provider. The app offers the option to sync with an online database that stores your glucose tracking history and predicts your upcoming A1C hemoglobin level. Sending reports to your endocrinologist saves trips to the doctor’s office.

mySugr Companion for iOS
Two Australian type 1 diabetics created mySugr Companion as a fun way to log dietary and medicinal intake for diabetics. When you first start the app, you give your diabetes a name, and it becomes a cartoon-like monster that you have to tame. The app works like a game to keep your diabetic routine more interesting. It includes sound effects and icons to relieve the tedium of logging medication and food consumption.

BGMonitor Diabetes for Android
BGMonitor acts as a mobile alternative to a diabetic’s Bolus Wizard Calculator. If you take several daily injections, you can use this app to calculate your dosage by inputting your blood sugar and carbohydrate levels for the day. The app costs $2 and is only available for Android. If you have an iPhone or iPad, try the alternative RapidCalc app for iOS. It provides the same dosage calculations as BGMonitor.

IBGStart for iOS
Plug your blood glucose monitor directly into your iPhone to give it a graphical interface using the IBGStar app. While it’s only available for Apple devices, IBGStar gives you a comprehensive, intuitive view of your carbs, insulin and blood sugar mg/dl levels. The app is offered for free, but the accompanying glucose meter costs $99.99 at the Apple Store and includes 50 test strips. You can purchase a smaller version that includes 10 strips from Walgreens for $74.99.

Glooko for iOS
If you already have a glucose meter, you can sync it with the Glooko app for iPhone and iPad. Glooko allows you to skip the logging process by uploading information from your glucose meter to your device using a separate MeterSync cable. The information is also uploaded to an online database where you can view and edit it. While the software is free, a MeterSync cable costs $39.95, and if you use an AccuChek meter, you must purchase a $14.95 upgrade adapter cable.

With all of these great apps, you don’t need to struggle with logging your food intake or calculating your insulin dosages while away from home. Just a few small attachments allow you to automatically sync your data on the Web and your device.

Zane Schwarzlose is an SEO at Fahrenheit Marketing, an Austin web design company. Zane is glad he doesn’t have diabetes.

Posted by:


by David Jones

Developing an App is an exciting process. You design it, code it, and submit it. Now it’s sitting in the a few app stores gathering downloads, getting featured… but do you have a leaky bucket? Are you losing the users you’ve just acquired?

The BAD NEWS for Apps is that 80-90% are deleted within a year, according to a Compuware study. In fact, 22% of Apps are used only once. What this really means is that people have downloaded hundreds of Apps, but only a small handful are actually used!

Why does this happen? What is blocking your App’s potential? Let’s take a closer look.

The challenge: Your users need to change their habits

Your App may provide a great solution to a pressing need and:

  • Perform a task
  • Provide a solution
  • Or even, fill in some time and get rid of some boredom

However, what you are really asking your user to do is –

When the need arises:

  1. Resist the impulse to solve it the old way
  2. Instead, reach for the phone
  3. Open your App

It’s not just about convincing the user to commit their time. Your App must jump to the top of their mind when they make that split second decision.

Think about a personal example. Like me, you probably have an App that you just can’t form a habit around. Mine is with Evernote. Even though people would rave about it, I just couldn’t switch from Google Tasks – Google Tasks was my habit.

Turning the challenge to your advantage

If we re-examine the retention curve, there is actually a surprise at the end.

App User Retention (Source: Localytics)

This chart (from a study by Localytics) shows there is a usage chasm and then a large percentage of apps that have much better engagement (opened more than 11 times). It really shows just how important it is to think about the long term engagement of your App.

Habit works both ways. First you must overcome the usage chasm, but once your App is the habit, using it becomes natural. This then provides natural protection against incoming competitors.

How to build a strong habit

Looking at the chart above echoes classic personal improvement advice such as “repeat something 7 times and you’ve created a habit”

Think about the abundance of self development tips from posts like this. Consider how suggestions like:

  • repeat it
  • do it daily
  • get a buddy
  • form a trigger

can be applied to Apps. Strategies like these are almost by nature built into social messaging Apps. This is part of the reason Facebook and WhatsApp can have up to 70% of their users active on any given day.

We suggest two steps to help you achieve the same:

  1. Segment your users by strength of habit
  2. Shortcut the memory process

1. Segment your users by strength of habit

Not all users are engaged in the same way. How strong their habit is at the moment affects the next stage you want to get them to. The easiest way to characterize habit formation is by tracking Frequency and Recency.

StreetHawk console is a great new tools that we unearth that allows for individual tracking of user frequency metrics such as:

  • Number of sessions in the last 30 Days
  • Number of sessions in the last 7 Days
  • Total number of sessions
  • Average session time

Users with a high frequency of sessions are likely to be power users. In contrast, users with low session counts needs to be encouraged to take full advantage of the App. Users with an early spike and decreasing use are likely finding it difficult to disrupt their previous patterns.

StreetHawk’s recency metrics enable you to filter users around their “Anniversary”. The most common are:

  • Anniversary of User Installed the App
  • Anniversary of User Last Opened the App

A user that installed your App in the past 30 days but have not opened it in the last 7 days may be tipping on a critical point of no return. If they don’t rediscover your App soon, they may forget about it and ignore it in the future.

2. Shortcut the memory process

How do you get to the top of your user’s mind at the moment of need? Don’t rely on memory. Instead it’s about finding the critical moments to disrupt their previous patterns and build your own.  You need to add value for that unique person at the right place at the right time. This puts the focus on your App at a moment when the user can act, like when:

  • They’ve just completed a trigger action
  • They are walking nearby to your store
  • It’s their birthday or anniversary of joining your Loyalty program
  • Something they “Faved” is close

StreetHawk’s matching engine ensures your campaigns are highly targeted with the right notifications at the right time. Campaigns might include a second onboarding process, special offers or tips or geofence triggers for physical locations.  Start thinking now about a communication plan with triggers that support the formation of your users’ habit.

For more information on StreetHawk email david@streethawk.com or drop them a tweet at @StreetHawkApp and check out their site at http://streethawk.com.

Posted by:


From Samsung:

This is the Samsung Apps Seller Office Team.
Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office.The changes detailed below will be introduced as part of our ongoing commitment to service improvement.
 Effective from
– February 28, 2014 (FRI)
 Major changes
No IAP in new bada applications
– Bada applications no longer support IAP.
  This means that IAP cannot be registered when a new bada application is registered.
  Any IAP previously registered to bada applications will, however, continue to be supported.

Posted by:


App localization became one of the hot topics in 2013 for app publishers. Seemingly every couple of weeks another article or blog post came out touting the benefits of localization on app downloads. Combined with an increasing need to globalize distribution, being an app developer suddenly means you are a global business. New companies, like our partner Tethras, focused specifically on app translations have popped up everywhere.  Analytics providers like Distimo and AppAnnie support the wonderful benefits of localizing your app with well researched reports and highly attractive graphs and charts. But is it really that easy?

2014 02 20 Language translationNow to be sure, these benefits are certainly real. Our preferred app store partner Opera Mobile has 100 million monthly users and most of those users are not in the U.S. They also show there to be huge increases in visitors to their storefront and CTRs on their campaigns when they used localized content.  In fact, their content teams are actively scouring their catalog for quality localized content to feature on their storefronts (yes, we’re talking free feature placement!).  And in regions like Latin America, just two languages reaches a huge market.

So, if a pot of gold sits on just the other side of the localization rainbow, why isn’t every developer localizing?

That’s the question we asked when we started CodeNgo. Why aren’t developers publishing everywhere and localizing for optimal sales? Among the plethora of reasons, we learned that the primary factor comes down to cost. Not the monetary cost of the translations themselves but rather the cost in terms of dollars AND resources necessary to acquire, manage, submit & measure results. Together these have pushed localization down the priority list. Similar to distributing to alternate app stores, we figured that if we could make it easy, even seamless to quickly have your app marketing text translated by real people at the time same time you’re submitting your app, then there will be very little reason not to at least localize for language. This means a huge savings in terms of time and effort for most publishers.

Soon every app submitted through CodeNgo can have the marketing text translated right from your account making the localization decision a much simpler one. Even if you make changes to the English version we’ll keep track and you can update your translations as well. We’ll soon add in-app translations as well. Localizing your app no longer needs to be a headache or suck up valuable time & effort meaning you now have another critical tool available to you to maximize your downloads.

Posted by:


If you’re one of the increasing number of lawyers who uses an Android phone and/or tablet you’re probably always on the lookout for apps that can help you do your job better or more efficiently. Luckily for Android users there are now more apps than ever available for Android, most popular iPhone apps now having Android equivalents of the same or even better quality. The number of apps specifically developed for lawyers and law firms is also ever increasing. Let’s have a look at some great Android apps that could make your life as a lawyer a bit easier.

DroidLaw

You can throw away most of your law books after installing this app. DroidLaw is an app that gives you offline access to state and federal statutory laws and regulations. The app itself is free and comes with some basic content, but you will have to pay to get access to state or practice specific content. There’s a tablet optimized version which is great for doing proper research on, something you probably don’t want to do on your smartphone.

CaseManager

A well designed, simple case management app that syncs with DropBox so your files are always backed up and synchronized so you always have access to the latest version of a document when using the app from different devices. There are CaseManager applications for Windows and iOS devices available too. There’s a billing and time tracking feature built into the app that allows you to track the amount of time worked for a certain client and generate an invoice for the work performed. There are still some quirks to be worked out in future releases of the app but so far it’s looking good. CaseManager is $20 in the Play Store.

Law Guide/Dictionary

This app provides a free legal dictionary with more than 11,000 legal definitions. A must have for any lawyer.

FastCase

This great legal research app that helps you perform legal research faster. Many bar association have a subscription to the app, which means you may be able to use it for free if you are a member of the right association.

CamScanner

A free app that turns your smartphone into a portable document scanner. The app converts photos you take from a document into a PDF file and improves the quality of the photo, just about eliminating the need for using a real scanner.

Evernote

Note taking has never been as organized as with Evernote. This great note-taking app can be used for taking notes of anything you can think of and storing them in “notebooks”. There are also a number of great add-ons to have a look at and all your notes sync to the cloud of course. There are Evernote apps for just about any platform as well as a web-based version available.

Amazon Kindle

No need to take large books with you everywhere you go anymore, you can just use the Kindle app to read your books. Any book you buy from Amazon in Kindle format can be read on all devices with a kindle app as well as on Amazon’s own Kindle e-reader. The page you’re on is synced to the cloud so you if you continue reading on a different device than you were reading on before you’ll be able to start from the page you were on.

Zane Schwarzlose is a writer at Alamo Injury Attorneys, a personal injury law firm in San Antonio, Texas. Zane only uses a few apps in his work.

Posted by:


By Satya Shetty

This post is bare bones App Store Optimization (ASO) for beginners. I explain to a newbee App developer what ASO means and which app parameters to optimize.

A developer’s mindset is typically something like this: “Develop an awesome app and put it in the app store. Users will love my app and my app is so freaking awesome that my app will then be in the Top 100 on the charts or will be featured by Apple or Google Play.”

While there is nothing wrong with the developers way of thinking, the real app world doesn’t work on the “If you build it they will download” principle. You need to promote and optimize your app so that it’s found by your target users and downloaded.

App Store Optimization (ASO) is FREE marketing. Well almost, it’s the most economical way of getting your app discovered and downloaded. There are certain parameters which the app store algorithms take into account for ranking an app. We will deal with them one by one:

Icon :


Awesome looking icons = Get the users attentionDealNoDeal

  • I am pretty sure the above icon has your undivided attention
  • For today’s Attention Deficit users your app is just a finger flick away from your competitor
  • Your app icon needs to jump out at the user and hold his/her attention
  • Once you have made the user stop and look at your app, half your sale is done

 


Screenshots :

 HungrySharkEvolution
  • After the icon the next thing the user will look at is your 1st Screenshot
  • Your 1st Screenshot should convey to the user what your app is all about
  • The following Screenshots should highlight and educate the users of your app’s main features
  • The best way to educate the user is to have informative text on each screenshot explaining the feature you want to highlight
  • The goal is to make the user not have to read the app description and still understand what the app does with just the screenshots

App Ratings:

 RatingsHungrySharkEvolution
  • You need to have 5 star ratings! Well if not 5 star, close to it. The rating system is a feedback mechanism which indicates user satisfaction and acceptance.
  • Think of it as a vote of confidence by the users i.e., if your app solves their problem and has an awesome design then they will rate you higher.
  • So on the Google and Apple app stores the higher your rating, the better the chances of your app being ranked higher

Updates:

 Updates
  • Each time you update your app, your app gets a boost in terms of number of downloads (in the Apple store)
  • Updates indicate that you care about your app and are striving to improve it, hence the importance given to updates in the ranking algorithm
  • Caution – Don’t just update your app to get a boost in downloads without actually updating anything. This is frowned upon by the app stores

 

Download Numbers:

 AppDownloadsIncrease
  • More app downloads = Higher ranking of your app
  • Downloads should show a consistent increase day to day basis or remain constant
  • Your app ranking will not increase if you get a spike of 1000 downloads today and 100 downloads tomorrow
  • A spike in downloads indicates an anomaly and is disregarded by the algorithms
  • Try increasing your downloads by doing Icon, Screenshot, Keyword, Title Optimization for Apple & Icon, Screenshot ,Title, Description Optimization  for Google Play

Keyword / Title Optimization:

 Title
  • Find the right keywords for your app
  • Include this in the keywords field for the App Store & in the Description on Google Play
  • Include the most important Keywords in the Title/Name of your App, for example: You have Slots, Casino, BlackJack, Roulette, Poker & Free the above title
  • Keywords in the title have more weighting i.e., the app will get ranked higher for the same keywords when compared to the same keywords being in the keywords field
  • You get 100 characters for keywords in the App Store, make the best of them

About the Author:

Satya Shetty is an App Store Optimization (ASO) Expert. He lives in Bangalore, India which is the Silicon Valley of India. He has helped many Indie developers & App Companies by Optimizing their Apps. 

His Blog: http://www.OptimizeMyApps.com/category/app-store-optimization-blog/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/satyashetty

LinkedIn: in.linkedin.com/in/satyaappstoreoptimization/

 

 

 

 

Posted by:


From Samsung:

Dear Seller
This is the Samsung Apps Seller Office.
Thank you for your continued support of the Samsung Apps Seller Office.The changes detailed below will be introduced as part of our ongoing commitment to service improvement.
 Effective from
– January 23, 2014 (THU)
 Major changes
1. Improvements to the My Applications page
The My Applications page will have been improved in the following ways:
– The Summary/ On Sale/ In-Certification/ Pre-Certification tabs have been integrated into My Applications.
– A section for Content ID has been added to the application list and search filter.
– You can see applications with the status registration or rejection at once under the Registering/Rejected tab.
– You can click the Update button to go to the Update page from the applications list.
2. Addition of Touchscreen to Device Recommendation Items
Touchscreen has been added to the Auto Detection Items for Android.
– Auto Detection Item for Android : API, App ID(Package Name), Version Code, Version Name, Telephony Only (Call/SMS), VoIP, NFC, Faketouch, GroupPlay, Touchscreen
3. Multi Binary VersionCode Policy Relaxation
Policy on VersionCode is relaxed when registering Android applications.
– In the past, new binaries could not be registered if the API level was higher and the VersionCode was lower (or vice versa) than the previously registered binary. However, registration is now allowed regardless of the API level as long as the VersionCode is different.
※ However, if the VersionCode of the new binary uploaded is lower than the buyer’s current VersionCode, the buyer cannot update to the new binary.