Want a free download to review? Hit me up! As my IRL and totally pregnant friend says:
It really is amazing. It’s exactly what I was looking for and I didn’t even know it!
So there! And Tactica’s been doing so much kid-oriented interactive work recently, we’ve launched a Twitter stream devoted to kids & technology. We’ve got a few preschooler iPad apps in development, so follow if you’re a fellow techno parent
I loves me a good camera app, and have been thirsting for an intangible more with Instagram lately. So let’s check it out.
Be prepared for a different vibe. The 80′s early-video look (I thought retro was inauthentic?) is carried through with a ‘Me Decade’ brand sneer. The copywriting on the app store suggests you just may be an aged loser if you hold the polaroid dear or were alive in the summer of ’73. I’ve tweeted over to app developer Kris Collins to see if he was indeed born in the 80′s.
So no rosy memories or gentle voices here. Decim8′s filtering—heck, I just wanna say mediation, you know?—is a different kind of aesthetic, visually & philosophically. The destruction is easily modifiable and kinda random. Where Instagram seems to decorate every shot, Decim8 desconstructs and destroys. It introduces pixels, artifacts, digital shifts, repetition, noise. Like when a DVD skips.
Using a filtering app with artistic sensitivity means knowing when its effects will enhance your message, rather than distract. I’ll use this app when describing things visually that connote newness, postmodernism, video, digital, cities, fragmentation, randomness, motion and DIY—a welcome tool set to compliment the rarified, elegant, stoic and static images rendered by Instagram and Hipstamatic.
App performance: smooth, simple interface, mercifully free of social networks.
You don’t sleep for 3 weeks. You subsist on Twizzlers and lukewarm coffee. Your family can’t remember if you have a beard or not (you do now).
You must be making an iPhone app.
After all the Pepsi, sweat and tears it takes to produce, design and develop an app, the crossed fingers waiting for Apple’s approval, and the rush of seeing your cute little icon winking at you from iTunes itself, the real work begins: marketing the app.
Part of the marketing—a part that’s agonizingly out of your control—are user reviews in the App store. People that buy your app—whether they understand how it works & what it’s for or not—can give it 1-5 stars and say whatever they please about it, and you can’t say anything back.
How can you possibly deal with this unfair situation? I ask several app producers how they keep their cool when the anonymous, undeserved, unanswerable criticism starts to fly.
“You need to accept early that, unless asked to review, most people only review when something is wrong. Knowing this, it is easy to go forward and not take them seriously on an individual level, but you can grab the pulse of your app by collecting the negative reviews to see if there really is a problem, or whether there is just a customer who is having individual problems with their device and blaming you. Not being able to contact customers is not really a big issue for me. Ambiance gets overwhelmingly positive reviews so a few negative ones don’t really affect our business. We accept that we can’t please everybody and this is ok.”
“It’s not ideal, that’s for sure. I’m still surprised Apple hasn’t fixed this situation by allowing developers to respond to reviews. It can be very frustrating, especially since a lot of users will complain about problems they’re encountering that are due to their misuse or misunderstanding of the app. Luckily, enough people are savvy enough to know how to read reviews these days, and ignore (for the most part) the clearly ridiculous 1-star reviews. That said, it would make me feel better if I could respond in some way. Try not to stress too much about it. If your product is good, it will sell.”
“It’s definitely frustrating not to be able to reply directly to a negative review, especially when the “reviewer” didn’t read the original description of your app and is now mad because they thought it should do something different.
The other kind of negative review that’s frustrating is when the person is complaining that the app doesn’t do something when, if they had just read the FAQs, they would have learned how to do it.
The way I personally handle a negative review is, if it’s warranted, I reply to it in general terms in my app’s description. If it’s obviously someone being an idiot then I just ignore it.
Another way I deal with a negative user review is I try and find a way to celebrate my app’s short-comings by pointing out how awesome it is that my app DOESN’T do the thing they wanted it to do. In other words, I try to communicate the reason behind why my app doesn’t do certain things and how that’s beneficial to the user.
After having an app on the app store for 5 months now, I can say that a negative user review often gets ignored by new buyers if they see that there’s an equal or greater amount of positive reviews. The thing about iPhone apps is that many have a way of polarizing users: they either like it or they hate it. The way I deal with it is I just keep releasing updates and fixes that reward the people who like or buy into the philosophy of my app”.
“We had a three star review that mentioned the app crashed under certain circumstances. The user just needed to update the Apple firmware for their device. We pass that info along to anyone that contacts our support email and we’ve posted it to the product website.
It’s great to know what issues users encounter, but unfortunate that those reading that review can’t see a comment back from us regarding a fix. To deal with that, we’ve added a few trouble shooting steps to our app description in case people look for it there.”
“App Store reviews are interesting because they are anonymous (no one knows who BanjoDude8723 is) one-way communication. This tends to make negative reviews a little more vicious. It’s always hard to read something harsh about something you’ve worked so hard on.
We read every review left for our apps. We care about our users and want to make them all happy. I really wish Apple would allow us to contact individuals so that we can try to make things right. I always have to remind myself that they don’t hate me personally, just the app.
With the App Store, it’s a matter of perspective. OK, you’re unhappy with the app, sorry that I wasted your dollar or two…I’d give you a refund if I could…now go and find an app that suits you better. You have to grow a thick skin and take everything with a grain of salt.
My favourite review was a negative one. A rather serious flaw was pointed out in such a way that I couldn’t help but laugh and agree that yes, this was a design mistake. Listen for subtle clues that can indicate wider issues than just one person disliking the app.
We try not to let negative reviews stress us too much. You can’t please everyone, but we do try to understand what it is that they’re unhappy about.
Tactica and Tiga Talk just released “Tiga Talk Speech Therapy Games“, an app for iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad that helps kids—those with speech delays & those just new to the whole talking thing—develop language skills. Tiga Talk is a Cree language/English tv show with adorable animal puppets on APTN. There’s been some awesome coverage by the likes of MSN Entertainment, Yahoo & CTV.
Speech therapists consulted on Tiga Talk Speech Therapy Games, and some will be using it in their practice. The cool thing about Tiga Talk, though, is it’s not just for speech therapy. Your average little kid can have a blast with these games, because they’re super fun (I know; I’ve spent countless hours beta-testing). They also look fantastic, which you know is semi-rare if you download a lot of toddler apps.
Using the phone’s voice features, the games are actually played by making sounds. Yes, like a Kinect for your mouth! Cute (and hilariously voiced by the tv show’s cast) characters teach you a sound, you repeat it back, and your voice propels a rocket to the moon, for instance.
You can imagine this is pretty satisfying to a kid who’s learning to talk.
Check it out here. I’d appreciate a download and any feedback the kids in your life have on gameplay. Try it in line at Superstore
Despite all the moaning about dying print publications, people are still eager to absorb daily news. What they expect out of the experience has changed, though, according to a new Pew Research Center report. Now people want multi-platform news on demand, customized, and spreadable.
Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. From Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
As part of your marketing efforts, you may be pushing news out to customers, using Facebook or Twitter to reach them. Your own site’s blog is also a key source of news (you have to link to something, unless you’ve mastered the 140-character press release). How can you make sure you’re accomodating the inclinations of today’s newsumer?
Portable: Consider an iPhone app. Creating branded mobile content, on your own or with local partners, can get you in front of your customers when you have something interesting to say. Throwing in a little location-awareness and well-timed news on the go might even turn to sales conversions.
Personalized: Opt-ins allow people to select only the type of news they need, so allow RSS & email updates on specifics (sales, new products, events). Allow gravatars, Twitter & Facebook login so user’s cute little faces can accompany their experience.
Participatory: Remove barriers to interactivity. Let people comment, and for god’s sake don’t make them log in to do so. Integrate Facebook Connect, Tweetmeme, and whatever other social software makes sense for your audience. Quickly sharing and commenting is appreciated (nay, expected) by today’s consumers, and the viral possibilities when you release really nifty news are huge.
Nice to meet you
Thanks for the comments & the kind words. Best place to get my immediate attention is Twitter, but you could also email me.
If there’s one thing you can say about my husband, it’s that he designs a damn fine app. And he really likes babies.
