With warm wishes this comes to say, I hope you’re feeling better each and every day
May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live (Irish blessing)
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. (Thomas Campbell)
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not. (James Joyce)
Words4Cards celebrates their App Store debut
So we finally made it – and it feels good.
The words4cards app is up and running in the App Store.
Ian has done a great job putting the words I collected into a fun, user-friendly interface and we’re already getting positive feedback from people we know who’ve downloaded the app. I just wish I could get them to review it in the App Store as well!
From here I will be in charge of marketing the app and trying to get as many people as possible to buy it. The campaign will involve press releases for traditional and digital media, making a video trailer, blogging and social media. The idea is to build the profile of the app in the store gradually, so that we become the premier app in this lifestyle niche.
As I’ve documented on this blog before, we were initially rejected by Apple. Whether this is a rite of passage or some pre-determined Apple protocol it was initially disappointing but as I noted previously we did end up with a better app, particularly the improvements in sharing across social media and the fun ‘shake for random quote’ feature.
The process hasn’t been entirely problem free and there are couple of little niggles which we’ll iron out in a small update in the next few days. The first is that our app name somehow got put in the store as word4cards rather than words4cards – something we can’t change without uploading a new build. And the second is that we need a higher res icon because it looks a little fuzzy at the moment on the pixel-heavy iPhone screen.
You can check it out by clicking on the picture below!
It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class – Get Well Soon!
Sending special birthday greetings For a very special day, One that brings a world of joy And happiness your way- It’s also filled with loving thoughts Especially meant for you, For you’re the kind of person Happy things should happen to! (Charles Caleb Colton)
My phone pinged at playgroup. The iTunes Connect App letting me know our app was being reviewed! Exciting thinking someone on the other side of the globe was assessing my app right then. When I got home I checked my email straight away.
“We found that your app only provides a very limited set of features…”
I was numb with disbelief. What? Rejected? Our little piece of software solves an everyday problem perfectly, did you guys even look at the content? Answer – no. Content was not the issue…
“While we value simplicity, we consider simplicity to be uncomplicated – not limited in features and functionality.
We understand that there are no hard and fast rules to define useful or entertaining, but Apple and Apple customers expect apps to provide a really great user experience. Apps should provide valuable utility or entertainment, draw people in by offering compelling capabilities or content, or enable people to do something they couldn’t do before or in a way they couldn’t do it before.”
So… they wanted more sex, more va-va-voom, more shiny, twinkly fun stuff. Okay – more trinkets it shall be.
The timing was all wrong. For starters the app got knocked back at 6pm on a Friday night in late November. I was gearing up to close my bookshop after Christmas so I was flat out for two months and flattened for the month after that. Ian, my partner has a job helping run the website for the NSW Rural Fire Service. We had some serious bushfires this summer so he’s been pretty busy too.
Despite this we persevered.
A council of war was held on our respective car phones as we drove to our respective day jobs after dropping our respective progeny at their respective pre-schools.
They want a sexier app – we’ll give em a sexier app.
Being rejected first time round isn’t that unusual – is it? Best not to take it to heart too much – just keep plugging away. So we did …and we have… but there were some big chunks of life in between.
We’ve come up with a ‘shake for random quote’ feature. I’ve watched a group of (grown up) people pass around a phone with a demo build after dinner, each one shaking the device and coming up with a different quote. Its like ‘Magic 8 Ball’ foradults. The words are brought to you from Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde rather than from a set of six pre-programmed five word responses.
We’ve also included direct links to Twitter and Facebook and email from all of the quotes as well as options to favourite and copy. We’ve touched up the colour scheme and the presentation and included an ‘about’ page at the start.
So we were knocked back and it hurt, but I think we now have a better app – fingers crossed it gets through this time.
words4cards 