[英]Dave Wooldridge：蘋果應用開發與營銷（圖靈訪談）

圖靈訪談之二十五：專訪Dave Wooldridge

Q1:Would you please briefly talk about how you took up app development?

I began as a web developer back in 1995 when I started my company, Electric Butterfly, Inc. Then I began developing Mac applications in 1997, building my own apps, as well as software projects for clients. I’ve always been fascinated with mobile technology and with the recent explosion of the apps marketplace for phones and tablets, creating mobile apps was a natural evolution for my company. Over the last few years, iOS app development has quickly become my core business.

Q2:Can you pick one from your successful apps and show Chinese readers the key points of its success?

An app I developed for the company, Qello, was recently launched in the App Store worldwide as a universal app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The Qello app enables users to watch music concerts and music documentaries from the comfort of their mobile iOS device.

Apple tends to spotlight apps that feature beautiful interface design and a captivating user experience — both of which were important priorities for us during the design and development process. Apple took notice and featured Qello as a “New & Noteworthy” app in May 2012, providing a huge dose of exposure, which ranked the app high on the App Store charts in more than 90 countries.

Another key factor is to focus on doing one thing very well, which for us, was delivering HD-quality music concerts in a fun, easy-to-use mobile environment. Many developers try to pack too many features into a single app, thinking that it adds more value. But if you look at the successful apps in the App Store, most of them excel at performing a single task really well. Less is more.

Another important ingredient is to make the app social. We’ve added deep integration of Facebook and Twitter into the Qello app, and continue to add more social features in subsequent updates. By enabling users to form their own Qello-related community among their friends and share their favorite concerts, not only does it help connect fans and help other people discover new music, but it also drives awareness of the Qello app to new audiences, which increases Qello downloads in the App Store.

Q3:As the founder of Electric Butterfly, please describe the company’s app business and your key development direction, as well as the best practices of accumulating users and gaining public praise.

I’ve never been much of a gamer, so I never had much interest in creating games. Apps and games require different skill sets as a developer, and I enjoy developing productivity apps. I’d much rather build the apps that people rely on everyday to get things done. So apps have always been Electric Butterfly’s primary focus. Since developing an application requires a long term commitment to your customers to continue updating and supporting the app, it needs to be a project that you are passionate about and enjoy working on every day for potentially years.

As for accumulating users and gaining public praise, having a solid marketing plan is crucial, but no amount of marketing can make a bad product successful. First and foremost, your job as a developer is to create the best app possible that targets a specific need or audience — a sophisticated, appealing, and high quality product that people will want. Secondly, providing professional customer support and establishing a direct connection with your users via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. will earn you loyal customers, who will recommend your app to others.

Q4:The App Store provides a good opportunity for individual developers. What qualities do you think make an outstanding app developer?

Success in the App Store requires many skills, such as an expertise in interface design, programming, marketing, public relations, competitive research, and running a business. In an ideal situation, you should either surround yourself with a team of experts that can provide those skills for your app projects, or you should learn how to perform all of those functions yourself. If you’re an independent developer, you can’t afford to only think about coding. Think of yourself as an entrepreneur who is responsible for the success of your business.

In school, I studied graphic design and business, and graduated with a degree in marketing. I’m a 100% self-taught programmer and interface designer. Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve read hundreds of developer books, taught myself dozens of programming languages and tools, and constantly scour the Internet for tutorials and documentation. I’ve never stopped learning, continuously educating myself on the ever-evolving world of software development. And I think that’s the key ingredient to increasing your value as a developer.

Never stop educating yourself. Don’t just improve your programming skills. Stay on top of everything happening in the world related to your chosen app platform, such as new iOS business models, third-party services, and marketing opportunities. Track how your competitors are performing. Analyze and learn from the successes and failures of other app developers. Share your own development experiences with your peers via social media and at developer conferences.

Q5:Technical skills, design capabilities and marketing are all important for app developers. How do you prioritize them and allocate your time at different stages of a product lifecycle?

As an independent developer, it really comes down to time management and efficient project organization. Since I’ve been running my own business since 1995, I’ve learned how to make the most out of every workday. It requires a lot of dedication and focus, but once you have a routine that works for you, then it becomes second nature.

Client projects always have strict deadlines that ensure they are finished on time with all of the required elements in place. Treat your own app projects like client jobs with deadlines. By crafting a timeline for every project and organizing each stage of development into sets of priorities and milestones, I’m able to keep my daily to-do tasks manageable and on track.

Q6:As we see, The Business of iPhone & iPad App Development touches upon many aspects of app development, including design, techniques, marketing, law, etc. How did you master so much knowledge of different fields and sum it up into a book?

As I previously mentioned, I’ve never stopped educating myself on all aspects of iOS app development, design, and business. But for the book, I didn’t just rely on my own knowledge and experience. I spent several months researching the marketplace and interviewing fellow developers. I’ve always enjoyed writing, so when Apress approached me about writing this book, I cherished the opportunity to combine my thoughts and experiences with research and case studies.

Q7:When you introduced yourself in the book, you mentioned “When he's not building Mac and iOS apps, he can be found writing”. Have you ever considered combining app development and writing by making books into apps?

I know that some developers have found success in converting books into native apps, but that’s not something I’ve ever considered for my own writing. I’m a fan of reading ebooks via e-reader apps like Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks. Producing a book as a native iOS app would limit the reader to only iOS devices, but as an author, I want readers to have a choice of where and how they read my books. So if I ever self-published my writing, I’d want to make it available where the majority of readers look for books: Amazon Kindle Store, Apple’s iBookstore, and other prominent ebook outlets.

Q8:Turing Book Company will make some bestselling titles to apps soon. We plan to adopt a model like ibooks, which lists all the books in one app. Users have to register for in-app purchase. But we just wonder what would be the advantages and disadvantages of registration. Could you please give us some advices?

The one advantage is that it would boost the brand identity of Turin Book Company by having your own books app. But in my humble opinion, the major disadvantage is that people don’t usually search for books based on the publisher’s name. Readers search for books by author or topic, and typically search for them where there is the biggest selection available — and that’s not the App Store. If you’re looking for an ebook on a particular topic, where do you go first? I know that as an avid reader myself, I always search Amazon first, and then Apple’s iBookstore.

Launching your own books app would require a lot of marketing and effort to generate consumer awareness of the app’s existence. Why reinvent the wheel, when Amazon and Apple have an established ebooks marketplace where millions of people already shop?

Q9:You mentioned multiple uses of advertisement in your book. In your opinion, how should a book app make use of advertisement?

If an app or game displays advertising, it should be free. Users will understand if a free product has in-app advertising to monetize its development. But if the user pays for the app or makes an In-App Purchase to unlock premium content, then the advertising should be removed.

In-app advertising should conform to Apple’s guidelines on how and where to display those banners within your app’s interface. You also want to make sure that the advertising banners are not positioned where they would interfere with the user experience and enjoyment of the app.

Q10:The launch of New iPad has brought new opportunities and challenges for app development. But it wasn’t covered in your book. Can you briefly summarize how new iPad affect app development? What aspects should developers pay special attention to?

True, the book was published before the new iPad was announced by Apple. The most apparent challenge for app developers is the new iPad’s Retina display screen. The high-resolution screen is truly stunning, but it requires developers to incorporate app graphics that are twice the number of pixels. This makes for much larger image file sizes, which in turn produces larger compiled app binaries and requires more runtime memory. Thankfully, the new iPad includes more internal RAM, so that the additional memory burden from loading Retina-optimized graphics is not an issue for most apps. Many game developers are finding success by converting their game graphics to vector-based images that can scale to any resolution and require far less memory than bitmap images. Even if your app still supports older iPad models, you’ll want to offer a fully Retina-optimized app interface on the new iPad, so that your app looks good on the new device and stays competitive with all of the other beautiful Retina-compliant iPad apps out there.

Q11:Our readers pose a very challenging question. That is, what would you do if poor reviews come right after the product release?

First, you’d want to do everything you can to prevent that scenario from happening, by giving your customers a direct line of communication to you for reporting feedback. This can be easily achieved by adding a feedback form within your app for all customer support queries. If you get a lot of the same questions, then you may also want to consider adding a FAQ/Help section to your app that provides answers to those frequently asked questions. At the bottom of your App Store description, ask users to not post bug reports and feature requests as App Store reviews, and that the best way to reach you and get a quick response is to contact you directly via email or the app’s built-in feedback form.

It is impossible to avoid all negative reviews. Even the most successful apps receive some negative reviews. So the goal is to curtail the negative reviews that are avoidable, such as ones that report bugs or complain of issues with the app. In order to do this, you need to communicate to users that you are currently addressing those problems, which will be fixed in a forthcoming app update. This can be done by briefly posting your plans in your App Store description, on your web site, and through all your social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook. If your app supports push notifications or in-app messaging of some kind, you can also communicate this information directly to users the next time they launch your app. If people know you are already fixing the issue they are upset about, the less likely they will be to complain about it publicly. And it should go without saying that you should always respond to all customer support requests in a professional and timely manner. Treat every customer as if they were a valuable investor in your application — make them feel like their voice is important.

Q12:Where can readers continue to learn app development and marketing when finishing your book? Would you please recommend some useful resources?

The book’s appendix provides a long list of links for app business resources and marketing opportunities online. For learning iOS development, I always recommend the ever-helpful StackOverflow.com, as well as all of the great documentation and sample code available at Apple’s iOS Dev Center. Many of the leading iOS developers post blog articles and tutorials on app development, so find and follow them on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook to stay on top of all the great links and expertise they share with the iOS community.

Thank you for this interview, and a special thanks to those of you who have purchased my book. I hope you find it beneficial, and I wish all of you the very best in your future app ventures!

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