Why a jokes app?
Posted on 12. May, 2009 by andy in Apps
Yah, that’s right Ninth Division produced a funny little application with redneck jokes in them. I think those types of jokes are timeless and funny. Yah, I know there are a lot of little joke applications on the App Store. Here are some of things I have heard from a few from people waaay too many times…
Dude? Why did you write a simple little jokes app?
or
so……. yah….. uh …….. that’s a cool app.
of
is that all you have built?
Why build it…. TO LEARN!
All of those are great questions. I mean, we have seen so many joke applications on the app store. A few of them successful. A few of them crappy. Dare I say, a few I bought and actually enjoyed them at the bar with some friends/family. Take the time to read through the following list. Find out the things that I learned when making the Redneck Jokes app.
Get off your butt
Are you an aspiring iPhone developer? Or a iPhone/Mac developer Hobbyist? Do you find yourself asking yourself a bunch of questions on how the App Store works? Here are some reasons why you should consider building yourself a funny and simple joke application.
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Simple to build
Go download it.
. Or at least check out the features. You’ll notice it’s a pretty simple app. In fact I estimated about 12 hours to build it. That included a lot things really; including me figuring out (for the first time) SQLite in the iPhone. I learned to run the app through Instruments and look for memory leaks. I even learned a few things with TabViewControllers and Alert boxes. -
Learn the App Store
The App Store is not simple; there are hundreds of blog posts to illustrate that! Redneck Jokes was my first app to submit that I was going to charge something for. Big win for me, because it put me in a whole different mentality and playing field. I learned things about when your app becomes available, how it looks when listed, “search-ability”, contracts, how hard it is to get listed in the “TOP” lists and so many other items. So much about submitting and managing your app on th App Store seems obvious – but it’s not (at least not at first). Get an app on there that is simple and small, because you can always pull it off there later.
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User “suggestions” “comments” and “ratings”
Every app will have a different type of user. But with every app you sure hope there are some users. With Redneck Jokes, I found it had good reviews but not a huge amount of downloads. I would like more useful suggestions, but basically found that people who did buy it acually liked it.
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Submit updates
You don’t want to be like so many other one hit wonder wanna-bes – submit an app and forget about? For version 1.1, I added some new jokes and fixed a few memory leaks! I walked through the binary update process and how udpates are posted on App Store. I found that my reports looked different with updates. Updates are pretty straight forward, but another example of a simple thing to learn.
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Selling lessons
There have been a lot of blog posts about how to get your app to sell better. I am not going to talk about Redneck Jokes much here, because I didn’t do much. But it made me more aware of selling my app than ever before.
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Establishment
It sure is hard to call yourself an iPhone developer without any apps to call your own.
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Your friends and family will know what the heck you are actually doing
You laugh, right? Seriously – not much of my family or friends have iPhones or even really understand the iPhone. So this was a great demo software to show mom and dad. You too, build a fun app that others understand… at least it’ll make your mom proud (just like grade school).
Now what?
For me, I am working on some great house application for Ninth Division. These things I am totally excited for and actively working on now. But I feel since they are much larger in scope, code size, feature listing, etc… I now have an edge. What I mean, I have been through the process a few times and will have less hickups and more of a strategy for the next app(s).
I hope to see you making some apps. Drop me a line, I’ll download it. Nothing is more exciting than to check and see your downloads from the App Store reports the very next day.
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