Does anyone know if there is a simple way to obtain these statistics. My understanding is that Apple doesn't store this data anywhere on an app by app basis, is that correct?
I'm hoping to find a better way to store it instead of just sending it to a database (if possible)...
Apple does not make per-app stats available. You can install your own metrics (or use a 3rd party — I used to use Flurry but didn't bother with my next app).
You can estimate based on iPad sales. Wikipedia says over 15M iPad 1 and about 25M iPad 2.
(Personally, unless you're doing something with a camera or GPU-intensive game, I don't think it matters much. There's no difference that affects my apps.)
Related
I would like to develop a mobile app for iPhones, that calculates time needed to reach a given velocity. For example: I'm in my car, open the app, choose 100km/h and when I accelerate the app should start to count time and it stops counting just in the moment when I reach 100km/h. It should be very accurate.
I heard about two solutions. First is to use the accelerometer/gyroscope, but some people told me it's bad idea, because I won't be able to calculate time on longer distances. The second option is to use GPS, but on the other hand it can be not as accurate as I want it to be.
So I need suggestions, which option is better and why.
My targets are iPhones 4s and newer.
If you want to be more precise than the GPS you will need to have some sort of sensor. Most similar apps and concepts will create a receiver that plugs into the car that the iPhone can connect to. This has the benefit of making all of the sensors in the car available to you. This is an example: https://www.automatic.com/how-automatic-works/
I have this idea of writing an application to automatically sync files to a specific place for an ipad every time the ipad is plugged in the computer.
The problem is I've never developed a software like this before. Right now I have these two big questions:
- How to detect when an ipad is plugged in the computer?
- How to connect to and copy files over the ipad?
To make things clear, the application I want to develop should have similar functions like iTools (not iTunes).
Does anyone here have experiences in developing this kind of application? Would you please share with me how to start with this project, because I'm clueless :(
There is a rather simple option; use a internet based service to accomplish this task - just as DropBox, iCloud and similar services do it already. Maybe you can get a lot closer to your goals by simply connecting to the API of DropBox, SugarSync or alike.
Using a direct (USB-) connection to the device will be rather tough to implement and, to my knowledge, will prevent you from selling the resulting software through Apple's channels. I am not saying that it was impossible (see iExplorer) but I am saying that such endeavor will involve a lot of reverse engineering of undocumented functions to a degree that might be considered illegal in certain countries. Additionally, maintaining such software will be very demanding as Apple frequently introduces changes within their communication protocol/s.
I'm going to deploy new paid app to appstore. This app will connect to our server and download some data (pretty big sometimes).
I'd like to know, is there any way I can check (on server side), that request is going from app, which was really paid (not stolen).
I know that anybody can buy app once and then distribute it (and guys with jailbreaked phones/pads can install it easily). It may cause extra traffic from our servers, and we want to protect us from it.
Or may be I can somehow figure out, that request comes from one sold copy of app? In this case, I can restrict numbers of downloads from one copy, so if it will be widely distributed, it just stops works one day.
Any ideas?
I am copying this verbatim from an email I sent to the cocoa-dev mailing list a while back to someone who had your concerns. The numbers have probably changed, but my rationale still applies as to why I think it's a waste of time to even think about this sort of stuff.
Setting aside all the technical issues, do you have evidence that
jailbreak piracy is a large enough problem to justify you doing all this?
For one, while I don't have a percentage I'm quite certain that it is a
minority of phones that are jailbroken. I run with a pretty tech savvy
crowd and I know only one person who has jailbroken their phone, and I
am fairly confident that techies are more likely to go through the
trouble. (How many average users have the faintest idea of what it
means to "jailbreak" a device?)
Jailbreaking is probably more prevalent in countries and cultures with
less of a tradition of paying for software. But this leads to the
second point...
From your standpoint you (presumably) really care about converting
would-be software pirates into paying customers. If they can't use
your app on a jailbroken device yet don't buy it legitimately, you
haven't accomplished anything economically worthwhile. In fact, you may
be worse off because you lose the (admittedly small) possibility that
the would-be pirate will show off your app to others who might in turn
become paying customers.
So, your calculus ought to be something like:
(# users with compatible devices) * (% with jailbroken devices) * (%
interested in your app) * (% unable or unwilling to circumvent your
protection) * (% who will purchase your app when confronted with copy
protection) * ($ price per sale) > (increase in legitimate sales that
could be obtained by devoting development resources to product
enhancement, marketing, support, etc.)
Let's suppose that 250M compatible devices have been sold, with 150M
distinct users (assuming that there are many people who have replaced
devices or own iPad with an iPhone, etc.) Suppose 10% are jailbroken,
which is what some cursory Googling turns up. That gives us 15M
candidate users.
Now, unless you are writing Angry Birds, it seems unlikely that you will
appeal to any more than 1% of the user base. That leaves 150K users.
Maybe 80% are unwilling to circumvent your copy protection, leaving 120K
users. Now the kicker: how many are then going to want to actually buy
the app? Maybe 5%? That puts you at 6000 users.
So with these admittedly crude guesstimates, if you could gain even 6000
users (out of the 135M non-jailbroken user base postulated above) by
devoting your time and energy to anything else, you'd come out ahead.
Well there are many tries to detect, if a device is jailbroken. But most of them can be tricked out again. So there is no SAFE method of detecting a jailbroken device. But just search for "detect jailbreak".
Than you could send your result to your server (together with the data request) and decide, what to do. But think about the effort, as said by Conrad Shultz.
Anyway you can track, how many apps are sold and how many server requests there are. So you will have youre private statistic, how many copies of your app are stolen. You can upload an update for your app anytime, if it really will be a big problem in your case.
I am developing a Netflix application for BlackBerry mobile devices. I need to make a decision as to the minimum OS version that I should develop for - depending on which I choose will have some design impacts (such as what browser field classes I can use, etc.)
What it comes down to is..should I support anything lower than OS 5.0?
I would say 4.5 and newer. see also:
OS - What market share do each of the BlackBerry models have?
OS - Which BlackBerry OS version to target for?
OS - What is the best practise in blackberry for reaching the widest range of smart phones?
I think there a few things to consider. First off, you need to have a clear vision of what you are hoping to achieve - features/functionality. Then evaluate the various API revisions, and determine which API level will provide the facilities needed to achieve your goals. Depending on the outcome of this, you may have to revise your goals. Maybe even consider using a lower API version, rolling out with a reduced feature set to help get your foot into the market, then in parallel be working on the full bells and whistles release utilizing a higher API version. But most importantly, you need to evaluate your market. The question becomes: "Does your target API provide you will enough of a potential market for your app?" But sometimes it becomes a difficult juggle, especially if you embrace the concept of "Build it and they will come" and you develop your app for the bleeding edge - waiting for the masses to arrive. You need to be sure to have the coverage in place (ie. financial, and political if you are in a large corporate environment) to survive until the day arrives. If you haven't already, you may want to look into becoming a Blackberry Alliance member. Also, don't be afraid to engage the major carriers in your market and push them a bit. They should be able to give you a bit of visibility into handset/platform penetration. Evaluate all of the variables both technical and business plan, and document it - the answer will come to you. Hope this helps.
RIM have created an official page with statistics that help you figure out the answer to this question: http://us.blackberry.com/developers/choosingtargetos.jsp
For example, as of November 2010, OS 5.0+ made up less than 50% of the market share of all active Blackberry devices, but OS 5.0+ accounts for 75% of free app downloads and 86% of paid app downloads from App World.
ON the basis of API similarities and supports i can divide os range like this
(A).<4.2
(B). 4.2< and <5.0
(c). 5.0
We deploy to 4.3, 4.7, and 5.0 with our app and that covers almost every in-market device being used today. There may be a few people still running 4.2 but not many.
What is the best iPhone analytics offering out there? I've seen Pinchmedia but I'm not sure about it since the default application page says "Last Updated July 2008".
Nowadays Pinch Media has been merged into Flurry. Flurry is a decent choice.
If this is a quick project 'afterthought' you'll be pleased to know that basic Flurry integration is a one liner in the AppDelegate :)
I've tried several packages and Pinch Media is by far the best. I don't know where that July 2008 date comes from, they've been releasing updates regularly and are super-responsive to feedback and questions emailed to their support people. Whether by coincidence or not, several of my suggestions have made it into the current Pinch libraries
Aside from the excellent support, the reason I prefer pinch is that they seemed to be the only package that updates several times a day - usually once per hour. This is great if you're trying new advertising techniques, or just like obsessing over your sales figures (as every developer does at first :)
On the downside there are two issues I have with Pinch - their website can be a little clunky and isn't very iPhone friendly (ironic!), and at times they've had problems where stat updates aren't available due to hardware problems. I also wish they had an "overview" for all your applications.
It's worth pointing out that all of the analytics libraries are extremely easy to build into your application and all work with both the simulator and hardware so it's extremely easy to evaluate them to find the one you like best. It's even possible to use several at once - though I would only do this for testing.
Google :)
http://code.google.com/intl/fr-FR/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/mobileAppsTracking.html
Flurry is a very nice option. In my most recent app I have tried Appsee Mobile Analytics which I like if you're looking for something different - they give you video recordings of user sessions and heat maps. It's a little more interactive than other analytics
If you are interested in visual analytic tools, like heatmaps, or you want to get some inside on the way that your users use your app you should try heatma.ps
Quantcast, who is well know for audience demographics measurement for websites, launched it's Quantcast Measure for Mobile Apps program earlier this year. Their iOS, Android, and PhoneGap SDK is available on github.
At this point you may well want to roll your own - on a constrained device do you really want a third party library taking up an unknown amount of limited network bandwidth and processing power?