The removal of this app is a huge let down since the the LogYourRun iPhone application relies on the application ID of the Facebook app in order to let people post their activity information on Facebook.  In addition to taking down the app they also took down the app’s Facebook page – so I have now lost all mode of communication with the application users and my inbox is currently getting flooded by emails from users letting me know that the app is no-longer working.

I am used to developing apps on a closed system – the iPhone – so I am used to following directions on how the user experience should be and what I can and cannot do.  For Facebook applications the terms of service is described in their Platform Policies (http://developers.facebook.com/policy).  The terms in this policy are very nebulous and include things such as “Create a great user experience” and “Be trustworthy” but does not actually define what “spammy” is – though from my albeit infrequent use of Facebook, I would think that Farmville would fit that description better than the LogYourRun application.  In addition I do not see a single term in the document that the LogYourRun app violates.  The app clearly pops up a stream.publish dialog (created using the Facebook JS library on the web or their SDK on the iPhone!) which the user can clearly decide to click post or skip.

I tried appealing the removal of the app and I must say that I appreciate that they got back to me within a couple of hours – though the reply could have easily come from the same algorithm that deleted the app (see below).  It crushed all hopes of ever reviving the app and restoring communication to the over 30K users of the app.

So now I am left with having to update the iPhone app so it does not link to the broken Facebook app.  It was surprisingly easy to setup a new application – which is probably why they need to have algorithms for taking them down also.  This will allow me to go back to being an enabler of my evil spamming users so they can once again brag about their exercise activities.

In the mean time developers have to rely on shipping their apps with large bundles of mp3 or aiff files in order to get their applications to talk to the users. Or they can implement some of the online TTS engines or TTS engines made for the iPhone. The results are terrible in all cases that I have observed – if an app needs to only speak predefined words the developer will load all of these as sound files that will be downloaded with the app. This leads to bloated app bundles and wastes bandwidth and phone storage media. The iPhone TTS engines also take considerable amounts of space and if anyone has been able to understand what the app Social Radio is saying to them they deserve a medal. Then there are apps that use online TTS engines and essentially downloads the sound file on demand. This is probably more efficient and has a better result – but you need an internet connection and you will always be at the mercy of the TTS engine provider.

So Apple – please open up the great TTS engine of the iPhone to developers so we can make apps that will be able to talk to the users.

iMovie is very easy to use and after taking a couple of guesses on what the different buttons mean you can quickly get a hang of video editing using the phone – or you can use the excellent help from within the app. The phone version of iMovie has two simple transitions as well as a straight cut to the next video segment with no transition option. iMovie also comes with a couple of preset styles, which allow you to add text to your video clips (double tap the clip), but I did not use those for this project.

After editing the video it took about 3 minutes to export the final video and another 10 minutes to upload in HD to YouTube (over WiFi).

	MFMailComposeViewController *mail = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
	mail.mailComposeDelegate = self;

	if ([MFMailComposeViewController canSendMail]) {

		//Setting up the Subject, recipients, and message body.
		[mail setToRecipients:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"YOUREMAIL.com",nil]];
		[mail setSubject: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ iPhone Application Feedback", kTWApplicationName]];
		[mail setMessageBody:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\n\n\nIn order for us to better help you, please provide the following information:\nCountry: \n\nDebug info:\n%@ v %@\niOS version %@\nModel: %@",
							  kTWApplicationName,
							  [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] objectForKey:@"CFBundleVersion"],
							  [[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion],
							  [[UIDevice currentDevice] model]

							  ] isHTML:NO];

		//Present the mail view controller
		[self presentModalViewController:mail animated:YES];
	}

	//release the mail
	[mail release];

The  TWApplicationName is a constant that is set to the string value of the application name – this allows you to also see which application your user is asking about in case you have more than one app.

While running in the background the app turns off the pedometer – so you will only be getting GPS information. But the option for automatically tweeting every mile or so will still work as long as there is a data connection available.

As you run the application badge (number in red circle in top left corner of the app) will show your distance so you will not forget that the application is collecting data. Also the location services icon will be displayed in your status bar. Once the iOS4 NDA is lifted I will post some pictures of the app in action.

Additional features in 2.8 include:

* In case of emergency (ICE) contact information – enter name and phone number and you will be able to easily call your ICE person straight from the app.
* Power save button. Get most of the benefits of running the app in the background even if your phone does not support background apps. This button stops the screen from updating and turns off the pedometer for some extra power savings.

For more information please see:

http://www.logyourrun.com/iphone/

Here are the free apps:

1. A free version of the GPS/pedometer app.
2. A free heart rate measurement tool.
3. A free Pace Calculator

All of these are tools that runners might look for on the app store and all of these apps have links to the full LogYourRun app and the YouTube video showing what a great app that is.

The LYR Free (GPS/pedometer) has been in the app store for several months but interestingly has not been hugely successful maybe because of the lack of brand name recognition or because the paid version is so cheap

The Heart Rate tool (HR) has proved to be hugely successful – probably because it is one of the few free apps that will let you measure your heart rate and calculate your heart rate zones.  I still need to integrate pinch analytics to see if this is actually driving traffic to the full app – but since the HR app has launched the sales for the full app has gone up 3 fold.

The Pace Calculator will go live this week and I look forward to seeing the response to this app.

Submit your app to app repositories

Here is a list of sites where you can submit information about your application.  Most will provide links to your application and your website – great way to generate meaningful incoming links.  Before embarking on your submissions make sure you have the following ready:

• A screenshot
• Icon (128×128)
• Link to your YouTube video (I used screenflow to generate my video)
• App description that you can easily post into the forms on each website

The following is a list of good sites to submit your app to listed in order of importance and relevance:

AppSafari.com

Appolicious.com

148Apps.com

GotApps.com

FreshApps.com

I have seen a couple of sites offering to review your app for $100 or some other “nominal” fee.  I dont think that such sites will survive long – how can you write an unbiased review when someone just paid you $100?  This will erode consumer confidence in these sites and when they go out of business the review will disappear as their site is taken down.

Promote your app on forums

Figure out what your target audience is likely to be and find a forum that your audience frequents and register.  Take some time to figure out the tone on the board and if there are any users that seem to be influencers.  Send them a PM explaining that you would highly appreciate their input on your application and include a promo code if your application is a paid app.  If you cannot find a user to target you can always try to just post yourself – this will likely not generate as much buzz as if you get an influencer to post.

Promote your app on social networks

Integration with Twitter is easy through the REST API and integration with facebook can be quite easy also – facebook has a drag and drop library which can be used to add facebook connect to your iPhone app.

Historically, print advertising consist of designing a brochure with information about your product and distributing to potential customers.  Since a single sale of a $1.99 iPhone app brings in $1.40 and the free app has no revenue attached I have been exploring cheap print alternatives to promoting using a brochure.   I have found several places online that will print high quality business cards for very little money.  I was able to get 2,500 business cards printed with high gloss front and matte color back for under $150 using Vistaprint – that is about 6 cent per card so only one in 23 cards have to be effective at getting someone to download the app in oder for me to break even.

As it turns out the dimensions of the iPhone are such that it fits perfectly on a business card.  So on the glossy side I have a picture of the iPhone running the LogYourRun application so people can see what it is all about and on the back I have instructions on how to get the application.  And that is the hard part – since the main screen of the LogYourRun application does not contain the application name – I have to rely on people to turn the card over and read the name of the application.  It would be great if apple implemented something similar to the android barcode scanner where all you have to do is take a picture to download an app.  Maybe someone is already working on making such an application for the iPhone.

I have collected about 1 months worth of baseline data on downloads of both the free and the paid LogYourRun applications and one of my friends are going to Miami Marathon this weekend and will hand out about 1,500 of the cards there.  I will report back the results here after the weekend.

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