Getting criticism, be it from users through app reviews or emails or from bloggers, is a great way to push everyone to make better applications. I can clearly identify with the fact that developers have an emotional connection to the applications that they make. None of my applications make a huge amount of money and my main motivation is to provide people with great tools to use on their phone – so getting emails or reviews saying “this app sucks” is a feeling not much different than helping a complete stranger just to have them spit at you.

In my opinion, the app review system setup by Apple is one of the greatest innovations of the iOS platform and has been instrumental in the success of the App Store – before this the only way to give feedback was to email the developer and then they could do whatever they wanted – you had already paid for the app so they had no incentive to actually fix the issue. With public reviews and a rating system the incentive to fix issues brought up is much greater and this is something that will push apps to become better. Several times this has brought great new features to my apps and alerted me to features that were not as intuitive as I had originally thought.

Like many other Apple enthusiasts I was very excited for the launch of The Daily. Like many others I was disappointed at the initial product. I think that a lot of people expected the app to be Apple Great (like Maps, Garage Band etc) because of the hype and media buildup for the app and the apparent endorsement of the app by Apple. However, the app has several short falls which were pointed out and suggestions for improvements with implementation were posted. I do not understand why the developer of the app would be surprised that the app got a harsh reception when the developer admits himself that there were issues with the app that if they had longer time could have been sorted out.

I hope that the iOS developer community is grown up enough that we can accept criticism of our work and that we can learn from this and all strive towards making excellent if not perfect apps.

	LogYourRun	RunKeeper	MapMyRun	Nike+ GPS	Jog Log	Runtastic	Runmeter
GPS
Live updates	Via Twitter TweetMyDistcance	RunKeeper Live
Route view
In App Elevation	Google					GPS	GPS
Pedometer
Music							change tracks
Heart rate	fisica, 60beat, voice cues	fisica	fisica	Nike+ system	fisica	fisica, 60beat, voice cues
Time in zones
Voice cues
Facebook upload
Twitter upload
Dailymile upload
Email sharing
Manual entry
Integrated website
Other types of activities			other apps
See routes in your area
Download training Programs
Free version

Legend

	Feature available in free and paid version
	Feature not available
	Feature available in paid version only

However, as many other developers have experienced, giving apps out for free result in poor ratings from people that download the app but are not really interested in the functionality of the app. These people often delete the app shortly after installation at which point they are asked to rate the app and  give the app a poor rating. In addition paid apps maintain their ranking in the App Store better than free apps.

Since the first edition of the app was released I had been working on an improved version which would use the map feature of OS 3.0 as well as a feature which would allow users to download training programs to the device for offline viewing.  When I launched this version I decided that I was not going to give it away for free due to the ratings problem that plague free apps.  On the other hand I did not want to deter people from downloading the app since the app drives traffic to my site and I wanted loyal users to have a chance to get the app for free.

So I put the app out for free along with the message that it was only going to be free for the first 2 weeks.  This information was widely distributed to users of the website, posted on the website, and included in the description of the app.  The fact that the app was no longer going to be free meant that users did not delete the app after downloading since they knew that if they deleted the app they would then have to pay if in the future they wanted the app.  Also, this instills a feeling of “getting a good deal” which creates a positive attitude towards the application.

After two weeks of the app being free I increased the price to $1.99.  Downloads immediately dropped – but has since increased again – and now I am actually making money on the downloads.  I have since then also put out a free version with limited functionality which has helped drive traffic to my website as well as serving as a preview of the paid app.