Well it looks like Apple really will be releasing the iPad on April 3rd. As many of you already know, they announced through a mass email that they will be accepting iPad app submissions to be included in the “Grand Opening” of the iPad App Store.

In order to be eligible, the app must be built with the latest Beta version, SDK 3.2 beta 5. Apps must also be uploaded to iTunes Connect by March 27 @ 5pm PST.

Apple will then review the app on a real iPad we assume, and let you know if it is ready. I’m sure they will allow some back and forth over the following week to let developers fix issues that could not be seen in the simulator.

While it will be exciting to have the App Store live when the iPad ships, many of us wanted them to hold off for a short while so we could test on the real thing. Looks like that’s not happening.

At least 99% of us are in the same position. We all have to assume the simulator is fairly accurate and see what happens. The other 1% have access to real iPads under some crazy restrictions.

Would-be testers of the tablet-style computer, due to be released Apr. 3, must promise to keep it isolated in a room with blacked-out windows, according to four people familiar with the more than 10-page pact that bars partners from disclosing information about the iPad.

To ensure that it can’t be removed, the iPad must also remain tethered to a fixed object, said the people, who asked not to be named because their plans for the iPad have not been made public. Apple (AAPL) won’t send out an iPad until potential partners send photographic evidence that they’ve complied.

So we’re scrambling to finish the first app being developed by my other software company, Millennium Studios, to take advantage of the grand opening. Should be real interesting…

At the same time, we want to get an app in the store so we can quickly begin collecting data for AppClix. We added some iPad specific features, and hopefully they will work as well on the real thing as they do in the simulator.

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Check it out… Our test app sold 12 units yesterday, yet we had 145 new users…

Now we all know that no one buys an iPhone app and then use it. Even if they don’t open it right away, you can be sure they will at some point soon.

The only explanation for why we sold 12 units, and there were 145 new users is that it was cracked and is being downloaded. That’s hundreds of pirated copies being used every day!

While AppClix and the other iPhone app analytics vendors have built in ways to detect pirated copies, they rarely work very long. Hackers are able to make it appear that it is a legitimate copy. If we know how to detect piracy, then they know we know. It’s that simple.

So what’s the solution?? It’s obvious. Apple knows which phones are authorized to use the app. Simply give us a way to find out if is legit.

I would say to put it into the SDK, but if you put it in the app, then the hackers will crack it.

Another solution might be give us a way to download the handset ids of the purchasers,. The problem here is that the same app can be used by up to 5 phones in the same account.

So here’s the simple solution:

Give us a web service where we can send the App Id and the handset id and tell us if it is legit! It’s that simple!

We can then have our apps check once in a while and shut down if not legit. This is not that complicated. If they don’t want to share the handset ids for privacy reasons, then give us some scrambled string. Do Something!

We could even build it into our analytics libraries and use some kind of rolling codes to make it even harder. If my app contacts my server for legitimate reasons, I would build it in there so the data is not returned properly if it is not a legit handset.

If the app will not run without contacting your service for data, then hackers can’t remove or change that functionality!

It’s not that we are losing money so much. These people are not buying the app anyway. It’s that it is COSTING US MONEY!

We are paying extra for bandwidth and servers, and our analytics are thrown off by these incorrect numbers.

When we release our iPad apps, it will be even worse. They will use more bandwidth, and will hopefully be more expensive apps.

Why won’t Apple fix this? Any developer over there could set up a web service in hours that can provide this info.

I’m done ranting… Let’s all call on Apple to solve this issue already.

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Many of us who have started web based service businesses in the last 4 or 5 years have modeled themselves from the company 37 Signals. They are an excellent example of a successful web business that bootstrapped their way to success.

For those of you that don’t know them, they are an extremely small company that has millions in revenue from a few excellent web based products. Take a look at Basecamp and Highrise. We use them both.

When I first built Mobivity, our Mobile Marketing and SMS platform, I had to keep asking myself “what would the guys at 37 Signals do?” Repeating that line over and over played a large role in or success.

They have recently release their second book. The first one was a free online one called Getting Real.

I’ve already been through a bit of their new one called Rework, and I am very impressed. Not only with their book, but also with the fact that we already do much of what they are talking about. It validates our strategy and makes me even more confident we are on the right track.

One of my favorite excerpts is the one about “picking a fight” with the competition.

If you think a competitor sucks, say so. When you do
that, you’ll find that others who agree with you will rally
to your side. Being the anti- ______ is a great way to differentiate
yourself and attract followers.

For example, Dunkin’ Donuts likes to position itself
as the anti- Starbucks. Its ads mock Starbucks for
using “Fritalian” terms instead of small, medium, and
large. Another Dunkin’ campaign is centered on a taste
test in which it beat Starbucks. There’s even a site
called DunkinBeatStarbucks.com where visitors can
send e- cards with statements like “Friends don’t let
friends drink Starbucks.”

This is something I have always thought was a great strategy (as you can see from this previous post…). When you have a better product, then let the world know! When the competition screws up (like Pinch Media’s 10 day data refresh lag time), let the world know!

I am about to do just such a post on the Mobivity Blog about Clickatell who just got shut down by every U.S. carrier and have sent their customers calling us in droves. We MUST take this opportunity to let the industry know what makes us different, and why these things would never happen to us.

If any of our readers have their own business, or plan to start one, then this book is a must read. Visit the Rework site and read the free preview they have available.

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Well that was exciting…

We just placed our pre-order for the iPad. According to Apple it should show up on April 3rd. We ordered the lowest version since we will definitely be getting the 3G one when it is ready.

When the SDK was released we began development of an application through Millennium Studios, our mobile app company. Hopefully Apple will delay the release of iPad apps to the iTunes store until we can all test on the real thing. Everything works great in the simulator by who knows.

While developing the app, we added new features to AppClix to track iPad specific metrics such as what orientation the user is using your app in, as well as whether they are using an external keyboard or monitor.

We’ve also expanded the campaign tracking to accommodate traditional web campaigns. We anticipate a lot more advertising to be done on the Internet now that there is a full screen browser.

AppClix provides a custom URL for all apps and tracks referrers automatically when used on a web banner or site link. The custom URLs can also be coded with campaign codes and ad codes to further calculate ROI and conversions. The campaigns are then automatically created in AppClix. No need to set them up first.

We’re excited to get the iPad in our hands. Hopefully it will be on time as promised by Apple.

Stay Tuned!

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When developing AppClix, we decided in advance that the only way to really understand the needs of the users would be to actually create mobile applications and put them up for sale in the app store.

Through another company of mine, we created 4 iPhone apps. During the development, we learned all about iPhone app analytics and how our competitors work. We saw was was missing from existing solutions, and what was frustrating us.

When we put the apps in the iPhone app store on iTunes, we instantly saw what sales and marketing information was needed that was also not available easily in a single reporting solution.

Each of our apps has both AppClix, as well as one competitor installed for direct comparison of data.

We are in the process of doing specific posts outlining our experience with each of the apps and competitors that can be found at the links below. We also evaluated a few others and are waiting on app store approval.

• Asteroid Runner – AppClix and Flurry Comparison
• Doodle Copter – AppClix and Pinch Media Comparison

In this post we will discuss things that are not specific to one provider.

The first issue we found right from the start is that it can be extremely uncomfortable compiling a third party dependency into our applications. As many of us know from the AppLoop experience, companies go out of business. We have also found out through our experience that there can be serious delays in data reporting by some providers.

Well what do we do then? One of our apps that uses Pinch Media has not had data refreshed in over 11 days. Well our solution to this issue for those larger developers that want their own solution with NO DEPENDENCY on anyone else is a turnkey user installed, or cloud hosted system. More on this later.

Right away while evaluating all the solutions, we noticed that the dashboard presentation of all of the providers is extremely lacking. Flurry, Pinch Media and Medialets have these “Web 2.0” interfaces that are all graphical and pretty but do not provide a simple concise display of information. Here is a comparison of the dashboards of a few. Click for full size.

As a developer and marketer, we want to see relevant information easily. This is not possible with these other solutions. Being the first, and leader does not mean you can provide an inferior product. Then again, you get what you pay for . Also the drill down pages are just as lacking in content and valuable information.

Here is a comparison of the “By Date” detail pages. Notice how Pinch Media has these HUGH numbers on the page. What’s that about? Also note how both Flurry and Pinch Media only show one metric at a time. You have to drop down menus and change pages to view the other metrics (also one at a time). Who can use this?

I was very disappointed when I saw how these products present the data. We found the same issues with Mobile Web Analytics when developing Mobilytics.

Please visit our more specific posts comparing these solutions and what we found.

• Asteroid Runner – AppClix and Flurry Comparison
• Doodle Copter – AppClix and Pinch Media Comparison

If anyone is interested in beta testing AppClix, please contact us.

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For the last 6 months we have been changing the direction of Mobilytics. We have recently entered AppClix into beta, which we consider to be the ULTIMATE mobile application analytics and reporting solution available. With that change we are expanding our blog to include posts and news on all mobile analytics, not just mobile web related. Over the next few days we will be putting up a number of posts we have written recently that have been waiting in the queue.

While developing AppClix, we have done extensive research and testing of our competitors applications. In order to really understand these products, we also developed a number of iPhone applications through another company of mine called Millennium Studios. We are currently developing Blackberry App World and Android Market apps and are looking for beta testers in those areas as well.

Four of these apps are now in the iTunes store and are producing invaluable data for our development and testing. Stay tuned for more posts about AppClix and some detailed analysis of the mobile app analytics Landscape.

AppClix is not just an application analytics solution like Flurry, Pinch Media, Localytics, MobClix and others. (Yes, as usual we are not afraid to link to the competition.)

AppClix is a complete analytics solution that includes detailed sales reporting, and campaign tracking. Some of the features we have that others don’t are:

• Automatic download of iTunes reports from iTunes Connect for complete sales analysis and reporting
• Click through tracking with conversion for in app and mobile web ads. We also support traditional web ads which we believe will be huge for iPad application marketing.
• Reporting on Reviews and Rankings of apps across mutiple app stores in every country available.
• reporting on how price affects conversions and downloads
• reporting on how changes to descriptions affect sales
• reporting on how ranking and review affect sales
• reporting on referrers when purchases are made from web sites.

These features do NOT require the installation of our library in the mobile application. Signup is instant and reporting is available immediately.

As for our Analytics, we also offer quite a few metrics and features again not available in others.

• Additional metrics such as
• conversion rate
• trial to paid upgrade rates
• update rates that show what percentage of users update to new versions and from what version they updated.
• days from last use to new version update
• Simple OpenFeint integration – We have created a simple OpenFeint service that simply drops into the OpenFeint library for instant analytics integration using same syntax and formats as existing OpenFeint code. For those of you who don’t know about OpenFeint, it is a great community, leaderboard, achievement and application cross promotion solution for iPhone games and apps. We have tried a few solutions, but the OpenFeint community is the largest and has the most robust solution.
• Real Time Analytics! – Yes, this is possible. We are currently using the Amazon EC2 infrastructure for 95% of our solution and can easily scale to accomodate real time stats. While some of the summary data is updated hourly, event and user data is immediately available. Through our testing, we have been amazed at the lag time some vendors are providing. Data in our Pinch Media integration into the DoodleCopter app has not been updated since February 27^th! Yes, 11 days!

(click to enlarge)
They finally put up a note about this, and we will be commenting in additional post shortly.

• Lastly, AppClix is also available in a dedicated and customer installed solution. Yes, you can purchase AppClix and install on your own servers. No need to compile a third party dependency int your precious apps. (Google AppLoop for reasons why). AppClix is avilable as a complete Amaon EC2 paid AMI so you don’t even need your own hardware. More on this to come.

We’re excited about the new blog and AppClix. We look forward to our reader’s feedback, and the continued growth of this market.

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