As October gets underway and leaves are starting to fall in the Bay Area, with the recent launch of iOS13 and the upcoming macOS Catalina release, it’s back to iOS development time.
One of the first things I learned as a part time developer is that you have limited time, prioritizing is critical to get things done. Here are the items I’m focusing on in the next few months:
1. Excelling iOS13 compatibility update (done!):
Even though it’s my oldest and simplest app it’s also the most profitable. Excelling continues to be downloaded frequently and brings regular income every month -typically between $50 to $200-. It’s starting to show its age and it would benefit from an internal makeover but for now I wanted to ensure it worked well in iOS13; this meant adding support for dark mode and fixing bugs and deprecated APIs. After roughly 4 hours of work I submitted the app to Apple and it’s already in the App Store.
2. NewsWave iOS13 feature update (wip):
NewsWave continues to gain users at a steady peace and feedback is at large very positive. There’s however room for improvement, one of the areas that need attention the most is “Onboarding”: data shows out of every 10 people that download the app only 2 end up signing up. I’m guessing this is due to two factors:
a) people are cautious of the $0 In App Purchase, they may incorrectly assume it will start charging them if they don’t unsubscribe.
b) the onboarding message does not convey enough value.
Therefore for the iOS13 feature update, in addition to dark mode support and API improvements I’m tweaking the onboarding experience to mitigate these problems. In addition this update will include many other improvements across the app: syncing, OPML export improvements, etc.
3. NewsWave for iPad / macOS (not started):
Once I ship the iOS13 feature update I’ll start working on a complete overhaul of the iPad (and potentially macOS Catalina) app. Not much to share just yet but I’ll be posting about the progress here.
I’ve loved the vacation break but at the same time I’m so happy to be back to coding on the side. Until next week,
Marc