Photo Share: New iPhone App for sharing & uploading photos

After a series of updates, we just rolled out a new iphone application approved. Photo Share – An easier way to upload and share photos from your iPhone. The application is now approved by Apple and is currently available on AppStore for $2.99.

Here is some additional information about this application.

We are excited about this new application and we think it has great interface and very good and simple usability. The way you use the app is simple. To add a photo to the work area, use the ‘+’ button on the top. Once you have photos in the work area, the app supports multi-touch. This means you can move, rotate, zoom photos.

The application has options to upload photos to Flickr & Facebook. If you have another user in the same WiFi network with this application, you can also share photos with those users. Uploading or Sharing photos is very easy. Just select the target on the top and flick/push the photo towards the target to share/upload photos.

The best way to experience this application is by trying it. Photo Share is currently available on AppStore for $2.99. If you like the app, please drop a review. We look forward to your feedback.

AppStore review process needs improvements

Many people in the industry felt that Apple shouldn’t be a gate keeper for apps on AppStore. I was never a fan of that model and I believe having a gate keeper is important to not allow junk apps.   But may be, Apple is taking it too far.

I never had many issues with AppStore review process. Many of my apps have been rejected several times for several reasons and I never had problems. Lately though, it is getting worse. Not the rejection process, but the approval process, both obviously are interlinked.

Time for Approval/Rejection

Earlier, some of the apps used to be approved in about 3 days. This also meant, apps were rejected in 3 days. This used to be good because we were able to fix the problem and re-submit the app to be approved all within the same week.  While some people debate the reasons for rejection, I never considered that as an issue as we can quickly fix whatever Apple asked us to fix and resubmit it again quickly. So Time is an important factor here.

Lately though,  an app is taking a month to be reviewed. This means, after I submit an update, it’ll take atleast a  month to know if it is approved/rejected. If it is rejected, we have to resubmit the build and cross our fingers for another month. Meanwhile, users are out of luck as they live with the issues in the app as fixes takes longer and longer due to slow approval process.

Solution: Improve Approval process by cutting approval times

App Rejection vs Content

Several of my apps were rejected for different reasons. I never had many complains. Lately, my ‘Flight Status‘ app was rejected because it has a keyword it shouldn’t have.  Well, I don’t disagree with Apple. But then, why reject an App instead of putting it on ‘Hold’? Apple can just request the developer to change the keywords instead of  rejecting the entire app and asking me to resubmit it again. Removing a keyword takes 5 seconds. For Apple to approve the re-submitted app, it takes a month. You see the problem, right? I hope Apple realizes the issue here.

Worst part is, I have other apps in ‘Review’ with similar keywords and I can’t do anything about this. They even disable the option to change the keywords after you submit them.

Solution: Apple needs to add an ’On Hold’ Status. Currently an App is either ‘In Review’, ‘Ready for Sale’ or ‘Rejected’. For issues related to content and others which may not be related to the core app, Apple should just place the approval on hold till the developer modifies the content or provides additional info requested by Apple. This way, they need not review the app again which will cut down the review time and is good for developer and also for Apple.

I hope Apple is listening to feedback. I think they are and I hope to see some positive changes to the approval process.

New Flight Tracking App for iPhone: Flights Pro

Our latest application has just been approved by – Flights Pro. It is now available on AppStore.

Flights pro lets you track the status of all flights worldwide. It integrates with TripIt to automatically download all your flight information. Apart from flight status information, the application also displays weather info, arrival & departure delays and contact information of airlines. Weather and Delay info is currently available for US airports only.

The application displays flight status information, delays, cancellations etc. It also displays terminal & gate information wherever available. The application gathers the data from FlightStats, a very reliable source for flight status related information. Maps of the application is powered by FlightView. Maps are displayed for worldwide flights. Status information of all flights is available for 2 days in advance.

We launched our Flights application focused on US only flights. Our Flights Pro app covers all flights worldwide including worldwide maps.  While this app uses the same design as our Flights app, the back end engine is completely different. It uses FlightStats for data and FlightView for maps, similar to our Flight Status app.

The app comes at a great price introductory price of $.2.99. Do grab our application while the deal exist.

We hope you’ll like this app. If so, drop us a review in AppStore.

Travel Guide in AppStore

Did you notice the new ‘Travel Guide’ option in AppStore? Apple seem to be adding/rotating that section often and this time (finally!) it is travel categories turn.

I like two things in this new ‘Travel Guide’ section.

First, Apple combines all content in iTunes in a single section. You’ll notice that this section not just includes apps from AppStore, but it also includes travel related podcasts, audio books, music, movies etc.  Hidden in these multiple sections is a good sign where Apple finally listed sections for ‘Translation’, ‘Learning’ etc. This is a good sign as Apple sees the need to separate these translation and learning apps from other categories as I noted earlier, these types of apps fill the AppStore.

Second, I am glad to see one of our app – Currency Exchange – listed in there. Our own currency converter application has been one of our successful apps and we are glad it is starting to get some attention from Apple. Our recent update has been received well and we are working on a new update which I think is going to make this app even better.

Next Flight in PC Mag

Our Next Flight app is listed in PC Mag among many other travel apps. Complete article here.

Next Flight ($2.99, www.touchmeme.com): Should you get bumped from a flight and need to find another one, this app is for you. It provides access to all the flights from all airlines and shows the next flight out to your destination.

Trips for iPhone launches with TripIt integration

We are very excited to announce the availability of 2.0 version of our Trips App.

This is a complete revamp of our Trips application. We built this version from scratch and added some real cool features along with a great new user interface.

This version integrates TripIt, an online travel itinerary and trip planner which helps you organize your trip. To add a trip to the Trips application, you can enter the details on the phone, on TripIt or simply forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and TripIt will automatically parse content from a wide range of vendors and prepare the itinerary automatically for you.

The app has many few features. The flights section now includes maps for En Route flights flying from/to US. We also included three new categories for Cruise, Train and Car. This makes it 9 categories in total and in fact, we download information from TripIt in all these nine categories.

We fixed several issues in the app. We also added many small features you requested.

While this update took much longer than expected, we certainly hope it is worth it. We can’t wait to hear your feedback.

Next Flight: #1 among National Geographic’s Top 20 Travel Apps

When a brand like National Geographic creates a list of Top 20 Travel Apps and when our app is listed in there, it is encouraging. When our app is listed as #1 App in the list, is is AWESOME. This is what happened recently when National Geographic launched the list of Top 20 Travel apps

We are very glad to see our Next Flight application listed as #1 app on their list. This is what they say…

Got bumped? Leaving early? Next Flight tracks scheduled departures from more than 4,200 airports and 1,100 airlines. It sounds overwhelming, but you can filter by carrier. $2.99

Thank you NatGeo.

Video: Currency Exchange & Flight Status Review

Not very often someone does a good review of your apps. Here is a video that reviews two of our Apps – Currency Exchange & Flight Status. While it doesn’t cover all the features of the app, it certainly gives you an idea of the overall functionality of the app.

iPhone AppStore should feature Apps for each Category

AppStore has had many success stories. In almost all the cases, the applications have been featured by Apple in AppStore either through ‘Staff Favorites’ or ‘What’s Hot’ section or other places on iTunes AppStore home page.

Basically, if an application is featured, its sales go up dramatically. I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but in my observation I have seen apps raise to top 5 in each category, when featured. After Apple stops featuring an app, I have seen an App drop even from the top 100 for that category, a slide from Top 5. The Apps Apple chooses to feature almost seem random. Though I have seen some great apps featured, I have also seen some less desirable apps featured.

In other words, to some extent, Apple kind of defines the success of the Applications in AppStore. For those whose apps are not featured, they are obviously disappointed. I sure am one among them. My apps have been featured in Apple’s retail stores and even installed on some of the iPhone displayed there. Unfortunately, none of my apps were featured in AppStore on iTunes. I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping that I’ll be lucky some day.

That said, there is one key functionality I am looking for. Adding featured apps per category. The current featured apps in AppStore home page serves the following…

- It features some great apps
- Easy way for end users to notice good apps rather than search for them
- Featured apps bring in good revenue to Developers & Apple

Obviously, Apple cannot feature all apps as there are tens of thousands of apps across all categories. So the questions is, why not feature apps based on category. Now there are enough apps in each category, it makes perfect sense to feature some apps in those categories. It is important for both Apple and App Developers to get some iTunes real-estate. As the sales goes up, it is going to help the entire iPhone eco-system

What I am asking here is not something new. Infact, I just noticed that this is already available for the Games category which is the most popular category in AppStore. I am hoping that Apple will add ‘What’s Hot’, New & Noteworthy’ and other sections to the home pages of individual categories.

This will be a good way for featuring good apps and making it easier for users to find good apps as browsing apps in over 100 pages is not an option.

iPhone’s Rating Issue

Lately I have seen some very good written reviews on some of my apps, but the ratings have been low. If you look at ‘The Currency Converter‘ app for example, there are more than 10 written reviews in AppStore and there is no rating with less than 4 stars. But when we look at user’s ratings, it tells a completely different story.

When users delete the app, Apple asks users to rate that app. The ratings you see above is a result of these ratings.

This ratings dialog comes in when a user deletes an app. Obviously, when a user is deleting the app, in more cases, the rating is going to be negative. There is nothing wrong with collecting feedback during approach, but it is not balanced enough. Apple doesn’t collect feedback in any other mode except this. If feedback is collected similarly if a user opens the app more than 10 times, then it becomes balanced as feedback will collected while the user is happy with app as well as when the user deletes the app. But when feedback is collected only when the user deletes the app, it is going to be biased, and mostly on the negative side.

I hope Apple improves the way they handle this ratings system.