angrynorth

I've been working with a friend and we recently completed our first iPhone app. It's a little maths/brain train game that helps you improve your mental arithmetic. I won't post a link here as that might be seen as advertising, but if you search for Addict+ on the store you'll probably find it.

Anyway, has anyone else on here written an app, or is anyone else considering doing one? We found actually getting the app live on the store harder than writing the damn thing, and I wanted to know what other peoples experiences were and share our story too.

We launched a free "lite" version of the game yesterday and that went much smoother after learning from our mistakes first time round. Anyone else tried this out?

angrynorth

Oh, by the way, if anyone has a US iTunes store account, here's a promo code so you can download the app for free.

Please let me know if you use it and I'll post some more for other people.

T67XK6H3TAP4 (You can go direct to the app page to here - hopefully that link will work).

PS this only works for one free download of our app, and if you do use it I'd love to hear your feedback or see an (honest but favourable ) review and rating put on iTunes.

Sorry about no UK codes, but Apple doesn't currently let you generate them for non-US accounts.
Cheers

boxst

I downloaded the lite version -- it is okay a bit repetitive.

Steve

spectrum48k

cool! well done fella!

I don't own an iPhone, so I'll just be optimistic and assume it's impressive!

Markus

A friend of mine is a freelance developer and has been working on a couple of apps for the iPhone.

angrynorth

Can't honestly say I disagree with you there unfortunately, we do need to work on the gameplay a bit for the next version. In our defence though the lite version is somewhat limited in terms of difficulty settings and amount of and differentiation between levels. After playing the full version over and over for the past month, I can honestly say it can be quite addictive and challenging in the harder levels.

I also think that it has genuinely improved my mental arithmatic skills, so at least its not a complete waste of time.

Thanks for the feedback though!

Markus, is that the same guy you forwarded to me a while back? I must confess I didn't get in touch, instead I went off and learned what I could myself along with a friend.

We have got an idea for a "killer app" though, which is probably a little bit above our abilities right now, I'd be grateful if you could put me in touch again, especially if he's good!

boxst

Sorry, I didn't mean to be quite so dismissive. Having played a few levels I just expected it to swap to a different challenge. My daughter is playing it and it helps her mental arithmetic.

Steve

Markus

Yes, it'll be the same chappy. I'll pm you his details and will let you take it from there. He's been very busy of late so might not be able to help out, but if you don't ask, you don't get.

angrynorth

Well, after this weekend I think I can offer a great piece of advice to any other iPhone app developers making a "paid app".

Do a lite free version! Do it right away! Our lite version was approved and sent live by Apple on Wednesday and has since been downloaded no less than 2500 times globally!

This has obviously had a knock on effect for the full and unrestricted paid for version which saw a significant sales boost starting late Friday and still continuing.

I'm probably stating the obvious here, especially to any traditional (IE console or PC game/app developers) but holy **** peopld don't half respond to being able to try something out for free first of all.

boxst, thanks for the further comments, glad to hear your daughter is chipping away at it.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

Downloaded the app (lite) this morning and had a go. Obviously the lite version only gives you three levels so of course it will seem slightly repetitive for just those sort of levels and not challenging enough. Maybe increase the lite version to 5 levels etc just to hook people in a bit more so they buy the full version ?

That aside it is very slickly done, the graphics are great, the music and sounds are not bad so overall very well done.

One thing I found, tapping on the squares didnt respond sometimes but maybe that is me with my screen

boxst

That's quite impressive. I will have to dust off my programming skills and give it a go -- not to make any money but it is always good to be seen to publish things.

Steve

Markus

A good point about a lite or free trial version of an app. If you are unique then you might get away with not doing it, however, if there are other similar apps, then people will want to try them and find which is the best, but who is going to pay even a small amount just to try something out, then find it's crap.

I think what has been said speaks volumes, if you offer a trial version for free, and people like it, they are much more inclined to fork out money for the full version.