But how can you grow your app without really know who your users are?

Apps Stores are built in such a way that you don’t know the identity of your users. Only the App stores do. You may use some analytics service but they only tell you about how your app is used. Most app developers don’t bother with a registration form, because it causes friction with adoption and when they do, it is only [name. nickname.email.password] – meaning not helping you out.

Who really are your users? Are they male/female? what age group? what do they really like? What is their occupation?

The only way to know that is to ask about it?

This is important because it will help you improve your app in a much more compelling manner.

But how would you do it without being too intrusive? 

The answer is App Booster, our communication channel solution for apps. Use App Booster to broadcast a poll to your users in the app as they open it in a non intrusive way (in their inbox). You will get in a matter of hour a solid sample of your users population

We just ran it in our own app: 2 hours later we had 3000 answers which provided us deep insight about our user base. How could have done it differently? Hiring a market research company and paying lots of money for this. No way…

We used PollDaddy as a poll service. But you can use the one you want. Just display it as an in-app notification, choosing the in app browser option. And you’re done.

You really need to do that.

In anticipation of this imminent restriction (which in some cases already appears to be enforced as alluded to here or here), a number of actors have adopted a substitute open-source approach that Appsfire helped bootstrap: OpenUDID.

In no particular order: Inneractive, Trustee, adFonic, Greystripe, Crashlytics, Lumi Mobile and us, Appsfire, among others, are supporting, have implemented or are planning to implement OpenUDID in their apps and their processes, with many more in the process of joining.

Why does a UDID matter? 

App publishers need a reliable, consistent and transparent way to measure conversion rates between the source of a click to actual downloads.  Typically, banner ads or even Apple’s own iAd for that matter, keep a tally of how many clicks lead to how many downloads. Since downloads could come from anywhere, then it’s important to match with the source. On the web, cookies are used to accomplish this sort of tracking. Native mobile apps use a unique device identifier – which Apple will be removing anytime. No device identifier, no tracking, and no way for publishers to check whether their advertising campaign is efficient and whether they are getting their money’s worth.

Enter OpenUDID

OpenUDID meets the industry need highlighted above, and will safeguard prior investments if and when Apple flips the switch. It’s a drop-in replacement for the native UDID: open-source, transparent, cross-app, and persistent across reboots and restores. Something that the original UDID lacks is an opt-out system; OpenUDID has opt-out built-in. As a bonus, the community has already expanded on the initial OpenUDID implementation, now supporting Android and Mac OS X.

Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7+ implementation is sure to follow.

New opportunities

Third parties can even probe the OpenUDID structure and create apps or services around the tracking topic:

• Apps to help users opt-out selectively on their own device
• A service that produces reports on apps that use OpenUDID
• A central authority that validates best practices and provides seals of compliance

How does it work? 

Technically, OpenUDID uses a mix of local app storage for cache and safeguarding, as well as inter-app storage (custom pasteboards on iOS). This means that the system is decentralized, neither controlled by Apple nor anyone else.  The more OpenUDID is used, the more robust and prevalent and tamper proof it gets.

Other than that, the OpenUDID looks and feels the same as the native UDID, a 40 characters long hexadecimal string. For instance:

369416e16c373b617b2e4d151e01244c748c7b3e

OpenUDID vs. the MAC network address

Other initiatives involving the MAC (network) address have sprung up. Indeed, the MAC address can be considered as a fairly unique device identifier. And yet, it is a very sensitive piece of private information, sometimes used to authorize devices on private networks. We are totally opposed to using the MAC address (and we think that Apple and other platforms will too). Using this key for tracking will certainly lead to yet more malpractice, hacking and therefore security breaches, and then more deprecation from Apple.

Our message here: DON’T USE THE MAC ADDRESS! IT WILL FIRE BACK ON YOU!

The way forward

Move to OpenUDID today. It’s a plugin replacement. All you need is download some simple code from github http://openUDID.org
Feel free to contribute code, unique key generation, porting, etc… it’s easy to branch-out and grow the effort on GitHub.

Next: We are in the process of contacting Apple to let them know what the industry needs, and how to fix it permanently. In fact, you already know where this is headed: an opt-in panel inside the systems preferences, just like the one that already exists for Location/Notification and soon Address Book and Calendar events…

Rankings – regarded as the most popular discovery mechanism – are limited and gamed: as we saw recently many companies are using different systems through bots and or incentives to reach top rankings. And many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to reach the App Store top visibility.

But really. How many different apps get really discovered through what is considered to be the TOP 25 rankings?

This is what we (Appsfire) wanted to find out. We surveyed all the main stores (US, UK and FR) – the conclusions are in the same order of magnitude for most stores

We analyzed in the last 30 days how many different apps made it in the top 25/50 Global free and paid ranking. We did then exactly the same for the largest App category: GAMES.

• Basically at best 0.05% of all apps make it in what can be visible in a top ranking
• More precisely between 50 to 350 unique Apps are really visible over a period of 30 days
• If you filter that to games the proportion is even smaller, which makes sense given how agressive they are marketed. For example in the US only 50 different games made it in the top 25 Paid Games category.
• Numbers don’t really change from country to country. The same pattern is observed

50 to 350 apps out of Half a million! 0.0 something %

Rankings are a broken discovery mechanism because they are only giving visibility on a small portion of apps, many of which are often the same. This is what generates frustration among users. Not at first but after a period of browsing them regularly.

In other words if Apple was simply deleting the top charts off the app store (which could actually be a good idea) that would not change a thing for 99.95% of the apps present in the app store in terms of how they really get discovered.

This is frankly this hard reality which pushes many app developers to look for all sorts of ways to get visible. Sometimes crossing the limits of what is tolerated by Apple. This is also what pushes developers and users to search for alternative discovery and promotion solutions.

Some may say our reviews are gamed, biased, etc… but the fact is that our reviews come directly from our users, genuine comments, from real users, daily users; yes, we feel entitled to brag about that a little!
 
Here’s another quote received directly by email via our CRM SDK system (which we launched yesterday, and that we use in our own apps):
 

Trivia, not so Trivial!

Did you know that there is a very small elite club of apps with a perfect 5 score and at least that many reviews? 160 apps in total, out of 550000+, that’s the 99.97% percentile. Appsfire App Deals is in that club.
 
Yes, you can tell, we’re very proud.
 

Background

One thing we’ve been struggling with since we exist is the necessity for quality services to promote mobile applications. We created a set of new ways to browse apps and services for developers to obtain quality visibility with potential new users

But what’s the point of getting so many new users, what’s the point of rushing to the rankings if eventually users don’t use or stick with your app? As the App market grows, too many developers are concerned with “user acquisition” vs “quality user acquisition” and the difference is engagement.

Of course it is all about creating a great app first. Crappy app won’t stick. But assume you create a great app. You have now to compete for attention on the device of your users along with other great apps. And there are many great apps out there.

So how will you manage?

One thing we observed, is that many apps do not create a relation with their users. Apps do what they do best but the developers have no real interaction with the users and no real impact on how they can optimize the usage of their apps. Some use push notification, which when accepted, can still be intrusive because…well everyone is sending push notifications..Some use unrelated communication channels: twitter, facebook, email…

But how about using your app as a communication channel? How about talking to your users where they are?

App Booster: the inbox for your app

Introducing App Booster:  a simple, lightweight, elegant and customizable way for developers to include an inbox to broacast in-app notifications

This inbox worth both ways: users can also broadcast messages to the developers through a mobile specific feedback system – for ideas, bugs, contests and more..

It takes no time to include it in a mobile app (iOS + Android, soon HTML5). It is manageable by anyone who knows how to use a mouse and a computer (read made for non-techies)

What App Booster can do for you?

We’ve built this inbox really thinking about what’s best for an app developer. App booster is really a Swiss knife that will help you handle all your users’ relations in a convenient manner. Techies will call it the CRM toolkit. We also like to call it “the other half of push” or simply said “the inbox for your app”

Here is a short list of what you can do with App Booster

• Send a welcome message to new visitors (automatically)
• Automatically stimulate the update of a new version, as soon as it live
• Remind the features added by the last updated version (most users never read update notes)
• Organize contests or promotions in your app
• Give tips on how to use best the app
• Cross promote your other apps (if you own more than 1)
• organize barters easily for free with other developers
• Communicate on app maintenance
• Boost your social pages
• Broadcast a link to Safari/Android Browser in or outside his app for rich notifications
• Invite users to rate his app in his app store / android market reviews
• Re-optin users who did not accept push notifications

Bonus feature: the ultimate feedback system

One thing we felt was broken is the way users can reach out to developers. Yes, many apps include an email contact, but an empty email requires too much effort and can even be intimidating. What is missing is real context, a real feedback system, that makes is super easy for users to gather and send their thoughts

But not only: it should be also manageable for developers to handle those requests and understand how they are structured

• So we also created a super simple back office system to enable developers to
• receive in real time feedback in their email in addition to their web dashboard
• view that email in a beautifully designed, mobile friendly email format
• answer the user right from the email in a mobile friendly form or via email
• get the answer published back in the notification wall to interact, in the app, with the users
• It’s collaborative: the moment someone in your team answers a feedback the rest of the team in informed about it and knows who answered

Now here is the awesome part. By just adding this feedback system we saw our number of feedback multiply by x20, and the quality of the feedback muliplied by 5

In addition it helped us capture the negative feedback in our app instead of having it published in the app store. Many times a problem is unrelated to your app and here you have an opportunity to explain it

Now here is the juice. Positive feedbacks will be routed to the app store. And guess what it will X your positive reviews. It is not that you are doing something better. It is just that you are capturing the attention when required. We call it the rating booster.

Next? Well get in, it’s Free

Ah… we did not tell you? this is free. Just go to our site, Register. get the code, the documentation. Install it on an ad hoc build. play with it.

It’s build for iOS, Android. Translated in all key languages.

We’re not stopping there. We take this part of our strategy very seriously and we ll innovate with a lot more awesome tools to make your life easier and improve the way your users will stick to your app. We worked nearly a year on this system. We re not ready to stop.

It will make your app look good. It will make your users happier. it will make your life easier

Want to find out more about it? read what Techcrunch, Gigaom and NextWeb said about it

148apps – one of the biggest app review sites – organizes every year an app contest “best app ever” where their result is decided only by app users – not experts, not journalists, not other app developers or pundits. And we made it with App Deals , best app of the year in the “Best app bargain” category for iOS!

Evernote made it for Android. Other winners include the awesome Tweetbot [a must have for twitter], Instagram and many more. The best app overall is JetPack Joyride [congrats to them]

So why a free app, like “App Deals” can be a great bargain? Because it saves you so much time but most importantly so much money. you will find many App trackers, finders in the App store. They all try to spot the apps that become free or cheaper everyday (not one, but hundreds if not thousands of them). But we tried to create the very best one both in experience and quality of the results. And users love it and we want to thank you/them for that! This matters to us because this is a users’ choice!

It was an amazing year. With over 1.5 million votes cast (over three times the number cast last year) and a record number of nominations, we now have the winners of the 2011 Best App Ever Awards. Thanks to all that voted, nominated, and made these fantastic apps!

So thank you, thank you, thank you! The best is yet to come!

We are thrilled to announced the release of App Deals 2.2 with awesome new features requested by our users (and some of our own)! Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

• How can I find out when the apps I’ve had my eye on are on sale?
• Is a free app really free or do I have to pay something once I download it?
• How can I see only the new deals in the streams?

The answers, respectively: Price Alert, SUPERFREE & Filter “New”.

Price Alert

Everybody has his eye on some apps which he can’t afford to buy or which are too expensive. However, you may not have time to check the App Store everyday to see if the app goes on sale.

Now App Deals takes care of this for you! Just go into App Deals and set a price alert on that app, we’ll alert you as soon as the price drops.

How to set a Price Alert:

1. Search for an app by clicking the search icon in the top left (or spot it in one of our streams)
2. Select the app (a paid one of course :p)
3. Click on the star next to the price
4. Press “Yes”

And voila, you’ll be alerted! You can track as many apps as you’d like. See how it works in the video below:

SUPERFREE APPS

I am sure most of us experienced this situation: You downloaded a free app, but once downloaded, you receive an unwelcome surprise: you need to pay (via in-app purchase) to use the app to unlock features or the real value of the app. FREE is not always FREE!

Introducing the SUPERFREE filter in Search:

In this example, you can see “Monster Trainer Freemium” which is FREE to download but includes in-app purchase. When you filter for Superfree, “Monster Trainer Freemium” disappears from the results. All the apps you see in Superfree will never charge you a dime.

Spot NEW deals only!

And last but not least, you can now filter for new apps. You just have to click on “X NEW” and the stream will only show the new apps since the last time you opened App Deals.
So what are you waiting for? Download App Deals 2.2 and find some great deals!

Inter-app communication is still in its infancy. Indeed, as powerful software publishers would have it, each app or each suite of apps would attempt to lock users into a unique file format to achieve a sort of monopole. This is clearly what Microsoft was doing in the 90s with MS Office. Since then, the strong competitive and market forces got the best of the crypted files – Microsoft eventually gave way and started allowing a “clear” version of their files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx), and even published the specifications of their native files (see the Microsoft Open Specification Promise).

Opening up the file format helped other vendors create alternative office suites, perhaps with competing formats, but almost always with a way to interchange files via an export menu option (Apple’s Keynote and Google Docs import and export to Powerpoint, to PDF, etc.). When that happens, the now competing vendors then focus on innovation inside, end users are no longer taken hostage, can focus on getting work done, and manage to share the end-result seamlessly with friends and colleagues. The OS knows what application can open what file given its “extension” (.doc, .pdf, .zip, .txt). Sadly, this is pretty much how inter-app communication works on the Desktop.

On the web, documents are typically represented by URLs. Unfortunately, the sharing tends to follow the exact pattern of the above mentioned “defensive” mechanism: the SaaS vendor will let you share to an email, which then loops back to the same proprietary platform, with its own user base, with a dedicated user/password platform (or if you’re lucky, a single sign-on from Google, FB or Twitter). But still, you’re back to being “locked-in”. Sure, you may export to a static file, but that sort of defeats the purpose of working online.

Luckily, this Chinese Walls model is changing as many open-up their SaaS platform via an API. This is especially true of CRM platforms and other enterprise grade services that initially rely on importing data from legacy systems or connect to complementary databases (HR, Customer Databases, etc.). In the non-enterprise field, it is much less the case – and Google Apps “plugins” are no better; they tend to only work within Google Apps and Google Mail… Semantic Web or Web Intents to the rescue – but we’re still far off.

On smartphones, the story is a little different. Each app typically represents one function, one feature, one task, symbolized by one icon. By default or by design, publishers come to realize that their app better excels at one thing and one thing only. The more focused it is, the better: clear winners of this paradigm include Instagram/Path, Evernote, Dropbox, Twitter, etc. This generally prevents feature overload and tends to polarize the publishers between the top-of-mindshare leaders and the rest of the pack (the long tail).

Yet, contrary to the afore-mentioned model, those leaders rarely attempt to lock their users in for any action that sits outside of their core focus. Many “document” oriented apps have a single “save to Evernote or ReadItLater”; messaging apps have a single “Tweet this via Twittie/Twitter, TweetBot, Seesmic”; apps that recognize a phone number have a “Call via Phone, Skype, Viber”, etc… Inter-app communication has never been more prevalent on smartphones than any other previous computing eco-system.

How is this possible?

Actually, you all know how this works without necessarily knowing it; the mechanism is pretty universal and widely relied upon by all OSes, mobile or not. Except that the examples hereafter are the byproducts of 20+ years of internet protocols and  hyperlinking. When an app attempts to open something that starts with “mailto:john@doe.com” then the OS will open the default Email client, and prepare an email for John Doe. Similarly, when an app attempts to open something that starts with “http://” then typically the default browser opens (same goes with ftp:// and a couple more obscure protocols). Archaic and limited.

Not so archaic on smartphone OSes

While iOS may have had URLHandlers management since the first release of their SDK, Android is ahead on this one. Android has the notion of “intent”; a few, but it’s a good start. For instance, an app may say “share this message with a messaging app” – the Android OS will then pull a list of apps that are registered to handle messaging, and the user will (re)discover all her apps that can do the job, and link straight to it with the payload (it also helps that on Android, launching a separate app feels part of the same left-to-right screen navigation, and back). On iOS, it’s a little trickier since there is no single registry nor any official nomenclature for handling intents. That being said, the Twitter – Facebook – DropBox clients all have been quick to publish an API that helps other developers bind to their apps. And so, on iOS, inter-app communication works and works pretty well in fact. We all use it all the time. It is seamless, self-less, and brings tons of value to end users.

Some developers have started creating repositories of such URLHandlers; but it’s a manually painful and poorly nomenclatured process, even if crowd-sourced. A number of pundits are envisioning or rumoring ways this could play out, and this extends to app discovery and search. Appsfire certainly has reconstructed one of the most extensive private URLHandlers database in the World (after Apple of course). This has helped us achieve a fairly robust in-app detection of “my apps”, allowing our users to share apps that they own. But still, further development is needed at the core SDK level, especially on intents and corresponding nomenclatures, allowing developers to tap into this wealth of complementary features and functions, and ultimately, allowing end users to discover apps that can help them achieve better sharing, better productivity, better flow, better choice. Taken to higher level, this may even help re-discover apps that they own, or discover apps that they didn’t know existed. And of course, we at Appsfire are working on that.

Implementing intents and helping the discovery process at the same time

Smartphone OS vendors can certainly build upon the foundation by creating a large and documented repository of intents, all following a strict nomenclature, and let developers tap into it. A central registry, tied to the OS, with a validation process, and yes, a dreadful accept/reject procedure. This sort of process is required for QoS, avoid foul play, make sure there is no collision in the naming nomenclature, and ultimately help maximize the utility of such a system. Once in place, the system will dynamically know what to do with specific type of content, be it text-based/clipboard or file based, and then which intents make sense for it. The diagram above illustrates how this might play out on iOS for example, with iCloud having an asynchronous role in identifying apps that are already purchased but that are no longer or not yet installed, and then suggesting apps worth acquiring to deal with the task at hand.

This concept would enable a whole new level of app (re)discovery in a very meaningful way.

Appsfire proud to be the very first Mobile app discovery service to launch as a partner along with a range of prestigious Web services like Pinterest, Washington post and many more. Now you will, like never before, be able to share and discover the favorite mobile apps of your friends. Right in Facebook. Let the App Store/Android Market come to you!

Here is how it works

What this means is very simple: On Appsfire app [App deals and others will arrive later] – both on iPhone and Android, if you decide to create an account with your Facebook login and activate the sharing feature, any time you mark an app as favorite, or add an app to your library, your Timeline will show it near instantly

Of course this happens only if you want to, but you’ll be able, without even thinking about it, to share your favorite iphone and ipad apps with your friends or, as a viewer, enjoy the list of favorite apps of your friend right in Facebook.

Here is an example of how it Looks like below with “CloudMagic” [a great gmail search app]

Here on The Appsfire iPhone (or iPad) App, you favorite “Cloud Magic”

Here a few seconds later the action shows in your Facebook Timeline

The App store comes to you

As you can see the “Favorited” action has been populated right from Appsfire. If you Click on “MyApp” the action will be “Installed”

It was important for us to have 2 different signals. It does not mean that because you installed an app, you really like it. Too many users confuse apps that are popular in the rankings (installed) and apps that are really appreciated (favorited).

We want to help users and their friends to make the difference and have a granular signal about.

Now you can find, more than ever, the apps your friend really love.

It’s as if the App Store was coming to you, rather than you going to the app store. It’s as if, the iPhone of your friends was coming to you, rather than you glancing at your friends’ iPhone [not sure we agree with the Anti-App Store expression - it is more a complement ]

Another great discovery mechanism. By Appsfire

Privacy side note:

• at any moment you can edit/ remove your actions from your timeline. And of course in Appsfire you have a settings to deactivate the public sharing.
• If you install an app via Appsfire and you do not app it to your MyApp section, it will not be shared on your Timeline.
• Finally the Timeline sharing is not retro active: only from today, the apps you will decide to share with your friends will show on your timeline

It is not in the App store or the Android Market. But if it was. it would look something like that (more on sopa here)

It’s official: Appsfire will be present at the Mobile World Congress from February 27th to March 1st in Barcelona.

Appsfire has been selected along with 3 other French companies (Lemon Way, Xbrainsoft, Kawet) by  Mobile Marketing Association France, Silicon Sentier and Ubifrance to represent French startups in The Pavillon France.

Want to set up a meeting? We’ll be in Hall 2.0, but please email us at contact [at] appsfire [dot] com

We are looking forward to meeting you in Barcelona! Hasta pronto

Ansca’s Corona SDK mobile toolkit empowers developers of all backgrounds to create games and applications for iOS and Android. In 2011, apps created with Corona SDK were downloaded over 35 million times across iOS devices, Android devices, and the Amazon Kindle Fire and NOOK Color.

Appsfire mobile apps provide intelligent recommendations based on users’ preferences, geolocation, social graph, and more, along with personalized recommendations based on the apps the user already owns. Millions of users worldwide enjoy Appsfire’s app discovery apps.

If you’re a Corona developer and interested in taking advantage of preferential pricing on marketing campaigns through the Appsfire network, please be in touch.

So developers: We wish you happy coding with Corona, and look forward to promoting your app!

Looking back at 2011, we re very proud of what has been accomplished; but frankly, BS aside, we also feel some frustration when we contemplate all we wanted to do, that we could not do. That’s what you feel when you feel passionate about something. You’re never happy and want to do more. We’re focused on innovation users love and discovery and promotion of apps is still in its infancy [check our predictions to get a sense of it]

So we’ll save you the part where we ‘ll tell you how great we did. 2012 will be a great exciting year

Just a few reminders: 2011 was the year

• we rebooted with a fresh round of funding
• we introduced a brand new visual discovery experience
• We introduced OpenUDID as an alternative to the UDID, deprecated by Apple
• We introduced COMING SOON, a unique ad format for apps to pre announce their launch and support the range of ad units we already use.
• We introduce the Rating booster soon to be launched with more tools
• We were selected by Facebook as the only company in the app discovery field for launching their new coming Open Graph platform

So what about 2012? 2012 we’ll be the year where…..well… you see…

Stay tuned

update on web 28/12: although the freeze was supposed to end up tomorrow dec 29th, we observe rankings are dynamically changing everywhere back again and that app updates are popping up..

We’re are observing very erratic behaviors in the app store that is creating confusion for end users and developers.

Apple clearly informed the developers that during a few days iTunes connect (the developer section to manage your apps in the app store) would be frozen: you have no possibility to submit a new app, to modify the prices of your app, its description.  The Freeze is supposed to happen between the 22nd and 29th of December 2011.

All developers are set with this rule. But for some strange reasons there are many bugs confusing users. How do we know? users and developers tell us

PRICE FREEZE OR NOT?

For example prices of apps seem not to display consistently. Some apps appear as free or paid in the search results but when you go to the app page to actually download it you see a different result. Here is an example we were informed of by one of our users a short moment ago.

iDJ appears as FREE in search results, but then as PAID in the app description. But if you go to iTunes on the desktop it appears as FREE

Yesterday we stumbled upon Search out , a paid app which was marked as Free (in promotion) instead of Paid. We tried to download it. But as we did there was an error message saying that the download had to stop because “it is being modified”. If there is a freeze, there should not be any modification.

RANKING FREEZE OR NOT?

Another thing that is happening: the rankings are partially frozen but it only started yesterday Monday 26th. Apple was not clear in the communication about that. The reality is that many developers asked us about this too. What we saw last year is that rankings were not frozen. But this year something weird is happening

In some countries like France rankings are totally frozen

In the USA rankings seem to be partially frozen: the top 50 ranking does not seem to move but below it is moving, a lot, up until an hour ago. And its moving in a very random manner. See below the full reshuffle of rankings in just 10 minutes!

Finally this situation is not good for users: they don’t know there is a ranking freeze: they are going to see apps top ranked because they are artificially maintained top ranked. Apple should just remove the rankings during the Freeze. Or leave them but let all developers and users know about it.

SO? STORE FREEZE OR NOT?

Apple should fix this erratic store beahavior even if this is holidays: the App store is too important to leave it to such cases. It is not enough to warn developers. They should have a clear Freeze rule where nothing change at all even if you program a change. In addition Apple should also clarify the rules with their customers – the users

We can all take vacations: but if a store is open, it should be operating correctly.

update:

Several developers reached out to confirm the random behavior of the store and distorsion in prices of certain apps (probably trying to change their price during the period, but this is not confirmed)

Another surprise this morning: although itunes connect is supposed to be “Frozen” an app update just popped up. See below. did you see more? [we just found IMDB has an update]

So here are our 2012 predictions for this year

1. 1.5 million live apps [iOS + Android] by end 2012. We were already predicting in september before others confirmed 1 million apps for 2011 [100% chances]
2. Native apps win over web apps, big time [sorry Dave Winer]: yes HTML5 is wonderful. but there is still no magical way to make decent money and get decent distribution our of web apps, since the App ecosystems are focusing on promoting native apps (only or first) and users prefer the experience of native apps [100% chances]
3. Apple will bring a new Apple TV with apps[a box, not a screen]. Will run iOS apps [some of them] and it will be much faster and awesome [90% chances]
4. iPhone 5/iPad 3: yes, it will land. will have NFC, with a new design, new camera, faster, more battery, more everything. Samsung will blush, then copy. iPad 3 is announced. includes Retina display [90% chances]
5. Android will crash iOS on market share, but iOS developers will still make more money than Android developers: not a prediction actually, but that will still be the case as Google is still not solving well the billing and piracy issues [not mentioning the fact that not educating their users to pay correctly is not helping] – 80% chances
6. Windows Phone gets its share of the market and beats RIM. Lumia 800 is a hit phone [70% chances]
7. SIRI will be available for iPhone 4 and 3GS. There is already a proof it is working [65% chances]
8. SIRI API becomes available. You will be able to launch and control 3rd party apps by voice [50% chances]
9. Apple relaxes App store rules: A lot more apps get in faster. But more apps will get rejected after being approved [65% chances]
10. Asia conquers the App Space: more top games, more top apps will be produced and marketed from the east and will shoot frontally traditional app giants [70% chances]
11. Instagram goes with massive funding, extend to video, android. Path rejects a second acquisition offer, gets massive funding too [80% chances]
12. Security is becoming a mess on Android: Google will buy Lookout or some other mobile security firm [70%]

Bonuses

• Most blog posts about app discovery will still start with “With over half million apps, finding the right app can be a real challenge…” [150% chances]
• It will still be considered as cool to make cool jokes around the APP word (eg:  ”APPY new year” , “this is APPENING now” )
• WWDC 2012 will sell out in 2 min and 13 seconds. Better then 2011 [ok maybe a bit longer..]
• Someone will finally make an app about 2012 app predictions [zero %]

Sarah suggests a better smartphone search engine that would index in a more relevant manner those apps. eg: you search “deals” you get groupon and Living Social

She also mention that smartphones require a better app management system

So here’s a crazy idea: give our devices a real search engine – one that’s as powerful as the app store’s engine, if not better. Apps should be keyword-optimized, ranked and rated by dozens of signals. The on-device app search engine should know what apps you have installed, how often you use them, how long you’ve had them, when you bought them, their ratings, your ratings, which of your friends use them, and everything the apps can and can’t do. For starters.

She’s right all the way. This is required and maybe apple or google will build this. But we saw with music that itunes even with ping has not gotten even close to that. Apple recently introduced a “purchased” section which allows you to better view what you have downloaded. But you don’t get more visibility than that and quite frankly this is not really helpful.

The reality is that this is a very hard problem to solve. Discovery like Re-discovery are not only related to how a search engine is built but also to how data about your apps are collected AND structured and presented. We spent 100% of our time trying to solve this and we don’t believe we’re there yet (although we think we re on the way)

Search is only one dimension to approach discovery. We observe on our own properties but also talking to some other players that only 30% of users find their app by using search. On the device it is very likely you use spotlight to find apps you don’t regularly use and that end up in your second or third homescreen. But there is also a better and smarter solution.

Here is what we learned for the past two years and that developers can already leverage today:

1. Users on mobile are not big fan of search: they much prefer the “browsing” model because it’s faster, simpler and does not require any input. You can see that in news (flipboard, pulse), but also with apps (browsing the lists or rankings). This is also why we made the choice to organize our apps by streams we build around relevant context (your friends, location, price drop, tastes,…). So build your app considering your going to be mostly found like this: great icon, great title, great screenshots. The icon in particular we’ll help you a lot in the rediscovery process because on mobile everything is more visual than textual.

2. Search in itunes AND spotlight are already built to work with keywords: if you are an app developer, it is critical you add the right keywords in your metadata. For example many apps that are not called “photo something” come out when i search photo. Apple or Google can’t solve that alone: they need the developer’s input. Add keywords where you can but in particular in your app title eg: BALAGRAM – photo utility for your phone instead of BALAGRAM (check LiveShare as an example)

3. Build a relation with users: too many developers think that once your app is installed on a device the job is done. You can only get attention on the device if you constantly capture this attention. And the best way to do it beyond building a great app is by creating a real relation with your users. An app should not be different from a web site in the sense that you need to keep your users informed, engaged and happy: build a notification channel, use push notification (optin of course) or newsletters, get a real feedback system in your app, animate your app..

Many apps struggle with that part and use the app update notes to do that. that is plain wrong. no one read update notes. It is easy to do better [we introduced a solution for that in private beta]

Rediscovery is going to be a more visible marketing problem in the next months. A whole generation of users are consuming apps more and more. Up until now, it was a manageable pain. But it will be less and less so.

Now there is something search is not good at today and there is no one single company who created this dimension (for now): in-app search

Sarah’s idea is to suggest that app search should be made possible thanks to a better indexing of the app metadata. But there is more. Imagine a meta-search engine that tells you in which of your native apps you can find the info you need: eg search “Ghost Protocol” and the engine will answer you that results are available in IMDB app, Allocine app that you own and in RunPee app that you don’t own. You don’t even need to know which app is good for that query.

Yes, you would not even need to know which app you need. The smart search engine would actually tell you which app you have or have not and point you right to the page result in the app 

What a great experience it would be. This is incredibly hard to build and even google is not even close to that.

In the meantime, use the tips above and you should already feel better

Nearly 300 000 news apps were published (out of which 260 000 still live) in the app store [for the curious 200k in 2010 and about 90k in 2009]. That’s a lot of new apps.

So, it’s time to look back before we look forward. The app world is getting better and better. So we took some time to review our favorites 2011 apps.

We’re not talking about updates of 2010 apps, but real new apps that were released this year.

You’ll find here a mix of gorgeous apps, sometimes very popular too (infinity blade II) and definitely some of our preferred apps which we find ourselves using very regularly. They also happen to be very popular among our community of users and highly rated in the app store.

Why 16? They fit in a home screen and we do recommend you try all of them (note: cardmunch is not available everywhere yet) – although we may add a few during the week based on your contribution

Enjoy the selection

And there is no Hanukah without gifts. So we’re offering you 10 versions of Menorapp a great little app for this coming celebration. Just look at the comment section of this blog post and get one of the promo codes [please just comment to say which code you have used]

 

Let’s start with our newest app, Logostream. We debuted this app at LeWeb last week. Check out the video…

We all know that there are far too many apps in the App Store, and simplifying the App Store/Android Market has always been at the heart of our platform. With Logostream, we’ve filtered the App Store to identify the apps from top brands. And it’s dead simple: fire it up and start browsing by brand. Maybe you’re a fan of Coca Cola…

That's right, Logostream is Universal

When you find the brand you’re looking for, check out all the apps they have on the App Store.

Coca Cola apps

It’s a Universal app,  and a fun, beautiful experience on iPhone and iPad. And if you don’t find your favorite brand, we invite you to suggest one right from the app!

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Next up are the Universal versions of Appsfire (no longer “Appsfire for iPhone”) and App Deals. It’s the same streams you know and love, but now in 1024 x 768 glory. iPad owners, we’re 110% sure that this is the best app discovery experience anywhere. So go update your app or download it for the first time from your iPad. Enjoy (because we know you will )

Appsfire for iPad

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Last but not least is the latest version of Appsfire for Android. We’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from users that Appsfire is a great way to manage apps, and with this update we’re putting Android owners in the cockpit.

Now, right from your Home screen, you can check out which apps you’ve added recently, which require updates, and more. We’ve also added a Task Manager so you can view which apps are using lots of memory. Kill tasks in a single click and set your Android free.

The New Home Screen

The new Task Manager

Many of you are coming from the US or all around Europe, that’s why we created an AppMix for Leweb: the best selection of apps to make the most out of the event.

You will find apps for the metro, for sharing business cards, for booking a cab, for booking a taxi and many else!

Go Get them!