So, who‘s this guy?

Prime Guide – TV Guide App

Prime Guide: TV Overview

Prime Guide: Broadcast Details

Prime Guide: Gallery

Prime Guide: Tablet

Prime Guide: Google TV

Technology Overview

Prime Guide

Server Cloud

Prime Guide App

SQLite Database

Remote ORM

Managers

GUI

Events

EPG Data

Source ($$$)

Libraries used

Action Bar Sherlock

Android Support Library

EventBus

Facebook

Several internal greenrobot libraries:

Common Android stuff, bitmaps, cache, …

In total: 12 client libraries used

Libraries are essential for app dev!

Libraries written for Prime Guide

greenDAO

Fast O/R Mapper (code generation)

Object oriented access to SQLite

Open Source

Protobuf RPC

Binary Client/Server RPC protocol

Based on Google Protobuf

Multiple remote method calls per request

Backend – Why App Engine?

The 20:15 peak automatic scalability

No OS maintenance / administration

High availability

Backed by Google and its infrastructure

Good Java support

Task Queues for background processing

Easy deployment / version control

App Engine: nothing‘s perfect

No SQL (no, that‘s not cool)

P.S.: Today there‘s Cloud SQL ($)

Proprietary APIs (no full JEE standard…)

Data store impacted our data model

Entity groups, TX consistency, …

Request time limits (no long polling etc.)

Local server: slow, not 100% compatible

Not the cheapest solution

Some Backend stats

Requests per second, 24h

20:15 New day, Widget updates

Some Backend stats

Number of serving instances, 24h

20:15 New day, Widget updates

Are we ready yet?

December 2012: Should we release?

Personal impression of the app

About 100 TV channels are plenty

Basics OK, some cool features still missing

100+ issues in our backlog, hmm…

OK, let’s release anyway… Before Xmas!

Code crunch & last minute PR started

Big question: Will people like it at all?

First day in the store

Beta Release on December, 21st

1,500 installs

4.6 stars rating

Phew!

Good start, how will it continue?

Can it keep the great rating?

Our last Minute Marketing…

Trying to spread the word

We informed 1,000,000 blogs upfront

One bigger mobile blog picked it up

It was worth the effort

As expected, People liked…

Native Android look and feel

Simplicity, thought-out UI

Speed of the App

First class tablet support

Features

2D scrolling TV overview

Integration of movie related web sites

YouTube videos

Reminders

And a few Surprises…

People were happy to give feedback

Other features matter to them

Most wished: add channel XYZ

Top Missing features

Search

Support for TV series (reminders, etc.)

Surprises continued…

Data collected during a 14-day period ending on March 4, 2013

Devices statistics from Google

Device statistics from Google

Just one problem with these stats:

It shows all devices

The real question should be:

Which devices install new apps?

Android Versions, Prime Guide

April, new data

Marketing Campaign (paid)

CPI campaign with a Android website that

also run a 3rd party store

Good impact in 3rd party store:

Downloads over Time

Marketing Campaign / Play

Prime Guide featured on a big German

Android web site plus newsletter coverage

So, what‘s the impact in Google Play?

Unexpectedly low:

Downloads over Time

How to make people rate you

Ratings are essential for success

Make it easy for users to rate your app

But don‘t force it on them (dialogs, …)

Our solution:

Info Screen

Great place to let

users engage

Customer Support

Take feedback seriously

Answer each mail personally (we try to)

Value people‘s input, they invested time

We track wishes and prioritize accordingly

Implement feedback: makes people happy

Takes time, about ½ - 1 day per week

Things underestimated…

Complexity of TV Data

Legal issues with TV Data (Germany)

Costs of TV Data

App Engine quirks

General complexity, both app and server

infrastructure

Optimize for Smartphones,

Tablets and Google TV for

initial launch.

Lessons learnt

One of our biggest mistakes?

Pick great new technologies,

create them if non-existent.

Lessons learnt

Whatever, that’s the fun part.

& Solid base to build upon.

Takes its time…

Do projects for living, too.

Lessons learnt

Focus and take risks.

(If you can afford it.)

Release before you think it‘s

perfect.

Lessons learnt

Reality check!

Are you on the right track?

Release a beta version.

Lessons learnt

People are more tolerant.

How did we do since?

Rating improved by adding TV channels

~ 100.000 downloads

Next milestone: leave beta with V1.0

New features

Ads, or paid version

That‘s it. Thanks for listening.

Thank you!

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© Copyright 2013 Markus Junginger

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