Lou Franco
These are the stories that have been posted by Lou Franco category.
Helen Crozier, the CalmTechCoach, has started a new iPhone Blog to keep all of her iPhone recommendations and reviews in one place. Check it out: My Fabulous iPhone
I saw this list of New Year's Resolutions on the Did I Get Things Done blog (originally from Amazon)
The main reason that I have had a problem with a resolution is that I don't really think about them much a week or so after New Year's. A few years ago, I created a small web app for myself to log how well I was doing at keeping to resolutions I was making. A few months ago, I ported it to the iPhone as Habits.
Instead of making resolutions this year, I created a few habits instead. I want to lose some weight this year (the #1 resolution), so I added a habit to run every 2-3 days, to do bicep/chest and shoulder/tricep weight training once a week. I want to keep my house in better order, so I added a habit to clean up and to process my mail pile more regularly.
A lot of these resolutions should just be a recurring task that you try to do as often as possible.
- Lose Weight
- Get Your Finances in Order
- Go Greener
- Curb Your Vices
- Get in Shape
- Relax More
- Pursue a New Career
- Upgrade Your Technology
- Organize and Optimize
- Start a New Hobby
The main reason that I have had a problem with a resolution is that I don't really think about them much a week or so after New Year's. A few years ago, I created a small web app for myself to log how well I was doing at keeping to resolutions I was making. A few months ago, I ported it to the iPhone as Habits.
Instead of making resolutions this year, I created a few habits instead. I want to lose some weight this year (the #1 resolution), so I added a habit to run every 2-3 days, to do bicep/chest and shoulder/tricep weight training once a week. I want to keep my house in better order, so I added a habit to clean up and to process my mail pile more regularly.
A lot of these resolutions should just be a recurring task that you try to do as often as possible.
Macworld reviewed some GTD iPhone applications including Habits:
Habits by Louis Franco helps users form good habits, which sounds simple enough. But developing habits requires a bit of time and discipline. It requires repetition and awareness. Habits keeps your calendar free from clutter associated with routine tasks or the general stuff of life.
Macword reviewed some GTD iPhone applications including Habits:
Habits by Louis Franco helps users form good habits, which sounds simple enough. But developing habits requires a bit of time and discipline. It requires repetition and awareness. Habits keeps your calendar free from clutter associated with routine tasks or the general stuff of life.
Habits on Sale for $0.99 until the end of January
Published to LouFranco.com by Lou Franco December 29, 2008 20:30
Habits is the perfect application to make sure that you stick to your New Year's resolutions, so from now until the end of January, I am putting Habits on sale for $0.99.
I am working on version 1.1, and I will post it at the end of January and return it to its old price. Until then, here's hoping that you're able to turn your resolutions into habits.
(The AppStore takes time to fully update -- please make sure it says that the price is $0.99 before you buy)
Buy Habits on the App Store
I am working on version 1.1, and I will post it at the end of January and return it to its old price. Until then, here's hoping that you're able to turn your resolutions into habits.
(The AppStore takes time to fully update -- please make sure it says that the price is $0.99 before you buy)
Buy Habits on the App Store
iPhone AppStore Answers from O'Reilly's Inside iPhone Blog. There are frustrations with the AppStore, but as O'Reilly acknowledges, Apple appears to be listening:
The other major improvement is dropping the NDA for released SDK's, thus opening up the possibility of books, online tutorials and blogging about iPhone development.Changes have been relatively slow to come to the App Store. However, with the addition of review copies, as well as limiting ratings to those who've purchased applications, Apple has made changes that have been welcomed by developers. I'm hopeful that the App Store will continue to improve over time and address additional issues.
More interesting iPhone pricing articles
Published to LouFranco.com by Lou Franco December 03, 2008 21:30
From Chris Anderson's The Long Tail blog, I got this link to some interesting iPhone pricing and sales data.
And, here's another iPhone app pricing article I got from John Gruber's DaringFireball. In the article, Peter Cooper uses popularity as a stand-in for units sold and and tries to figure out which apps have the most revenue. Put this one in your RSS feed if you are interested in hearing more as this installment covers mostly the Games category.Having more than doubled over the last two months, Gaming remains the largest category accounting for a quarter of all apps. The fastest growing categories were Education and Lifestyle. Medical is the newest app category and as of the end of November there were over 80 medical apps, the 10 most popular of which were free. Among Game apps, Racing, Music, and Sports were the fastest growing Game sub categories.
Today, Seth Godin is giving away iPhone App ideas, the first one helps you avoid traffic:
The second idea needs some kind of server-side dialier because Apple doesn't let apps run in the background:
The Google Maps app on the iPhone has traffic data already--what's missing is that I don't think it takes that into account when selecting a route, or updates it if conditions change. If the traffic data is available with an API (like most google data), then this might be easier than even Seth thinks (no server side) -- of course, no lock-in either.Have the iPhone use the gps data... upload where I was a minute ago and where I am now. Figure out my speed and route. Use the data to tell other RadaR users which route is best. It's worth $20 a month if you live in a place with traffic jams. It's a natural monopoly--once someone figures it out, why wouldn't everyone want to use the market leader?
The second idea needs some kind of server-side dialier because Apple doesn't let apps run in the background:
Here's an easier one that you could probably sell as well. I type in a phone number and enter a time. Record a message and press go. I can cue up a bunch of messages that are based on time. I can have groups get the message I record, at the time I want them to get it.
Interesting iPhone App Pricing Articles
Published to LouFranco.com by Lou Franco November 29, 2008 18:30
When I was trying to figure out a price for Habits, I found a few articles that were interesting. This one from Andy Finnell made the rounds on Reddit and advocates for busting through the $0.99 mentality and pricing applications in the $9.99 range.
John Gruber made an interesting point when he linked to Andy (software with higher prices needs demos and refunds)
Tap, Tap, Tap has had a couple of AppStore hits, so what they have to say is also very interesting.
This other article from Andy is also good.The fix for pricing too low is really simple: raise your prices. Most $0.99 apps should become $9.99, $4.99 apps should become $14.99, and so on. With a $9.99 app, you’d make $7 per copy and at 16 copies per day, you’d make about $40,000/year. That’s not a great income, but that could potentially support one iPhone product being developed in some Iowan’s wheat field.
John Gruber made an interesting point when he linked to Andy (software with higher prices needs demos and refunds)
Tap, Tap, Tap has had a couple of AppStore hits, so what they have to say is also very interesting.
iPhone apps are typically much smaller and more focused than desktop apps and as such, should be priced accordingly. In addition, you need to take into account the much larger market that you’re dealing with here… Apple is selling well over 10,000 iPhones per day and these are all potential new customers, plus all the existing iPhone owners and iPod touch sales.
Thanks to Google, there's a unit-testing framework for the iPhone. There's not much more to say about it -- the instructions are crystal clear and it worked exactly as described. It's compatible with OCUnit (the Objective-C unit test framework in XCode), so once you set it up, you can just create test cases the way you would for any ObjC project.
One quirk -- it instructs you to add a build step that runs the unit-tests during build time and shows the failures as compiler errors that you can then use XCode to track down. That's nice, but I have found that you don't really have enough of an environment to successfully run every kind of test -- they run fine if you run them in the simulator. The main problem I have is with setting up my database in my Documents folder -- I get errors at build-time that work just fine at run-time.
One quirk -- it instructs you to add a build step that runs the unit-tests during build time and shows the failures as compiler errors that you can then use XCode to track down. That's nice, but I have found that you don't really have enough of an environment to successfully run every kind of test -- they run fine if you run them in the simulator. The main problem I have is with setting up my database in my Documents folder -- I get errors at build-time that work just fine at run-time.