For developers working on a new, exciting iPhone app idea, the possibility of a competitor releasing an iPhone app that is identical to theirs is a real risk. As such, the focus usually is on rushing the iPhone development process, and getting the first version out there as quickly as possible.

While the concern is valid, this strategy invariably leads to poor first version releases, negative reviews in the App Store, and the loss of the novelty factor for the application. Because in order to get the first version out fast, iPhone developers make some important compromises, which adversely affect the popularity of the app, and its revenue potential.

These compromises most commonly include:

Drop Twitter and other viral promotion features
This is usually considered as the most dispensable feature. ‘If people like the app, we can always add these things’ is the argument most iPhone developers make. The truth is that it is essential for the first version to offer viral promotion options such as posting updates to Facebook or Twitter. Your first version has the novelty factor, and that’s when people are most likely to tell their friends about your app. If it’s been a couple of months, it’s old hat–there are two thousand newer applications to talk about!

Use an ineffective icon
An icon that looks dull, does not convey the right message about your app, and fails to catch the attention of the user is not serving its purpose. And changing the icon later on may not be such a good idea, since users relate to your app based on the app icon they see on their iPhone screens. Getting it right the first time will save a lot of effort later on, and also give that initial push your iPhone application needs. Trying out many different icons before picking the final design is essential.

Average User Interface
The first version of most iPhone apps is generally ‘a pale shadow’ of the real thing that is still inside the developer’s head. This is where people make perhaps the gravest mistake. When they first open the application, users are not going to focus on just the idea the way you want them to and ‘excuse’ the lack of polish or precision of controls. If your app doesn’t have the Save and Resume buttons of just the right size and color, responding precisely to touch and even able to interpret a swipe as a tap in some cases, then the idea itself will have little appeal to users.

Not enough care with presentation
This is another big mistake iPhone application developers make. The screenshots presented in the App Store are usually not attractive enough and are selected rather carelessly, and the description is often too clever and not helpful enough. Such shoddy presentation can be fixed with later versions, but by then thousands of users would have looked at your application and turned away to look for something else.

Dropping basic features like ‘global scoreboard’
This one applies to games in particular. When people play a game for a long time, and set a new record, the one thing they are most interested in is whether they are the best, or whether there is a new level they need to reach. Just about every iPhone game today incorporates a version of global, online scoreboard, and leaving such a basic  feature simply makes people expect less from you, as well as makes the game less appealing to users.

In general, the approach seems to be to just release a simple version first, and then if people download and like the idea, make a proper app / game out of it with all the bells and whistles.

But this strategy is wrong for many reasons. The truth is that there are over 40 million users out there. To get the maximum number of users, you cannot afford to drop the viral promotion features. Also, with the very high volume of application releases on iPhone, there is little chance that you will get any user to look at your application more than once in the App Store.

How well you present your app in those five second in the App Store, and then in the first 15 seconds when the user launches your app for the first time will determine the success of your application. And getting the first version right is key.

Here’s why: I was traveling over the weekend, and suddenly thought of a new article idea for my iPhone development blog. I was excited right then, and had to at least get a detailed outline ready. And of course I wasn’t anywhere near a computer. So I typed it all in the Notes app on my iPhone. I imagine people write about 3 or 4 lines at the most in this tool. By the time I was done, I had nearly 350 words. And I realized that for that kind of use, the Notes app is no good. The yellow background gets very annoying, and the default font–which you can’t change–looks ugly when you have a screen full of text.

So I decided I needed something better, and went looking in the App Store. After some searching, my options were down to about 3 or 4 iPhone apps. Short-listing these 3-4 apps took long enough but the funny thing was, once I had shortlisted these apps, I still couldn’t decide which one to purchase. There was a simple reason for this: For all the care during the iPhone app development, the actual presentation of these apps wasn’t very good. The apps didn’t give me all the information I needed, and they did not answer all the questions I had about the apps.

What went wrong
Let me explain with examples, in some detail. The apps I had shortlisted were:

• Bento
• Evernote (this one’s free)
• Awesome Note
• Documents To Go
• Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files

What I’m looking for is very specific: a plain, no-frills typing background on my iPhone, with auto-save etc. so I don’t lose any text in case a call comes in, the ability to copy / paste across notes as well as across iPhone apps, and the ability to maintain simple folders.
System-wide copy / paste function is important. I plan to write entire posts for the iPhone development blog using this app, and then copy them into my Wordpress iPhone app and publish articles straight from my iPhone. Equally important is the ability to copy paste across notes and folders, so I can edit and modify drafts in progress at will.
There were some pretty good apps, but as it turns out, I simply couldn’t decide which app would work best for me.

Bento

Bento looks pretty good, but it offers too many things that I do not need, and the screenshots show a fancy interface, but I can’t be sure if the actual typing experience is clean and simple. Also, there’s something about requiring their software on my iMac to sync with my iPhone, so I can get the documents out of my iPhone. Does that mean I can’t simply email the drafts from my iPhone to myself? No answers.

Evernote

Evernote was promising but I had to download it (it’s free, so that wasn’t a problem) to figure out I had to always have Internet / 3G access to use it, and I needed an account with Evernote, so they’ll be storing all my drafts on their servers somewhere. Not quite what I was looking for. And again, without actually creating an account, I had no way of telling how good or bad the typing experience would be. No screenshots to help out with that. So ruled out, again.

Awesome Note

Next on my list was Awesome Note. This looked promising. It had all the things I was looking for–copy paste, ability to maintain folders, and the ability to set passwords for folders was thrown in too, for good measure. Still–questions remained. The screenshots all show fancy typefaces and I’m looking for simple Verdana or Arial. Is that something I can change in app settings? There’s a pink background in the only screenshot that shows typing in progress. Nothing against pink, (well, it’s not a color I relate to) but imagine a 500 words draft with a pink background. Maybe I can change the color to a default white? No answers.

Documents To Go
Another app that looks great is Documents To Go. It looks like overkill for what I need, but I don’t mind paying for the extra features as long as I get the ones I want. In fact, the word count feature is something I hadn’t thought of, but I’m sure it can come in handy. This app answers almost all my questions, and gives me the information I need, perhaps simply because the features I’m looking for are all there. But the emphasis on MS Word is a bit too heavy for me. Will I be able to type without that annoying paper clip popping up? I suppose so, but you know what I mean. If toolbars and status bars take up half the screen on my iPhone, then the app is no good for me. (One of the screenshots seems to hint that annoying toolboxes and tool tips can crop up, but I can’t be certain.)

Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files
The one that I’m most likely to purchase is Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files. It’s screenshots are well organized, so I know very well what kind of typing experience it will be, and I like the look of it. It mentions copy / paste, and it clearly says, “email the notes.” Password protection is a plus. No word count, but if you’re still reading this, you know I don’t particularly obsess over word count once I start writing!
So Notebooks it will be, almost certainly.

Conclusion: Things missing in iPhone development
But all this searching started me thinking about how, for the user who goes into the App Store looking for something, it’s essentially a question and answer session. I look at the app name, and I have questions. You, as the developer, have the next three or four lines to answer them. What questions are most likely? That’s for you to figure out. Are the screenshots just for the prettiness, or will they help me make a purchase decision? Again, that’s up to the developer. The developer’s job doesn’t end when app development is finished. App Store presentation is an important part of iPhone app deployment.
In the next few posts, which will all be much, much briefer than this one, I’ll be looking at the various aspects of App Store presentation, ranging from selecting screenshots to drafting the descriptions and everything else along the way.

P.S. The article I got excited about is still a draft, but I’ll be posting it right here on this blog sometime this week for sure. Stay tuned.

Jeff Hughes is one of the writers at 148apps.biz, and also offers a course on iPhone app marketing at Xcelme. You can find him on Twitter too, if you like.

The numbers in the presentation are outdated, by the way. This was four months ago, after all, and things change very quickly on the iPhone platform. But as it happens, I’ve just finished putting together a presentation on iPhone app marketing challenges and solutions. It’ll be a few days before I can share it here, since it still needs some cleanup, and in the meantime the weekend beckons.