Author Archive for drew

What Happens When Apple Features Your App?

Published
by
drew
on September 10, 2009
in billminder
. 14 Comments

BillMinder is our most popular application. It has been in the Top 20 Paid Finance apps since it’s release over a year ago. We recently made a lot of changes to BillMinder and got some unexpected but appreciated help from Apple, <3. We thought we’d share what we did and what it changed.

Push
In the middle of July we launched Push Notifications support in BillMinder. Early on, we could tell Push for BillMinder would be very server intensive. Unlike with other real-time apps, our push server couldn’t just forward messages it received to our users. It would have to maintain a database of (anonymized) bills on our server. This database would need to stay in sync each users installation of BillMinder. We would also have to regularly check the database to notify users of upcoming bills. Timezones suck. All of this made us realize that we couldn’t just give away push with our (regularly) $1.99 app. We had seen too many other apps do server side stuff and fail miserably in terms of reliability, plus the cost was going to be pretty high. We couldn’t afford to host the server, write and maintain the server software to run it at a loss. We decided that a yearly fee of $0.99 USD (or equal currency in your region) would cover the costs needed to maintain the server. Since it’s initial release, we’ve had to upgrade our push server twice to compensate for the additional load. We will continue to do so as needed in the future.

Since version 1.6 hit the store, about 2800 users have purchased the push add-on feature. From those users, we currently maintain a database of 115k bills. As of today, we have sent out notifications for 27k bills. Only a small percentage (about 10-15%) buy the push feature. We realize that we’re potentially losing sales for charging for the push feature, but we feel that doing so gives those who use the service the best experience possible.

Security continues to be a priority to us so BillMinder sends only the minimal required, non-identifiable data to our server for push notifications over SSL.

UI
BillMinder has always been the most feature rich bill tracking application on the AppStore. However, it hasn’t always been the prettiest. During most of it’s life, we would focus our updates on fixing bugs, and adding new (mostly user suggested) features. Neither one of us are graphic designers, so the aesthetics of the app were always weak at best. This left the door open for other apps that were pretty, but had significantly fewer features to surpass us. And they did. We then realized something very fundamental about success on the app store. Looks matter. A lot. We knew it was time for a change, so we decided that our next update would be a major one, worthy of a new major number, 2.0. It would completely redesign the interface from the ground up. Instead of submitting version 2.0 as a new app, we decided to give it to existing users as a free update even though it was the largest update, in terms of development effort and cost, to date.

The new design was a big hit with our users, and sales showed it. Soon after release of 2.0, BillMinder shot up to #1 in Finance for the first time ever!

What’s Hot
Even though BillMinder was consistently in the top of its category, it has never really garnered any big attention from anyone, including Apple. That is, until we reached #1 in finance. After a few days sitting in the top spot, Apple (<3) featured our app in its ‘What’s Hot’ section. Sales went up dramatically.

billminder-whats-hot

BillMinder sold an average of 100 copies a day. New releases and market fluctuations would vary that number slightly, but it never reached much higher than 200 sales on it’s best days. Then 2.0 was released. Our sales quickly increased to near 400/day (our highest yet) before falling back near 200. We assumed that sales would probably settle around that point (assuming we could hold #1) and we were very happy with this as it was nearly double our average. Then we magically appeared under ‘What’s Hot’ and, well, the graph says the rest. Thanks, Apple.

BillMinder Sales Over the Past Month
billminder-whats-hot-sales-graph-2

BillMinder has been our most popular application and, as such, as received the vast majority of our development time. Our SVN repository currently sits at 729 revisions and continues to grow daily. It easily includes literally hundreds of engineering hours and significant investment in design. We’ve released 13 updates and are working on update 14 now, as well as much more coming in the near future (including a companion app). We hope you like BillMinder as much as we do!

BillMinder Turns One

Published
by
drew
on September 2, 2009
in billminder
. 1 Comment

This month marks the one year anniversary of BillMinder’s first appearance on the AppStore.  It has changed quite drastically since it’s initial version.  Over the past year, it has evolved from a rather simple application to the most feature-rich bill tracker on the AppStore.  Version 2.1 (currently in review) marks the 13th update BillMinder has received.  We take great pride in offering our customers continuing, quality updates, and will continue to do so.

BillMinder Icon 1.0 vs 2.1

The screenshots below show the immense change between the current BillMinder and it’s first incarnation.  They grow up so fast, ;) .

BillMinder Push Notifications FAQ

Published
by
drew
on July 2, 2009
in billminder
. 0 Comments

BillMinder Push Notifications are almost here!  In preparation for it’s release, we’ve added a Push Notifications FAQ to our forums.  Please check it out and let is know if you guys have any other questions.

BillMinder 1.6 Preview (for iPhone OS 3.0)

Published
by
drew
on June 16, 2009
in billminder
. 1 Comment

BillMinder 1.6 is almost ready!  The new features include In-App Email, Calendar View, and Push Notifications Support.  Here are some screens to wet your appetite (keep in mind these are non-final preview screens):

BillMinder 1.5 Almost Ready

Published
by
drew
on April 26, 2009
in billminder
. 5 Comments

We’re nearing release of BillMinder 1.5.  This release brings the most new features ever added in a BillMinder update.  Here are a few screens to wet your appetite:

Coming Soon: PlaceTagger

Published
by
drew
on March 26, 2009
in announcement and placetagger
. 0 Comments

We are pleased to announce that our newest iPhone app, PlaceTagger, is nearing release.  PlaceTagger will geotag your photos with the place where each photo was taken.  Best of all, it will tag photos taken with any digital camera.

Have you been noticing that new Places feature in iPhoto 09, but never been able to really use it?  Now you can.  Are you a professional photographer tired of dealing with multiple devices and tons of GPX files?  Here’s your solution.  Are you tired of typing in each address for every photo before sharing on your favorite online site?  Now it’s simple.

What sets PlaceTagger apart from the competition is the ease of use.  You don’t have to remember what time you took each picture or deal with exporting/importing data files.  Just open up the (free) companion OSX App or Aperture Plug-In and let it do the work for you.  Of course, if you are in to exporting/importing data files, we support that as well, :D .

Here are some screen shots to wet your appetite:

PlaceTagger iPhone Recording Tab

PlaceTagger iPhone Advanced Settings Tab

PlaceTagger OSX

PlaceTagger Aperture Plug-In

Oh, and for our Windows friends out there.  A version of the companion app for Windows is currently under development.

BillMinder Beta Testers Wanted!

Published
by
drew
on January 20, 2009
in announcement and billminder
. 0 Comments

We are now accepting applications for the newly created return7 Beta Program.  Please see this post in our forums for more information.

BillMinder 1.3.1 bugfix released to Apple

Published
by
drew
on January 14, 2009
in billminder
. 2 Comments

As I’m sure most of you have realized, there is a nasty bug in BillMinder 1.3.  We were so concerned about making sure the new database update didn’t hose existing data, that we overlooked an issue with some of the new UI elements.  This issue is a display issue only, so don’t worry about it saving the incorrect data you may be seeing.  It has been fixed and released to Apple, so hopefully it will be in your hands shortly.  In the meantime, a possible workaround would be to close and reopen the app each time you want to view a different bill.  We sincerely apologize for the inconvience.

CastCatcher Default Stations are Dead

Published
by
drew
on November 11, 2008
in castcatcher
. 5 Comments

We are aware that the built-in stations in CastCatcher v1.2 and earlier are currently no longer working.  These stations were a random assortment of shoutcast.com streams to provided an example for users adding their own stations.  These stations have since gone down.  These default stations have been replaced in v1.3 with live ones.

Current users:  please just delete the non-functioning stations and add your own.  That is the whole purpose of CastCatcher anyway!

BillMinder: Alerts are Adjustable!

Published
by
drew
on October 29, 2008
in billminder
. 4 Comments

It seems that one of the new features in v1.2 seems to be hiding from some of our users.  It has been requested a few times that we add the ability to change the period of time which you are alerted of your upcoming bills.  However, this feature already exists!  Just go to your Settings app from your dashboard then tap on the BillMinder icon.  Enjoy.

BillMinder 1.2 Now on AppStore

Published
by
drew
on October 27, 2008
in billminder
. 0 Comments

In an unpredicted and unprecedented move, Apple has released BillMinder 1.2 to the AppStore after only 2 days of review time!  Please update to take advantage of the new features.  As always, visit our forums for support.

BillMinder 1.1 undergoing final testing

Published
by
drew
on October 23, 2008
in billminder
. 0 Comments

Development of BillMinder 1.1 is completed.  Over the next few days we will be finalizing our testing and submitting it to Apple for review.  Along with many bug fixes, there are three main features added in version 1.1:

  1. Alerts
  2. Variable Recurring Periods
  3. Proper Phone Number Display

These three features have been the most requested.  We appreciate all your suggestions and will continue to add features in future releases.

BillMinder 1.01 Update Now on AppStore

Published
by
drew
on September 27, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

We just recieved notice from Apple that BillMinder 1.01 has been approved.  It should be hitting the AppStore within a few hours.

BillMinder 1.1 in the Works

Published
by
drew
on September 23, 2008
in billminder
. 6 Comments

BillMinder 1.1 is nearing completion.  Included in version 1.1 is the much requested Alerts feature.  Until Apple enables background app support, we currently can only display the alert when BillMinder is opened.  However, when you close the app, the BillMinder badge will display the number of bills you have coming due soon/past due.  Please let us know what you think in the forums.

CastCatcher 1.1 Available on the AppStore

Published
by
drew
on September 23, 2008
in castcatcher
. 0 Comments

CastCatcher 1.1 is now available on the Apple AppStore.  Also, CastCatcher 1.2 has been submitted for Apple’s approval.

BillMinder bug fix is almost ready

Published
by
drew
on September 17, 2008
in billminder
. 1 Comment

After much banging of heads, we have finally narrowed down the cause of the problem that many users have been experiencing.  The problem is caused by a sqlite3 function (sqlite3_last_insert_rowid) returning zero instead of it’s expected output.  It seems that this bug crept in with the 2.1 SDK as it worked perfectly fine under 2.0.2.  We have developed a fix and it is currently undergoing thorough testing.  It should submitted to Apple very shortly.

Forums are now LIVE!

Published
by
drew
on September 17, 2008
in announcement
. 0 Comments

We are pleased to announce the launch of our forums at http://forums.return7.com.  Throughout the day we will be migrating the information from our previous blog posts to the forums.  Please use them to find answers to your questions and help us build a community around our applications!

BillMinder Quick-Start Quide

Published
by
drew
on September 17, 2008
in billminder
. 0 Comments

There has been some confusion on the proper way to add bills/collectors to BillMinder.  To prevent this in the future, let’s dig a little deeper into how it actually works, followed by a simple How-To.  BillMinder stores its list of bills and collectors in an internal database.  The collectors exist independent of the bills.  A collector can have none, one, or more bills assigned to it.  Upon first installation, there is one sample bill and one sample collector in the database.  When adding your own bills/collectors, do so using the following steps:

New Bill/New Collector

These are the steps needed to add a new bill to a collector that does not exist in the database.

  1. Tap the ‘+’ on the home screen to bring up the ‘New Bill’ screen.
  2. Tap ‘New Collector’ to bring up the ‘New Collector’ screen.
  3. Enter the Name of the collector.  Optionally, add the Phone Number and Website for easy access.
  4. Tap ‘Save’ to add the new collector to the database.
  5. Ensure that the new collector’s name is shown in the Collector field.  If not, tap on the field and select the new collector from the picker list.
  6. Enter the Due Date, Amount, Recurring, and Paid status for the new bill.
  7. Tap ‘Save’ to add the new bill to the database.

New Bill/Existing Collector

These are the steps needed to add a new bill to a collector that already exists in the database.

  1. Tap the ‘+’ on the home screen to bring up the ‘New Bill’ screen.
  2. Tap ‘Select Collector’ to bring up the picker list of collectors.
  3. Select the appropriate collector from the list.  Tap ‘Done’.
  4. Ensure that the correct collector’s name is shown in the Collector field.  If not, tap on the field and select the new collector from the picker list.
  5. Enter the Due Date, Amount, Recurring, and Paid status for the new bill.
  6. Tap ‘Save’ to add the new bill to the database.

We will soon have forums available to provide more help and support for our applications.  For now, if you require more assistance, use the contact form on our homepage.

New site in the works

Published
by
drew
on September 11, 2008
in announcement
. 0 Comments

We are currently working on a new website which will be online soon.  It will add a much more user-friendly interface for accessing information about the company and our products.  We will also be adding forums for the discussion of our applications.  This blog will remain active, just not at it’s current location as our home page.

CastCatcher 1.0 Released! (BillMinder Delayed)

Published
by
drew
on September 11, 2008
in release
. 0 Comments

We are pleased to announce that CastCatcher 1.0 has been approved for release onto the Apple AppStore!   As for BillMinder, Apple requested a slight UI change to further comply with their strict UI guidelines.  The change has been implemented and the new version is back in Apple’s review queue.