Mooo! Oink! SSSSSSSssssss!

Major update posted for My Animal Age!

Here are the changes, but note: ANIMAL SOUNDS!

v1.2

• Now plays animal sounds when an age is calculated, or when the animal is tapped.
• Trial mode now shows animals that can be accessed in full version.
• Buy button (trial) or Rate/Review button (purchased) in Settings now available.
• Blog and Email in Settings are now tappable to view the blog or to send email feedback.

Really, the biggest items on that list are the animal sounds and the revamped trial mode.

I had been wondering why I wasn't having much of a trial to purchase conversation rate then a week or two ago I realized I had no button within the app itself to buy immediately, nor even any teasing of what is available in the full version. So that is a big change.

The animal sounds was always something I wanted to do in the original release, but due to time constraints and, well, I just wanted to get my app out, I held it back. Then, lo and behold, I get a 5 star review but it asks for animal noises. Well, they are on their way!

Thanks for everyone checking out the app and hopefully this will be a lot more fun and entertaining for you and your children.

Expect the update to be streamed to your phones by end of week (hopefully) or early next week. It's all up to Microsoft on when it gets pushed out at this point.

Highlighted on Metro Developer Show

There is a really good and genuinely funny podcast aimed at "Metro developers and enthusiasts" that I listen to every week. It's called The Metro Developer Show. They highlight news and info on anything Metro based, from Windows Phone to Windows 8 (actually, what is in-between?).

Anyways, great podcast and I try to contribute with info I find to share. Well, since I finally finished my app, My Animal Age, I decided to share and they were kind enough to plug the hell out of it. :)

That episode can be found here. Also, I shared an e-book over twitter to them and they discuss it briefly as well. I'll discuss that in a separate blog post.

Even before they gave me such an ego boost, I've always found their show to be sincerely wonderful to listen to and will continue to as this developer ecosystem gains more and more ground.

Downloads slowly climbing

I'm up to 33 downloads, with 2 purchases! It's obviously a very slow start but I never expected this to make any real money. more for fun and for experience. If I hit paydirt, then that's just icing on the cake!

I think it's also going to really help that I started advertising on a site called Windows Phone Parent on the side bar and I guess they get pretty good traffic. My downloads trickled away until I did the advertising and then it started up again. So I think it's helping.

No where to go but up from here!

My Animal Age catalog update

Wow that was nice and quick!

Got my catalog update already certified and published. This includes new marketplace iconography and a far better description. However, it hasn't migrated to the marketplace yet so it still looks terrible. That can't happen soon enough. So embarressed.

You can find it here.

Up to 22!

Hit 22 downloads sometime recently. Unfortunately, all trials. However, that's great that people are trying it out. Since there is a lag on the time downloaded to when reported, it's entirely possible that some of those have been converted to paying customers.

That said, I'm sending a metadata update to the marketplace to fix some description errors (and make it snappier. Thanks Wife!) and change the artwork so it does not have a transparent background.

Look for that update to come soon.

3 downloads!

So far, 3 other people have tried my app.  No reviews yet though.

 

Still, pretty exciting!

Posted from UpdateMyFeed for Windows Phone

Learning Experience

Once you submit an app update, you cannot make changes to the catalog text or image. Once you submit an app update, you cannot submit another.

While I knew the latter, I was unaware of the former. What does this mean? The most crushing item I want to fix right now is the marketplace icon. While the art itself is just fine, I want to add text to the bottom with the name of the app My Animal Age. Also? if the background is white, you won't see the art at all!

So in certain places that categorize and display new apps, my icon/tile is simply...white. It looks like nothing.

sigh...

This update cannot complete certification soon enough. But here is how it should look:

The beautiful wife, being the graphic designer she is, immediately had contention with the comic sans font. I'll change it once she comes up with something better. :)

v1.1 of My Animal Age has been submitted. This covers the following:

• Keyboard persistence issue where if you opened the keyboard by touching the textbox, then swiping away, the keyboard stays and the focus stays on the same animal's textbox
• The trial purchase reminder and rating reminder popups originally asked after the 3rd app start. Now they ask after every 3rd app start.
• App description changes to fix missing words and a description of the Live Tile feature.

Should be out by end of next week, at the rate apps are being certified.

Here is the link to My Animal Age.

If you do not have a windows phone, you can still see the app but obviously cannot purchase it.

For those that do, you can download it now. It appears to not be searchable yet, but that's a matter of time. It should show up on the New list shortly as well.

I'm officially a published Windows Phone app developer!

CERTIFIED!

For sure this time! Got the email and everything! Now I just have to wait the roughly 24 hours or so for the publishing process to move the app to the marketplace. I'll post a link once this is complete!

Fantastic!

So, whilst I wait for My Animal Age to finally publish, I have been thinking of my next app. Talked it over with my beautiful wife and came to the conclusion that while I really want to do a game, I should get another smallish app out first. Especially considering that I am enjoying the educational side of things. After all, a game I'd like to build would be a full-blown, RPG-ish educational game.

That said, I have decided that my next app will be an XNA framework title, so I can learn to understand it for the game I will want to eventually build.

This will be an educational game, a puzzle like app that puts together the letters and numbers. I have it all in my head right now but I've seen my son play these kinds of apps on his mom's iPhone and he loved them, so I figure since I haven't seen one on Windows Phone yet, I'll build it!

More to come. Stay tuned.

Weeeell, fixed a couple bugs in My Animal Age but I cannot submit those fixes until my initial submission gets finally published. So if you came to here to give me feedback on the keyboard persistence issue or that my ratings requests pops up every time after the third start of the application, then know it'll get fixed when I am allowed to.

In the meantime, I guess I'm going to have to wait until sometime next week (hopefully within the first couple days) to see my app published. It's taking at least 7 days lately because of high volume of app submissions. Oh well, I'll just start on a new app in the meantime. :)

Bug Found

Well, darn it. Already found a bug before My Animal Age was published. Handed my phone to my sister-in-law to show off the app and almost immediately she does something unexpected and finds a bug.

If you press on the text box to enter a number and get the numeric keyboard to appear, then swipe left or right away from that animal, the keyboard persists and the focus disappears from that text box...however, if you press any numbers, it will enter in that animals text box anyways. Going to fix that and submit the update soon.

I am totally watching this pot of water, waiting for it to boil and it's taking forever!

My app is in the certification process. What I thought was it being certified only means it is in progress of being certified. I guess this is the longest part where they test the app and do content checking. I have a little longer to wait now. It will be published and it will be cool and people will like it. Just keep thinking positive!

In the meantime, time to start thinking about next steps. Does that mean the patch to add facts to My Animal Age? Does that mean design work on a new app? Hmm, so many choices to go with here.

Its certified!

it is!  All that is left is for it to be published!

Posted from UpdateMyFeed for Windows Phone