Some fixes incoming!

Well, as I mentioned before My Animal Age Free was doing terribly. I really didn't pay attention to details as I should have. So, I fixed it!

I tightened up the UI so text isn't overlapping. I fixed the Dog and Mouse calculations. And I did a little housekeeping on the back-end of the code.

I took the opportunity to do the same with my paid version of My Animal Age.

OK, I actually did buy the Telerik Rad Controls and used them to do that tightening of the UI. And wow. I didn't really do that much with them but after taking a moment and practicing with the DockPanel control, it really made the textbox, button and image seem a little tighter and cohesive.

Oh, and got my first earnings check from Microsoft for the paid apps. I won't spill the exact amount, but suffice to say I think I might be able to afford a McDonalds Happy Meal with it. :D

Never really was in it for the money. At least, that would have just been icing on the cake. I'm just happy to do this in general.

My Animal Age Free woes

Note to self:

Be more aware of the changes you make when converting an app from one user flow to another.

Based on reviews so far of My Animal Age Free, which is essentially the paid version but with ads, it is fun for kids and interesting, but the dog and mouse do not work and the text is hard to read over the animals.

I fully admit I felt it was readable *enough* but that is obviously not the case so I will make some changes to get that text more readable. Can't have the text that is the POINT of the app unreadable.

Dog and Mouse do not work? How did I not notice that? Will fix right away.

Good for kids???? WHAT?!?! thats awesome and essentially my goal of these apps.

If any of the reviewers read this blog post, Thank You for your feedback. It's important to me and I will jump on fixes right away. I just wish there was a quicker way to communicate with my users to solicite and discuss the feedback as some reviews sometimes end up being a little too vague to act on.

Totally don't understand the metrics...

As of yesterday, My Animal Age had 98 downloads total. Whether that includes conversions or not, I am not sure. Today, it says 103. So, if I understand that right, in one day it got 5 downloads?

I also released an update that probably is hitting current owners (even trial owners) so I wonder if that increase is includes conversions?

Top that with the fact that the data in the charting and details with actual trials vs. paid and on what day is about 5 days old at any time, and I don't really know what is happening on a day to day basis.

I understand it has to deal with ensuring that paid apps are actually paid for and credit cards are not rejected, but still, would be cool to have more immediate info. Even if only a day old.

Just trying to make sense of it all, you know?

On a side note: My Animal Age Free (now w/ ads!) has been certified! It has not been published and pushed to the marketplace yet, but that's incoming. I will post when it's available.

A couple of bits and bytes

Well, I added some nice background analytics so I can understand the usage of My Animal Age and accidently left in the test key for the analytics. So that update that changes that and only that is submitted. Expect to recieve and then wonder if there is more but feel comfortable knowing there isn't.

Also of more importance is that I submitted an ad-drive FREE version of My Animal Age! Hit the submit button about 10 minutes ago, so don't expect it until sometime later next week.

I am really curious to see how the two compete against each other and against all of the other great kids apps in the kids+family category.

My Animal Age v1.3 out!

New version of My Animal Age is now out! It's been certified and is now processing to have the changes available on the marketplace within the next 24 hours.

This version has much smaller changes to it, but the most notable change is the icon. My graphic designer (a.k.a. wife) and I decided that the previous icon was too basic and not colorful enough, especially for kids.

Old Image:

New Image:

Notice how there is no title and it's far more colorful? It should attract more attention. Let's see how it plays now.

Scraaaaatch that. Got pinged for a collaberation project.

Been talking to an Android dev friend of mine in NY who has been doing some apps for Android and starting to branch into IOS. He has asked if I would like to do Windows Phone version of one that he is about to finish.

Since this is a little more defined than anything I got going on I think I'll be taking him up on this offer and crank it out. It looks like a fun app. Not as kid friendly I was originally going for but not exactly bad for kids either.

Once I can share some details, I will. Until then, stay tuned!

New App in the werks (<-- see what I did there?)

Been a bit, so I thought I would update (for all 2 of you out there that probably check often). I am set to release a free version of my app My Animal Age. It's become apparent that not too many people want to pay for a silly little app that plays sounds and lets you determine your age as an animal. This, despite seeing an app in the marketplace that does less than this but with twice as many animals and has been persistantly in the top 5. Need to understand the magic in that.

So I figure a free version will give a little more notice and a little more visibility overall. It will be ad'd at the bottom and have full functionality.

There will also be some back-end improvements to allow me to track usage so that I will understand which animals are used the most, how often it's used in used in general and so on and so forth. Think I'll add an opt-in messagebox.

That said, I am also working on a new app on the side. It utilizes the XNA framework, for now, to be a little gamelike. Keeping the theme of kid friendly and educational, this will fit right in.

Don't want to spoil anything yet, so stay tuned. But since I have never done anything revolving around collision detection and such, this will be a big step and change for me, who is currently used to more mark-up and binding with background code with static UI.

I'm looking forward to this challenge.