Making the case for video previews in BBW

First off I want to say there’s a lot to love about BlackBerry World (BBW), however there are some key areas that could be given a little love. One of those is the video preview, from the the perspective of a consumer and a developer, they’re a must and this post’s aim is to show why. For one, videos would save a lot of the consumers time, as with just a few seconds they would be able to visually judge whether or not this was the app they wanted, because even if it is a free app, similarly judge this, a Continue reading Making the case for video previews in BBW

Mobile Development and ROI (Return on Investment)

Over the last 3 years or so, I’ve been very lucky in mobile development and IoT.  I’ve built hundreds of applications and games cross platform (yay for me), passed my 250,000th download (celebration time), but I’ve had some mistakes and also learned a few hard lessons along the way. I’m going to share my top 15 “rules” I use to define my development model, and share what I use to make my apps and games profitable today. Disclaimer:  Some of this information may be obvious and these concepts may not be a good fit for every developer and every platform, Continue reading Mobile Development and ROI (Return on Investment)

Short URLs for fun and marketing

During a discussion in the BBM Group “Baby Steps: BB Dev”, we were talking about apps sales and how to get more downloads. It was mentioned that in a recent developer survey, it was found that the more time a developer spent on marketing, as a percentage of development, the number of app downloads increased. A basic business principle, spend money on marketing to increase sales. After sharing this tidbit with the group, the discussion turned to tracking app reviews from different sources to see which ones are the most useful for increasing downloads. I had already started working on Continue reading Short URLs for fun and marketing

Painter – My First App

Painter was my first project that got me into application development and is currently available in Blackberry World for all BB10 devices (as of the latest release). The application lets users load a picture onto a canvas and then draw on it with any color they wish (basically it’s like MSPaint). Conceptually, Painter is very simple – You load a picture and layered on top of that picture is a webpage with a transparent background. However, I did face several challenges and I wouldn’t have even released the application if it wasn’t for the support I received from another developer. Continue reading Painter – My First App