I’m sure by now everyone who has an iPhone 3G or 3GS will be on iOS4 (I hope the 2G and 3G folks don’t feel left behind). OS4 is really cool for users in many ways. Multitasking, home screen customization, camera zoom, new mail handling capabilities etc etc. So that’s for the users. What about developers? How is iOS4 going to help developers? As Steve Jobs had announced back in April, iAd is going to “revolutionize” the way that application developers will be making money from Apple. I will be first introducing my readers to what iAd is all about and then will follow up with a post on how to integrate iAd into your applications.

Firstly, why iAd and what the hell is it all about? Do you realize the thousands of free apps in the app store have some form of advertising or marketing in built in them? It could either be in the form of some of those ads from admob or the app could be an extension of a business like ebay. Take the example of the ads served by admob. What happens when you click on the app? You get kicked out of the app and land on the advertiser’s website. So what if you want to get back to your app exactly at the same point that you left? Pretty much impossible if you ask me.

What iAd does is to exactly address this issue. The ad is served in such a way that when the user clicks on the ad, he does not have to leave the app at all. The ad appears right in the application and there is no need to leave the app. So after viewing the ad, the user is able to get back to the exact same point where he clicked the ad. Pretty cool if you ask me. Now users will not have any second thoughts to click an ad if they liked what is was serving.

iAd is supposed to bridge the gap between emotion and interactivity. In Steve Job’s keynote address he mentions that while internet ads have interactivity, they lack emotion. And while TV ads have emotion, they lack interactivity. iAd will have both interaction and emotion which is very apparent from the example ads that he has shown in his keynote. Let’s face it – this is going to revolutionize the ad industry in a big big way. The ads will not be intrusive and will be served to the user only once every 3 minutes. That’s almost like the frequency of a television ad according to Jobs.

As a developer I’m certainly excited to try this out. I have already thought of quite a few free applications which I will be launching over the next few weeks. Instead of just relying on the marketing returns, I can certainly hope for some immediate revenue through iAd IF it is successful. I have not seen any live iAd being served on my current apps. Still waiting to see how it will look like in real life although I do have a good feel of it after seeing Steve Jobs’ keynote address.

If you are interested to view this video then I would encourage you to take a look at this youtube video. Its pretty straightforward and gives you an overall idea of this cool concept. Trust me, its 9:38 minutes well spent

As I was looking at some of the Google Adsense ads on Malaysian Tech Blogger I came across this site called MyPhoneRiches. The ad promised $$$ by making iPhone apps easily and quickly. Out of curiosity I visited the website and what I read totally amused me. Being an iPhone application developer for more than a year I have actually come to learn that creating iPhone apps is not a piece of cake and it needs a lot of dedication and patience to learn it up.

Here is what the product promises:

Rake In Up To $27,249+ Per Day On

Complete Autopilot With An iPhone

App Business – Guaranteed!

What does this product comprise of actually?


Basically what this product offers are the following:

• How to churn out applications so hot people will be champing at the bit to get hold of them
• The ‘never fail’ strategy that ensures your apps don’t fall at the first hurdle (miss this and the entire development process could be a complete waste of time)
• Pages 43 and 44 reveal the free social media tactic that drives thousands of ready to buy iPhone owners straight to your Apps almost instantly
• Discover the exact kind of Apps that make customers unncontrollably reach for their wallets time and time again
• The top places for finding programmers who really know what they’re doing (don’t get taken for a ride elsewhere)
• How to ‘hijack’ the promotion efforts of the top sellers and effortlessly make $1000′s in sales riding the coattails of their success
• Learn the number one component practically every successful App must have or its doomed to failure
• Discover the secret online resources that make creating successful Apps as easy as clicking your mouse
• How to easily make extra income on the side of your new iPhone business, absolutely hands free (many developers totally miss the boat on this one)
• Page 11 tells you the two single must have ingredients… without these you’ll go absolutely nowhere in this business…
  And much, much more…

I’ve got to be absolutely honest and say that I am yet to purchase MyPhoneRiches. Even though I have been an iPhone developer for some time now I am quite interested to know what are the promotion strategies that have been advocated in this product. After all, when you are competing against 35,000 apps in the app store a sound marketing strategy will make sure that your app does not get buried in the sea of apps out there. I might be buying MyPhoneRiches soon. I guess there’s nothing to lose as it comes with a money back guarantee anyway!

After writing quite a few applications both for myself and my clients I started wondering about what really makes sense – free apps or paid apps? I mean its pretty straightforward when you think about paid applications, but why the heck would someone spend days or even weeks to create an app which is ultimately free for download? And why would a client be paying me big bucks to create one for him?

When I started out developing applications about a year ago, most of the apps that I developed were paid applications. Typically I stuck to the $0.99 tier and banked on volume to make money. It certainly worked for a while and I was happy with the income. Soon after, as the app store started getting crowded this was not the case. There were way too many apps around in the app store and some of them even started advertising their apps using companies like Admob. Admob has actually twice approached me on whether I would be interested in advertising my apps with them. Of course this will involve spending money as it goes by CPC similar to Google Adwords and Yahoo Searchmarketing.

I opted not to advertise my apps and was looking for a different route. I noticed that most major apps on the app store had a free “lite” version which was more like a teaser for the paid version. Since the app is free anyway, this would be downloaded by a lot more people and its pretty much free marketing for you. You need to make the lite version to be “just enough” for the user to want more. Its a very thin line between giving away too much and giving away too little. If you give away too much in the lite version, the user might not want to download the paid version since the lite version already has what he wants. If you give away too little, he would think that the application is not worthy of the amount that you might be charging for a download. So you got to figure that out carefully.

The other thing about free apps is that its an excellent marketing tool. This is why you can see many big companies like Coca Cola and DHL uploading free apps which serves as a great marketing and advertisement tool for them. More and more companies seem to be following this trend and I can assure you that even companies in Malaysia have started looking into this. Imagine being able to reach out to high end, tech savvy, decision makers and potential customers via a free app. This is definitely not quite possible using a “static” ad on a newspaper or a billboard. You are actually adding a certain element of interactivity and also a working version of the services that you are offering though the application itself.

So in my opinion, both free and paid apps have their place and value on the app store. It depends on what is your end goal and what is actually your strategy. A good app can really become a chart topper just by offering a trial version as long as you have just enough bait on your hook. At the same time, a free app can also be a great marketing tool for a company to add value to existing customers as well as reach out to new potential customers.

It’s been almost 3 weeks since I wrote a blog post on Malaysian Tech Blogger. Its not that I have been ignoring the blog, but recently I’ve been really busy setting up my own software solutions company – Inspiretech Solutions. The initial work has been done and I guess I can get back to blogging once again. The website is still work in progress though!

For those who are reading this blog for the first time, this post is a continuation of a three part series on How to become and iPhone app developer. In the previous post we saw how to sign up for an itunes connect account and also setting up the banking and tax information. This post will basically discuss what the next steps are.

Basically the next few steps involve installing the necessary certificates on your Mac. If you have signed up as an iPhone developer, you will receive a detailed pdf file which outlines all the steps. But here is an overview of the 10 golden steps that you will need to perform:

1. Assign any team members (if you have signed up for an individual account you will not be able to do this)
2. Obtain your iPhone development certificate and install it (takes about 15 minutes to do this)
3. Assign your Apple device – This is where you assign a development device. Even if your iPhone is jailbroken you can do this step. Apple will not lock your iPhone. This is how I have setup my iPhone 3G anyway.
4. Creating your App ID (optional if you have done this before)
5. Creating and downloading Development Provisioning profiles
6. Building your application
7. Installing your application on your development device and testing it
8. Preparing your application for distribution in the app store
9. Submitting your app in itunes connect.
10. Wait for at least a week for the application to be approved!

This is pretty much what you need to do to get your first app in the app store. If you are facing any problems in the above steps let me know in the comments section and I will try to help you! Good Luck!

This is the second part of a three part series of how to become an iPhone app developer. If you have not read the first part, you can read it here: How to become an iPhone app developer – Part One.

In part one, we saw how to setup an iphone developer account in the Apple website. Pretty easy stuff and you should have breezed through it if you know what you are doing. Now that you have your account setup, you should be able to login to the iPhone Dev Center. Once you have logged in, the first thing that you need to do is to download the SDK and install it on your Mac.

Look for the below section:

At the time of writing this post, the latest version of the SDK is version 2.2.1. It is recommended that you install the latest version of the SDK available as each new version will have better features and bug fixes as well. Downloading the file should take 2 – 4 hours depending on your internet connection. So you might want to let it download overnight and plan accordingly.

Once you have downloaded the .dmg file, it should take you less than 30 minutes to install in on your Mac.

Once you have setup the SDK on your Mac, you can be on your way to start writing your iPhone apps. But while you are at it, you should also setup your account at iTunes Connect. You will use your apple ID to login to this account also. Once you login to iTunes Connect, you will be able to see the following screen:

You will first need to setup your banking information (yeah, if you ever want to get paid). Click on “Contracts, Tax, & Banking Information“. Here you will come to a screen where you will need to enter the following information:

Contact Info (Your name and address)
Banking Info (Your bank name, branch address and SWIFT code. You do not need to enter the routing number)
Tax Info (You will need to fill out the W8-BEN form online. Do not worry about the TIN or EIN number. You do not need to call the IRS to get a tax number. For foreigners such as us Malaysians, just enter “000000000“. This will be sufficient.

Once you have setup the form, you will have to submit it online. It will probably take about 3-4 days for your contract to be in effect. Only after that you will be able to put “paid apps” on the app store. You will also be emailed a copy of the W8-BEN form which you will need to print out, fill up the same details and send it via snail mail to Apple. You can do this at your own pace but make sure that you send it to Apple before your first scheduled cheque from Apple.

Watch out for the last of the series on how to become an iPhone app developer where I will discuss the steps for setting up your XCode and installing various certificates on your Mac so that your application can be distributed through the app store.

Google Adsense has recently introduced a nice new feature for adsense ads – expandable ads! Pretty nice feature to have as it is really non intrusive, but its really going to be something to look forward to for a while for us Malaysian bloggers since it is available only for North American and European publishers. Isn’t it weird that Google actually makes it available for publishers based on their location rather than the reader’s location? Something wrong with the marketing team perhaps.

What are these expandable ads?

Here’s what Google has to say:

Expandable ads will be served as third-party ads and will be created by Google-certified rich media vendors for the top display advertisers in our network. And like other Google ads, you’ll earn based on whether the expandable ads on your site are priced on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Keep in mind that you’ll generate earnings from CPC expandable ads when a user visits the advertiser’s landing page, and not when a user simply clicks to expand the ad.

Yes that’s right – the user will have to click on the expanded ad and a simple mouse over will not be enough. I’m guessing that this is to prevent an accidental mouse over. So your reader will have to click on the expanded ad and reach the advertiser’s landing page pretty much like all other adsense ad formats. I’m guessing that there will be no CPM ads with the expandable ads and only offer CPC ads for now.

How to enable expandable ads on your site?

Like I mentioned, as long as you are located in North America or Europe and you publish in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish you will be eligible. All you need to do is to enable image ads on your website – simple!

Let’s hope that these expandable ads soon make their way to Asia and more importantly for us – Malaysia. After all, it certainly looks like a nice feature for adsense without obstructing the reader’s concentration. It does remind me of a certain Kontera though.

Update!

The adsense team has verified that the information that was initially posted was incorrect. The ads are available to selected advertisers in the US who can then decide their target locations. Here is the comment from the adsense team:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the comments so far. I just wanted to let you know that some of the information around how to display expandable ads was incorrect, and so we’ve just updated the post for accuracy. Expandable ads are available to a limited number of U.S. advertisers, who can then select the sites they’d like to target – so your location as a publisher won’t limit your eligibility. I apologize for the miscommunication — please feel free to continue leaving your feedback about this launch.

-Arlene

That probably means everyone as a publisher is eligible now – Yay!

This is the first part of a three part series on the steps to take to become an iPhone app developer. My brother and I have written 21 apps in the app store and they seem to be doing quite well at the moment. If you are able to nail the right idea you could be on your way to make some big bucks considering the customer base for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is especially enticing for us Malaysians considering the fact that you get paid in USD.

Of course the first step would be to get a Mac for yourself. Sadly the iPhone SDK and XCode will not work on windows. You probably would look at this as your first and probably only investment to become an iPhone app developer. Once you have your machine ready you’re ready to start!

Ok, first you will need to register yourself as an iPhone app developer at the developers website.

To register you can use your apple ID (if you have one) or you can setup a new apple ID as well.

Registration is a breeze and just follow the on-screen instructions to setup your account. You will need to provide your contact information. To enroll into the iPhone developer program you will also need to make a one time payment of $99 via your credit card to Apple. You will see a list of countries listed and Malaysia is not one of them. Instead you will have to choose the option “Click here if you do not see your country listed here”. This will bring you to a page which sends an email to the appropriate Apple team. You will be sent a form with necessary instructions to fill it up. You will need to fill up the form with your credit card details and fax it back to Apple.

After this its a waiting game. From my experience it takes anywhere between 1 week to 2 weeks for Apple to acknowledge your payment. I have no idea why this happens but talking to other iphone developers in Malaysia it seems that this is the norm. So nothing to worry about but do follow up the fax with an email to the Apple team.

This is step one of your exciting journey to become an iPhone app developer. Stay tuned for the next article which outlines the steps for downloading and installing the iPhone SDK on your Mac.

Updated: Check out “How to become an iPhone app developer – Part Two”

I’d really like to think that we’re somewhere near the bottom of this awful recession but my peers seem to think otherwise. I’m always an optimist and this has helped me get through tough times in my career and personal life too. So as I thought about what I intend to do to ride this freak wave of economic uncertainty, here are some things which came to mind:

1. Work at least an extra 2 hours every night once I put the kids to bed (yes, that means sacrificing TV time)
2. Continue working on my iPhone applications. I did make some decent money last year – no reason why I can’t do it again. I probably need to buy more books to improve my programming skills.
3. Work harder on my blogs. I do see some substantial increase in my adsense earnings. I need to figure other ways of monetizing my PR 4 blog – Newgadgetsguru.
4. Get some freelancing jobs – either writing articles or iphone programming. That should be easy!
5. Work on PPC for my Amazon associates. I did make some decent money in January in this new venture. But I need to monitor my spendings quite closely.

I think with the above 5 strategies in place I should be in good shape for 2009. My goal – be self employed by 2010. Hopefully I will start my own company and do all of the above full time. But nothing starts without goals – have you set yours yet?