 |
PC Keyboard
July 9, 2012
I released PC Keyboard this weekend.
It's for those times where you're sitting at your desk with your PlayBook and you have something of non-trivial length to type. You simply open the app, and then start typing on your PC keyboard. What you type is displayed on your PlayBook and copied into its clipboard so that when you're done typing, you flip back to the PlayBook app you were using and Paste.
My Dad discovered a great use case this weekend, which is for those people who only get their work email on their BlackBerry (and thus their PlayBook via bridge). If you need to type a response of any significant length on the weekend (or evening), it is much faster to type it out using your PC keyboard as opposed to your BlackBerry. Bingo, PC Keyboard saves the day. This implies that the app would also be extremely useful as a phone app for those that don't have a PlayBook.
Sales so far have been $52, so not a blockbuster but not a total flop either.
DJ Reyes from CrackBerry may review the app which would of course be great.
Once I release my "Open on PlayBook" app, it will be interesting to compare the response to the relative interest of people to beta test the app. (which was something like 10 people for "Open on PlayBook" and only 1 or 2 people for "PC Keyboard")
|
 |
Flix
July 9, 2012
It has been a couple of months since I released Flix to coincide with BB World. I think creating the app was worth doing, although user feedback has generally been quite negative, which is very disheartening. The average star rating is 1.5 stars. As I've noted before, BB devs are able to remove any review they want, so the app actually shows up in App World as 4.5 stars.
Many of the reviews I remove are like the following:
"1 star: scam: i dont write reviews on apps but this fucking app sucks waiste of money,DO NOT BUY PEOPLE"
"0.5 stars: refund pls: i think i shouldnt even start describing how useless this app is"
My assumption is that people like this have run into an issue with the app and haven't read the help section of the website, nor contacted me for assistance. I legitimately feel that these 1 star reviews are unfair, but it's easy to cross the line and remove negative reviews that are probably fair.
Despite so many poor reviews, I do get encouraging emails from people. Here are some of the nice things people have said recently:
"Many, many thanks for creating Flix and the Movie Selector. There is simply no other app for the Playbook that can hold a handle to yours!"
"Thanks for this great app at such a cheap price!"
Personally, I've found the app very valuable. Our 3 year old son has watched many cartoons on our PlayBook. Sometimes that's when he gets into bed with us at 6 am in the morning and we're too tired to get up, or sometimes it's on the couch downstairs. It can be nice to have him watch cartoons on the PlayBook even when the big screen TV is there, since it's less noisy for Meredith and I.
I've also enjoyed the app more than I thought I would. When our daughter Hazel was newly born, I would stay up until midnight with her so that Meredith could get some sleep, and so I'd sit on the couch holding her, watching episodes of Jericho on my BB 10 Dev Alpha with headphones so as not to wake her up.
That's something I find interesting about technology: If it's available to you, sometimes you end up discovering use cases that weren't obvious to you at the outset. (1. kids watching TV in bed with you, 2. kids watching TV quietly, 3. watching movies with headphones)
I suppose the other thing worth mentioning about my use of Flix is that there is a novelty factor in watching a Netflix movie on your PlayBook. Like any novelty factor, it does wear off to a degree, but it still makes me smile when a member of our family watches Netflix content on our PlayBook. (or perhaps this is simply because I made the app)
The app started to slip in the rankings within a couple of days of its release, and actually disappeared off of the Top Paid section. I expect this is because it didn't have any good reviews at that point, and so prospective buyers only saw half a dozen 1 star reviews.
Within a couple weeks, it finally surfaced back to the bottom of Top Paid and has worked its way up. It is currently #8, although typically it has been around #12.
On the financial side, Flix earns about $150 per day, which works out to $4500 per month. If that were to hold steady, it would be $55,000 per year, but I'd be very surprised if Flix turns out to be a long lived app.
Even though I have a financial incentive for a Netflix app not to come to PlayBook, you can count me in the group of those who are hoping Netflix finally delivers an app for PlayBook (and BB10). Quite possibly Netflix will deliver an HTML5 version of their site which isn't dependant on Silverlight, and that would be great too.
|
 |
playbookdev.netJuly 9, 2012
playbookdev.net is a place for me to share the experiences I have developing for PlayBook, as well as share various thoughts and opinions. older >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
