09.12.10thu
Becoming a Featured App
Back in May, Craig and I released Numbrix (iTunes Link) for the iPhone, which is a game owned by Parade magazine. Getting a chance to work with Parade has been an amazing experience. Making that experience even more mind-blowing, the app got featured placement on iTunes app store. For an iPhone geek like me, it was definitely one of the highlights of my year! Since I haven’t seen people discuss it, I thought I would share how exactly becoming a featured app goes down.
In mid to late May we get an email from a gentleman at Apple, whom we will leave unnamed for this discussion. I can tell you this much, his email address was simply his first name at apple.com... and it was not Steve. Anyway, he tells us we “might” get featured, so we need to get some graphics put together... just in case.
This was rather tough. First off, we had to create a banner graphic knowing that we might not even get the placement. Second, we got the email at 4:52pm on a Tuesday, and needed to have the graphics back to him by the close of business that Friday! Third, Apple has pretty specific requirements on what these graphics had to be.
You have to provide Apple with two or three separate images.
The first is the title treatment/logo for the application. It has to be a vector graphic, or a minimum of 600x600 transparent PSD. It needs to be simple and easy to read if scaled down to a small size.
The second is the background. This can be a background image, a texture, a color, or a gradient, and it should correspond to the application or compliment the title treatment. This may include elements of the application, but should not include screenshots. It had to be a 900x530 layered PSD.
The third image is optional, which could be the company logo. They simply requested a high-res image with alpha channel.
Finally, Apple points out that they want the ability to place the title on the background “where it would best fit for the particular piece or web page being designed.” So you have to make your design in such a way that your title treatment can move around in any way that Apple sees fit once you pass along the various files to them.
I dropped everything I was working on to get something created. Keep in mind, I have to get this over to Parade for their approval before getting it back to our new friend at Apple! I manage to barely meet the Friday deadline... and then we wait. We are told that he’s going to suggest our app for the featured placement in their monthly meeting. At this point, I think there were about 50,000 apps in the store that we are competing with for the coveted space. We were told we might not hear anything back, we’ll just have to keep watching the store to see if it goes up. We did know that it wasn’t suppose to be for the month of June, so to keep an eye out the first Sunday in July when they do their next change.
The first week of July rolled around, and we checked the featured apps. Numbrix was not there. We were very disappointed. But then we looked down an inch and there’s this space called, “New and Noteworthy”, and smack dab in the middle of that section is the Numbrix icon. Craig and I figured this wasn’t a bad consolation prize!
Tomorrow, I will cover the benefits of this placement versus the featured placement.
But after the emotional roller-coaster ride, becoming comfortable with our “noteworthy” status, and a couple of weeks, we actually got featured placement!
The app has been reviewed in MacWorld, a magazine I’ve been reading since I was a kid. It’s been featured in iTunes, as well as receiving several other choice mentions from Apple. With those personal accomplishments, aside from getting to drive a firetruck, I can’t think of any other boy-like fantasies I need to fulfill to make my life complete!
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