App Savvy: Turning Ideas into iPad and iPhone Apps Customers Really Want [Paperback]

Ken Yarmosh (Author), John Jantsch (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2010

How can you make your iPhone or iPad app stand out in the highly competitive App Store? While many books simply explore the technical aspects of iPhone and iPad app design and development, App Savvy focuses on the business, product, and marketing elements critical to pursuing, completing, and selling your app -- the ingredients for turning a great idea into a genuinely successful product.

Whether you're a marketer, designer, developer, entrepreneur, product manager, or just someone with a unique idea, App Savvy explains every step in the process, with guidelines for planning a solid concept, engaging customers early and often, developing your app, and launching it with a bang. Author Ken Yarmosh details a proven process for developing successful apps, and presents numerous interviews with the App Store's most prominent publishers.

• Learn about the App Store and how Apple's mobile devices function
• Follow guidelines for vetting and researching app ideas
• Validate your ideas with customers -- and create an app they'll be passionate about
• Assemble your development team, understand costs, and establish a workable process
• Build your marketing plan while you develop your application
• Test your working app extensively before submitting it to the App Store
• Assess your app's performance and keep potential buyers engaged and enthusiastic

Three Myths About Building iPad/iPhone Apps

1. Being Artistically or Technically Challenged Makes You Useless
Roughly 30-40% of your app is about thinking including researching, a disciplined approach to talking to potential customers about your idea, and "mocking" your app in easy to use software tools. Even if you don't know how to design or develop an app, there's much to do before formally building it.

2. It's Impossible to Find People to Build an App
Today, there are mobile-specific resources available, which will make finding those that can help build your app much easier. And knowing the right questions to ask will allow you to be clear about how much your app will cost and how long it will take to build.

3. Marketing Occurs Once the App is Available
Starting your marketing earlier will help development and vice versa. Following the right steps to start developing and marketing your app at the same time will make your app considerably more successful once it launches.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Focus on making apps that people enjoy using and want to tell their friends and colleagues about.  Having customers evangelize your app is far more important than a short-term purchase spike.

- Justin Williams, Founder of Second Gear

What really impressed me is the attention to the smallest details Ken put in describing often underrated stages like "idea evaluation" or the importance of hiring the right team.

- Federico Viticci, Editor of MacStories

Ken has outlined a comprehensive and well-grounded soup-to-nuts strategy for any company looking to create value via mobile apps; he makes for a great sherpa navigating this terrain.

-Navin Ganeshan, Chief Product Strategist at Network Solutions

App Savvy takes you from idea to getting your app in the Apple Store. Lots of tips make the book ideal for people who are just starting out and each chapter has interviews with people who have actually done it.

- Steve Johnson, Pragmatic Marketing

From the Author

It's possible that you are a "product person" like me, who can't create designs or write code, but has an idea. Or you could be a designer or developer who has either launched an app to no fanfare or realized that those skills alone won't guarantee success on the hyper-competitive App Store. You even might be tasked to build an app at work. Regardless of your background, this book distills my experience, as well as that of the larger community, to provide you with a practical guide to launching awesome customer-inspired iPhone and iPad apps.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (October 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449389767
• ISBN-13: 978-1449389765
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Development & Programming

More About the Author

Ken Yarmosh is the brains behind multiple chart-topping mobile applications, including PBS for iPad, Agenda, Safari To Go, CaptureNotes 2, and Buzz Contacts. His full-service mobile agency savvy apps helps national brands, as well as mobile-focused startups, design and develop their mobile apps on iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms. He maintains a mobile-focused blog at http://kenyarmosh.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Got more out than I expected January 10, 2012

By Lucas Chwe

Format:Paperback

I initially got this book to satisfy my inner desire and urge to dive into the app store market and I was not disappointed. Even though I haven't done so yet (it's not as easy as it sounds like, I'm sorry fellow programmers), I now understand what it takes to make it happen in the internet.

The book is made for Iphone Apps; however, the author did not stress that fact as much as I expected he would, but he painted a nice picture of everything that involves to have a presence online and to execute, run and maintain a successful app.

It is NOT to code apps, but a MUST if you want to be part of this world wide web craziness and be on top. It's fair game for everyone: it matters little who you are in the real world, online is a different animal.

This well-organized book made me rethink and strategize (i wasn't even thinking about needing a strategy) the development of a website, and everything makes more sense thanks to Ken.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The textbook for turning apps into reality January 19, 2011

By Shawn Day

Format:Paperback

Everybody's doing it. They are sitting on that great idea for a next amazing application. The first lesson that Yarmosh empahsises is that your 'app idea must be more than just an idea.' The amazing rate of adoption of iOS-based appliances and the confluence of the effective marketing tool that is the appStore have created a new business model. One that allows for amazing exposure, huge first mover advantage and extremely low barriers to entry. One of the biggest challenges beyond actually creating the application is understanding the labyrinth that is getting it added to the store. Thankfully this book addresses this challenge and provides much much more. This is *the* textbook for iApp development. However, this book is not dealing with iOS coding, but instead with the larger process. It rises above the process of building the application and addresses the entire development process through building to delivery - moving from conceptualisation to realisation.

Yarmosh starts from basic business principles and quickly moves into the specificities that make the iApp business proposition a special beast. This book is directed at both entrepreneur and developer alike, and provides a comprehensive survey of the . Additionally, the content of this book provides an intriguing look at the mechanics that guide the business proposition that is the app Store and creates a bit of a case study source in itself. The inclusion of interviews/case studies with successful developers that rounds out an extremely valuable read.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book for a new Mobile Noob December 30, 2010

By Sridhar Krishnamurthi

Format:Paperback

Interesting book that is written for the non-programmer and the programmer, who has the technical abilities but lacks the marketing skill to peddle his wares. There are some obvious stories as to the need to plan and the approach but there are a lot of other stuff that would assist the man of ideas.

The book starts in a typical way as to where you can start with an idea for the iphone, that can become the million dollar idea. It brings down your enthusiasm with stories about how nearly 99 percent of the applications in the store are not making the millions but the select one percent.

The book covers the store, the various pricing tiers and a lot of material can be had for 99 dollars once you become part of the Apple Developer Connection. It does give a good overview of the apple iTunes store for the un-initiated. The books in interspread with Interviews with successful UI designers who made it in the store, as well as the people from the industry (the advertisement industry).

The book can also be considered to be like a biography of the Tweeb application, its genesis , how it moved across and got what it needs to be a successful application.

The book is a good read and quite a lot of anecdotes, but then there is a bit of repetitive material but given the nature of the book and the fact that it is targeted at the noob, makes it a little bit of quick flip through some of the pages for somebody who has familiarity with the Apple Application Space.

The best part of the book, from my point of view, is the selection of tools that the book gives clues to use , though like an advertisement, it shows about the usefulness of some of the apps, and also provides other options. Particularly wire-framing part is full of great tips for the one to start scribbling their ideas into coherent set of documentation to share with the developer and to make it to the building blocks for a great application.

The other part of the marketing push with tips as to best sites that would generate the needed traffic is useful but can be more exhaustive. Did not talk much about the paid services that are offered for reviewing applications and how it helps in generating the foot falls required to generate interest in your product.

Overall, the book can take a three stars for the aggregation of content and the insight that it brings from some of the successful applications on the market. The book has a bit dated stuff too, but then in such a changing landscape it is expected. The book is definitely worth the time to the starter to the Iphone or any product guy to go and look into the details.