greenrobot’s latest app “Prime Guide” brings the TV program to Android Smartphones, Tablets, and Google TV. With a quickly growing installation count, great reviews and very high ratings in Google Play, Prime Guide successfully challenges big players of established brands. We want to present technical and non-technical aspects of app development: • The technical app anatomy • Android and server libraries we used (and wrote) for Prime Guide • Google App Engine as a backend: good and bad sides • Strategies on how to compete with “the big players” • The marketing campaigns we ran and their outcome • Successful customer support and presence in social networks • Stats and numbers http://www.primeguide.tv

2. So, who‘s this guy?

3. Prime Guide – TV Guide App

4. Prime Guide: TV Overview

5. Prime Guide: Broadcast Details

6. Prime Guide: Gallery

7. Prime Guide: Tablet

8. Prime Guide: Google TV

9. Technology Overview
Prime Guide App
Prime Guide
Server Cloud GUI
Events
Managers
Remote ORM
EPG Data
Source ($$$) SQLite Database

10. Libraries used
 Action Bar Sherlock
 Android Support Library
 EventBus
 Facebook
 Several internal greenrobot libraries:
Common Android stuff, bitmaps, cache, …
 In total: 12 client libraries used
 Libraries are essential for app dev!

11. Libraries written for Prime Guide
 greenDAO
 Fast O/R Mapper (code generation)
 Object oriented access to SQLite
 Open Source
 Protobuf RPC
 Binary Client/Server RPC protocol
 Based on Google Protobuf
 Multiple remote method calls per request

12. Backend – Why App Engine?
 The 20:15 peak  automatic scalability
 No OS maintenance / administration
 High availability
 Backed by Google and its infrastructure
 Good Java support
 Task Queues for background processing
 Easy deployment / version control

13. App Engine: nothing‘s perfect
 No SQL (no, that‘s not cool)
P.S.: Today there‘s Cloud SQL ($)
 Proprietary APIs (no full JEE standard…)
 Data store impacted our data model
 Entity groups, TX consistency, …
 Request time limits (no long polling etc.)
 Local server: slow, not 100% compatible
 Not the cheapest solution

14. Some Backend stats
 Requests per second, 24h
20:15 New day, Widget updates

15. Some Backend stats
 Number of serving instances, 24h
20:15 New day, Widget updates

16. Are we ready yet?
 December 2012: Should we release?
 Personal impression of the app
 About 100 TV channels are plenty
 Basics OK, some cool features still missing
 100+ issues in our backlog, hmm…
 OK, let’s release anyway… Before Xmas!
 Code crunch & last minute PR started
 Big question: Will people like it at all?

17. First day in the store
 Beta Release on December, 21st
 1,500 installs
 4.6 stars rating
 Phew!
 Good start, how will it continue?
Can it keep the great rating?

18. Our last Minute Marketing…
 Trying to spread the word
 We informed 1,000,000 blogs upfront
 One bigger mobile blog picked it up
 It was worth the effort

19. As expected, People liked…
 Native Android look and feel
 Simplicity, thought-out UI
 Speed of the App
 First class tablet support
 Features
 2D scrolling TV overview
 Integration of movie related web sites
 YouTube videos
 Reminders

20. And a few Surprises…
 People were happy to give feedback
 Other features matter to them
 Most wished: add channel XYZ
 Top Missing features
 Search
 Support for TV series (reminders, etc.)

21. Surprises continued…
Data collected during a 14-day period ending on March 4, 2013
 Devices statistics from Google

22. Device statistics from Google
 Just one problem with these stats:
It shows all devices
 The real question should be:
Which devices install new apps?

23. Android Versions, Prime Guide
April, new data

24. Marketing Campaign (paid)
 CPI campaign with a Android website that
also run a 3rd party store
 Good impact in 3rd party store:
Downloads over Time

25. Marketing Campaign / Play
 Prime Guide featured on a big German
Android web site plus newsletter coverage
 So, what‘s the impact in Google Play?
 Unexpectedly low:
Downloads over Time

26. How to make people rate you
 Ratings are essential for success
 Make it easy for users to rate your app
 But don‘t force it on them (dialogs, …)
 Our solution:

27. Info Screen
Great place to let
users engage

28. Customer Support
 Take feedback seriously
 Answer each mail personally (we try to)
 Value people‘s input, they invested time
 We track wishes and prioritize accordingly
 Implement feedback: makes people happy
 Takes time, about ½ - 1 day per week

29. Things underestimated…
 Complexity of TV Data
 Legal issues with TV Data (Germany)
 Costs of TV Data
 App Engine quirks
 General complexity, both app and server
infrastructure

30. Lessons learnt
Optimize for Smartphones,
Tablets and Google TV for
initial launch.
One of our biggest mistakes?

31. Lessons learnt
Pick great new technologies,
create them if non-existent.
Takes its time…
Whatever, that’s the fun part.
& Solid base to build upon.

32. Lessons learnt
Do projects for living, too.
Focus and take risks.
(If you can afford it.)

33. Lessons learnt
Release before you think it‘s
perfect.
Reality check!
Are you on the right track?

34. Lessons learnt
Release a beta version.
People are more tolerant.

35. How did we do since?
 Rating improved by adding TV channels
 ~ 100.000 downloads
 Next milestone: leave beta with V1.0
 New features
 Ads, or paid version

36. That‘s it. Thanks for listening.
Thank you!
www.primeguide.tv

37. Disclaimer, Rechtliches
Alle Inhalte urheberrechtlich geschützt.
© Copyright 2013 Markus Junginger
All rights reserved.