The developer of Obscura talks about the impact when Apple Digital Technology gave away this photography app for free. Do you also have something to do with it as a developer, or does it only provide extra support and überkritic free users? Obscura got to deal with both, but the developer also sees a bright spot.
The impact of free apps
For ordinary users, a free app is always fun. You do not pay a penny and you get a nice app where many hours of work have been put into it. The developer gets nothing at all but suddenly gets a lot of (often inexperienced) users. Is it just as fun for the app maker as for the users? Developer Ben McCarthy from Obscura talks about his experiences when Apple decided to give away the app for free. And they are not all positive. For example, non-paying users appear to be very demanding and not everyone knows the difference between 'App Store' and 'Apple Store'.
You may also be one of the hundreds of thousands of users who downloaded the Obscuraapp for free via the Apple Store app. That it has succeeded, is in itself worthy of congratulation, because Ben says in his blog posting that he has been accosted quite often by users who wanted the app for free, but could not find it in the App Store. Logical, because Apple has chosen to give away apps in the most illogical place: via the Apple Store app, which is intended for hardware purchases. "It's hard to explain to people that Apple's Apple Store app is not the same as Apple's App Store app," says Ben. "We quickly lost count of how often we had to steer people in the right direction."
The new users also turned out to be quite demanding. "There was much more demand for localization than we expected, to the extent that it had a negative impact on our Apple Store valuations." The team therefore decided to postpone new features for iOS 12 so that the app could first become more languages translated.
Such an Apple Store promotion naturally gives you eternal fame, but as a developer you can not pay for your groceries. Has Apple thought about that? Not really: Apple gives away everything for free and gives no compensation or payment for lost earnings. "Apple simply generates a number of promo codes on your behalf and makes them available through the Apple Store app," the Obscura maker explains. However, it provided a lot of extra support for the developer, because among the non-paying users there are also many people who have never done anything with photography.
In red the turnover, in blue the number of downloads. The red peak has to do with the fact that some users downloaded the app in the normal way and therefore paid money for it. That 'silliness' of users ultimately yielded more money than the total in-app purchases of free downloaders.
The campaign ensured that Obscura received hundreds of thousands of users in a short time. Of this, only 0.75% decided to purchase extra functions. "Maybe the people who download such free apps are less inclined to pay for extras", says Ben. "Or maybe we do not promote the in-app purchases enough within the app".
Positive was the fact that after the promotion the app had received more attention, so people were going to purchase Obscura after the free campaign. Through all the attention, Obscura appeared in all kinds of articles, which brought the app to the attention of a new audience. The increase in downloads probably also improved the visibility of Obscura in the App Store . In retrospect, Ben is, despite everything, happy that he participated, despite all the drawbacks. For other developers, it is interesting to know what to expect if you participate in such a promotion as a developer.
