Tag Archives: iOS

How iMessage joined the ‘fun messaging apps’ club

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Waiting for my delayed flight to take off, I came across Phoneys, an iMessage sticker pack with some controversy.

Phoneys allows users to cover friends’ messages with stickers that look like a real message. In less than a week, it became the #1 Top Paid and #1 Top Grossing iMessage app. Here’s how it works:


Of course, Apple noticed and asked Adam, the developer, to update it so that users don’t get confused or think that their iPhone has been hacked, otherwise the app would be taken down.

With iMessage on iOS 10, Apple tried to create a fun experience that can compete with Snapchat, the king of fun messaging.

A very clever way of doing this was… well, letting others actually do it and lure them into a new iMessage app store (following Facebook’s steps with Messenger).

I find fascinating how Apple simplified and streamlined the creation of stickers for iMessage. Anyone can create a fun experience (and sometimes a cash machine) with a good idea and a few nights of work.

Fun messaging apps are the next gold mine: emojis, stickers, GIFs… the best way of increasing the variety and quality of options is to let 3rd party developers do it. How long will it take for Snapchat to open its own app store?

Adam is now debating what to do with his “stupid little sticker pack”, as he calls it. To him, I’d say: enjoy the viral ride and start thinking of the next great idea, you sure know how to monetize it.

You can read his full story in Medium.

Image via Adam Howell

3 things I didn’t know about the Apple Watch

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After one week wearing the Apple Watch, I can reaffirm my comments on why I believe it will be a success. It may not be the first smartwatch to reach the market, nor the most complete in terms of features, but one thing is clear: Apple has done what it does best, create a simple but delightful experience with a product category that other competitors have already tried mastering.

I had read tons of articles and reviews before getting an Apple Watch of my own, and yet this first week I discovered a few things, good and bad, that surprised me. These are the top 3:

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Why the Apple Watch will be a success

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Apple announced during its last earnings report that it sold 74.5 million iPhone units in 2015’s first fiscal quarter. Let that number settle in.

As CNN Money wrote, that means “34,000 iPhones sold every hour, every day, every week of the past three months. That’s 9 iPhones every second.”

But that’s not it, Apple also sold 51 million iPhones only in 2014’s first fiscal quarter, and 47.8 million units the year before, which means that there are over 170 million potential customers for the Apple Watch.

Now, I know that doesn’t mean every iPhone user will get an Apple Watch, especially since smartwatches sales are having a rough start (only 720,000 Android Wear smartwatches were shipped in 2014). There are, however, 2 points that I believe will make a difference in Apple’s case.

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3 lessons to learn from Flappy Bird’s success

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You’re probably tired of reading about Flappy Bird, right? Nobody blames you. The game became the #1 free app on the iOS App Store with 50 million downloads. Dong Nguyen, the developer, reportedly earned $50,000 per day through banner ads. In fact, it was so popular that the developer got apparently overwhelmed and removed it from the App Store.

The situation is specially interesting given that there isn’t any big game corporation behind; it’s just an indie developer that created a simple and addictive game. These are the 3 key lessons we can learn from it.

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