New, Unified UI Design

Most of our users love the wheel-style home screen. Some of them criticized though that the tactile leather look wasn’t continued throughout the app. Well… we listened! Where To? 3.0 comes with a new integrated leather look that’s continued throughout the whole app. By the way: One little eye candy—I leave it up to you to find it—is based on a similar feature in NetNewsWire for iPad. My thanks go to Brent Simmons for his kind permission to “steal” the idea.

iPhone 4 Retina Display

We love the new display of iPhone 4. From day one after the announcement at WWDC we knew we had to support the new resolution. After a few night shifts, Wolfgang, our Designer, finished the task to create hi-res versions of more than 170 images included in the app and we couldn’t be more pleased with the result.

Multitasking

This feature requires iOS 4 and one of the newer devices (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPod touch 3rd generation) and is very handy for instance if you’re searching for a restaurant and wanna call to make a reservation. After the call you can get back to the exact same screen in Where To? — super quickly. Of course, it’s also handy if you quickly wanna check something in another app. You can use the new app switcher (double click on Home button) or the traditional home screens to switch between apps.

HTML Email Sharing

Instead of a boring plaintext mail Where To? now creates beautifully crafted HTML mails with an image of the location and links to the website and map.

SMS Sharing now integrated

If you’ve installed iOS 4 (on iPhone 3G or newer), you can share locations via SMS now without leaving the app. The cumbersome launching of the Messages app is not needed anymore.

Tap the Future

Feature-wise, there’s a lot more to come over the course of the next months. We just didn’t want to cram everything into Where To? 3.0 to make sure, you guys don’t have to wait any longer to make use of the new features. Christian, one of our developers, is hard at work finishing an upcoming feature that’ll definitely put Where To? on a new level. We can’t reveal any specifics yet, so to be in the know first, subscribe to this blog or follow us on Twitter.

And if you like Where To?, please help us out and write a short review on the App Store. Or check our Facebook page and “Like” it.

To get an impression, look at this part of the new home screen. What you can see is exactly a forth of the screen size of the iPhone 4. That part has the same number of pixels than a full size traditional iPhone 3GS display. Of course, the home screen is just the beginning, the map on iPhone 4 will look very impressive, too, and allows you to see much more details without having to zoom in.

Besides the Retina Display, we’ll support other iOS 4 features such as multitasking. And to make it round, Where To? 3.0 will also receive a major UI overhaul. We expect to submit Where To? 3.0 in the next week. Where To? 3.0 will be a free update for all Where To? 2.x customers.

New stuff out of our labs

While we’re finishing 3.0, the next release is already in the pipeline. Since there’s still some way to go, we can’t reveal any specific details yet. Rest assured though, it’ll add a cool new feature you’ll absolutely love!

Speaking of new, secret stuff: we’re also working on an app for iPad. It’s something completely new and unrelated to Where To?. And we think it’ll be useful and fun at the same time. Stay subscribed on our blog to be in the know, first.

• fewer alerts for unreliable Internet connections
• fixed a VoiceOver issue on the details page
• fixed a crash under iPhone OS 4 beta

TomTom

Where To? 2.6 adds support for getting directions using TomTom. The feature requires the TomTom 1.3 update published recently. There are two options to launch TomTom from inside Where To:

• Using the button “Directions” on the Details page of a location
• Using the button “Open Map”

Use “Directions” to immediately start a turn-by-turn navigation and use “Open Map” if you aim to add the location to TomTom. In both cases you can skip the external app selection dialog by selecting “TomTom” as your Directions Helper Application in the Advanced Settings.
Pro Tip: You can now also start a navigation (using either TomTom, Navigon or Maps) to a contact: Search the contact and tap the details arrow on the map bubble. Then tap the address of the contact and choose your external app.

Compass (3GS)

Where To? 2.6 supports the compass of the iPhone 3GS. It displays the angle of orientation and when tapping the locate-me button twice, it rotates the map according to the compass heading. Please be aware that the compass might return inaccurate values due to interferences. Check this Apple KB article for details.

Improved Details page

The Details page now includes a picture (or a mini map) of the venue and the distance is shown. (Please keep in mind, we display the line-of-sight distance here and there might be inaccuracies due to the location detection).
Pro Tip: All fields including the image and the title can now be copied into the clipboard using tap-and-hold.

Sharing

We’ve included Twitter and Facebook sharing. For both social networks, you need to authenticate the first time you’re posting. Then you can edit the update you’re about to post. The default update message (“Heading to…”) can be edited in the settings. For Twitter, the link is automatically shortened to make room for your text.
Pro Tip: If you enable “Add a location to your tweets” in your Twitter Account Settings, the tweet will include the geo location of the venue. And if you want to speed things up, you can opt to automatically post your updates without prior editing in the Where To? Sharing Settings.

More results

Where To? 2.6 loads twice as many locations for your search as before. To load even more results, just move or zoom the map in the desired direction.

Bug fixes

• Multiple Navigon apps for different regions are now supported
• Navigon MobileNavigator is only offered for selection if installed
• Directions using the Maps app work more reliably
• When saving a location as a contact, the homepage is added to the contact as well
• Optimized search results for Apple Stores (English), Public Transport (Spanish), Public Toilets (Japanese)

Some developers suggested Apple should donate its 30% share as well. We absolutely support this idea! While we’re unsure whether Apple will take this step, we decided to not only cover the 30% but round up our donation to $1,000. The sum has been donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

If you’re considering a donation yourself and don’t know yet which charity to support, check out this summary of the Huffington Post. Or you can donate to the American Red Cross right in iTunes.

Let’s help together to remedy the terrible situation for the people down there.

A victim cries for her father as she is treated at the Israeli Defense Forces field hospital, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Saturday, January 16, 2010.

To support the victims of the Haiti earthquake, we decided to donate all proceeds for Where To? purchases made on January 20 to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). So for every purchase of Where To? we donate $2.10 (100% of our revenue after Apple’s cut) to the cause.

Please check out indierelief.com, organized by Justin Williams and Garret Murray. All proceeds of more than 150 Mac and iPhone apps go to Haitian relief. I browsed through the list and there are some gorgeous apps that shouldn’t be missing on any Mac or iPhone. So you get great software and support the cause. Please help spread the word and tell your friends, family and colleagues.

We sincerely hope our donation can make a small contribution to tackle this terrible disaster.

In our eyes there are a lot of good reasons to take the in-app route:

• Settings.app becomes a total mess with more and more apps and takes long to load all apps
• Most users simply don’t understand the mechanism and miss the settings if they are only placed in Settings.app
• A context switch is needed to switch between settings and the app. If the app happens to be on the 16th screen, this involves quite some tapping and flicking.
• In-App settings can instantly change the behavior of the app

On the other hand, some (albeit a minority, we feel) users are used to the mechanism of Settings.app. Also, being part of Settings.app gains some user exposure and apps included there are viewed as first-class citizens by many advanced users.

So how can this dilemma be solved?

Many apps decide to get rid of a Settings.app pane altogether. Interestingly, all user-installable apps from Apple are amongst them (Remote, Keynote Remote, MobileMe iDisk). Further examples are Twitterrific, AIM and countless others.

We’re proposing a second approach that we call “hybrid settings”. In this model, the user has the choice: the settings are available in Settings.app. But they’re placed in-app as well. That way, every user can decide where to edit the settings. The in-app settings are a 100% clone of the Settings.app style.

How does it look like?

Well, the settings look exactly the same as in Settings.app. This consistency does make sense if we don’t want to confuse our users. In TouchPad, a “Settings” button shifts in the settings dialog. In Where To?, the settings are entered by tapping on the i-icon on the top right of the first screen. The settings then appear with a nice flip animation known from Weather.app or Stocks.app. Alternatively, a navigation push or a tab bar can be used.

Can I integrate this in my app?

At first, the solution was developed by Luc Vandal of Edovia and Ortwin Gentz of FutureTap because we both had the need. So we wrote this piece of software as a Canadian-German co-production. Then, we thought twice and felt the code might be useful for some other folks. So we decided to release “InAppSettingsKit” as open source. Check out InAppSettingsKit.com for more details. This site also lists all apps currently using the framework and we hope it will be adopted widely.

Also, many apps in the store show a peak behavior with an initial spike and a following irresistible decrease in sales. In some cases apps started a second life at a lower price point (typical for many games, but also for apps like Beejive). We always hoped that Where To? would rather achieve sustained success allowing to develop new functionality on an ongoing basis. Also, this was a key factor in my plan to amortize the investment in 18 months.

It turns out, Where To? is not the kind of rocket-like app that flies through the roof and then crashes on the hard surface of negligible sales. Since the takeover in mid December 2008, it made a total of $325.055,07 in gross sales, that’s $227.538,55 after Apple’s cut:

Where To?

• What is it: find points of interest around you
• Price: $2.99
• Gross sales: $325.055,07
• Net Sales: $227.538,55
• More Info: at the App Store

Marketing

Admittedly, there is a large volatility caused by factors such as new versions, featuring by Apple and advertising. Speaking of advertising, we experimented with all kinds of different media and types. While in the first half of the year we had decent success with cost-per-click campaigns such as Google Adwords, in the recent past virtually all sorts of paid advertising were totally ineffective (with Admob and Facebook offering the worst value in terms of ad dollars spent per sale). The root of the problem is that at a sale price of $2.99 ($2.10 after Apple’s cut) and typical click-to-sale conversion rates of 5-10% the maximum affordable CPC is at around 10-15¢. For apps priced lower than $2.99 or promotional offers the maximum CPC is even less. At this level, however, the available inventory is nearly non-existant. This is the reason we drastically reduced our ad spending since September. Overall we spent roughly $50k in ads so far which is far lower than initially planned.

I feel the most effective marketing are continued improvement, word of mouth and of course positive reviews both in the App Store (yes, you’re welcome to take this as friendly reminder to review Where To? and all your favorite apps you use everyday – Thanks!) and in the press (e.g. TUAW or iPhoneFootprint). After releasing new versions, Where To? achieved rankings in the top 50 of all paid apps in the US, #2 in Germany and it climbed up to the top position in the Navigation category in the US, Germany and other countries. Clearly, this strategy wasn’t too bad.

Going International

Another interesting subject is our internationalization strategy. In contrast to other app genres local search is highly dependent on a good adoption of the local language. So localization has a completely different importance in our case. Throughout the year we added localizations for all major iPhone markets. Including our recent Japanese localization, Where To? is now localized into 9 different languages and contains local categories and brands. This contributed to a noticeable increase in non-US sales: Before the acquisition the US accounted for 90% of the sales, in December ’09 the non-US share increased to almost 50%.

A Worthwile Investment?

So was it all worth it? – Yes, absolutely. While the bottom line of our sales was lower than expected, the profit turned out better than planned due to the lower than budgeted ad spending. So there’s a good chance my $70k investment will pay off sooner than expected. In terms of the make-or-buy decision, I think I made the right decision. Although meanwhile, the acquired code only contributes to a small percentage of the whole code, the (unchanged) basic look-and-feel and the market reputation of the app are critical success factors. Also, my point of time-to-market being a key factor now holds true more than ever. With more than 100,000 apps in the store, every day a new potential competitor enters the market and it’s important to be first.

What would I do differently today? – Well, I’ve learned the hard way that the transfer of an app into a different iTunes vendor account is practically not possible. Should I acquire an app again, I’d avoid the disaster and do the account switch right away.

Despite all the trouble we had with Apple last year, we’re absolutely thrilled how the App Store ecosystem grew in the last 18 months and what amazing potential it offered to developers. We’re more than happy with our outcome and take it as an incentive to achieve even more in 2010!

The Future

We always said that new apps are being planned. Unfortunately we didn’t deliver on that promise so far. We sincerely hope to change this the sooner the better. (If you happen to be a talented Cocoa developer anxious to get your hands at some interesting new projects, please get in touch.) Also, we do have a great roadmap for updates of Where To?, so I’m happy to welcome year 2 in the history of FutureTap!

• fixed a crashing issue for Greece
• improved compatibility with specific mobile websites
• added Australian banks
• additional bugfixes

All Where To 2.x customers can download the update for free in the App Store.