Today’s App Developer’s Corner features brothers Jason and CC Laan of laan labs, whose app Sonar Ruler recently came out in the AppStore. Here’s what they had to say about writing and successfully promoting apps that stretch and test the limits of what the iPhone can do.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Laan Labs is what we like to call an experimental development shop. We like to play with ideas regardless of how practical they might be. As a company we are just two people (we are brothers) so where and how we spend our time is important. We initially got interested in the iPhone space last fall and have been developing apps for about nine months now on and off. Having backgrounds in computers/engineering it was hard not to get involved with a platform that seems to have gotten (most) everything right.
How did your interest in developing apps like the Sonar Ruler and 3d Compass come about?
We really enjoy thinking about apps that push the technical limits of the phone. We’re not game developers, so we tend to think about apps in terms of what is novel or demonstrates the power of the iphone. The excitement of having a perfectly capable computer in the palm of your hand sparks a lot of our app ideas.
What experience did you have coming into iphone app development?
Most of our programming experience has been with web-based technologies such as flash (actionscript), java, python, etc. Moving to Objective-c was a bit of a challenge at first, but we’ve now come to like it quite a bit. Apple has done a good job of providing frameworks that help developers quickly produce apps with good UI. That said, both Sonar Ruler and 3d Compass are done almost completely in openGL ES, so all the UI is completely custom.
What made you think of creating these apps as a starting point?
For the 3d compass we wanted an idea that was completely unique to the 3GS. Having grown up sailing, building a ‘Nautical Compass’ that would work in any orientation was a natural progression. The inspiration for the Sonic Ruler was completely CC. That was an idea that ruminated for quite some time as the both the interface and technical hurdles were unique. When you’re doing a data driven app it’s pretty easy to just crank it out so to speak, but when the idea is unique it takes quite a bit of re-working and constant evolution to get it right.
How did you go about building a company around your idea?
We would say Laan Labs is a company in progress. Many iPhone development companies have approached this space with great resources while we are more “growing” into the space. For us we mix our income from developing our own apps as well as developing apps for clients such as TweetDeck or USA Networks. It’s hard to call yourself a “company” when you are just two people, but hopefully over the next quarter that will change.
What has been the most successful strategy/avenue for promoting and increasing visibility for your apps and your company?
That is a tough one. It seems that apps primarily succeed (besides being a good idea) from their position in the app store ranking. So working in this “List Economy” is challenging to say the least. We have had apps succeed for many different reasons. Some have been slow builds, like Remote Sound Box, and others have been overnight successes, like Light Writer which shot to #22 in just a few hours. A strategy for us is to slowly build promotion around an app. Start off with your social network via Twitter and Facebook, then reach out to appropriate blogs and media. The whole time you need to constantly be babysitting price, copy, screenshots, and support advertising. At a certain point the momentum of the app store can take over.
How has Pinch helped with app development, promotion, and marketing?
Pinch has let us focus on improving features that people actually use rather than making guesses about how to update an application. Our Workout of the Day app had a large increase in downloads because we were able to improve key features of the app. We can also quickly answer questions about what devices and OS versions our users have.
Do you have any other advice you’ve learned that you’d like to share?
Well we definitely haven’t struck it rich, so it’s hard to give proven advice. But we feel like the app store is still a bit like the wild
west, so we’ve learned not to give up on seemingly dead apps. Some ideas that you think are gold don’t do well and other ideas just seem to explode. The most important thing is just not to just put an app out there and expect that it will do well on its own merit. Marketing is crucial.
west, so we’ve learned not to give up on seemingly dead apps. Some ideas that you think are gold don’t do well and other ideas just seem to explode. The most important thing is just not to just put an app out there and expect that it will do well on its own merit. Marketing is crucial.
The Laan brothers have consistently taken advantage of the iPhone unique technical features, in practically every app they’ve released. In some ways, the uniqueness of their apps has aided in their marketing success, which is encouraging for developers looking to experiment with the platform. Combined with traditional marketing focus and efforts, Laan Labs has managed to make a strong imprint in the App Store, over the past year.
If you would like to track how your app is being used to provide more useful updates, or have easy access to other interesting metrics, register for an account at Pinch Media and let us know if you have any questions getting started.
- Katherine Pan