Hi, My Name Is...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Well, I went to submit Plankton to the app store today, and after jumping through all the certificate and provisioning hoops, and assembling all my screenshots, icons, and meta-data, and filling out the page-long form, I was informed (in what I felt was an unnecessarily terse manner, let’s be honest here) that “Plankton” was already taken. I searched high and low for hours to find an app with a similar name. So my only thought is that someone of ill repute read my post of the other day then put a hold on the name.
In any event, Plankton, may he rest in peace, is no longer with us. However, Plinkton (thanks, Elle) is submitted and what-not, after a furious bout with Photoshop and Xcode.
I’ll keep you informed of the process, which is interesting and completely alien to what I know about selling software.
Now, since some comments on Twitter and here seem to be confusing things, Plinkton is in no way an Audio Damage product. Adam had nothing whatsoever to do with this other than being generally forbearing viz. my flights of fancy in this regard. Plinkton is the product of my own fertile imagination, and contains no Audio Damage IP whatsoever.
Just wanted to be clear and open on that one fact. It is unavoidable that, since I designed this, and I do most of the design work on the AD stuff, that some similarities will unavoidably occur. But Audio Damage doesn’t have an iPhone app coming out. This is just me. It’s like saying Wings is like the Beatles. No, they’re not.
Anyhow, I’ll be sending out Varese shirts tomorrow, but on Saturday I’ll make a video that shows Plinkton in action, and shows how to hook it up to a DAW via Pd and have it run hardware and drive (AD, natch) effects.
10 comments
it isn't just you:
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/09/app-store-name-squatters-drawing-attention/
lesson here is submit a draft application and grab your name early.
Hopefully you'll have good results with Plankton, er, Plinkton and that will be enough to convince Adam to do an iPhone version of Tattoo. If I had a solid AD-built music app and the Pocket Fritz chess program on my iPhone I don't think I'd ever make it off the toilet...
It's unlikely we'll change the focus of the company like that. Our business model requires a fairly aggressive release cycle, and taking the time out to reorient our development process for a new platform that is wholly unrelated to what we do now would be fairly tricky.
That said, if I sell a quadrillion little Plinktons, I imagine it'd be an easier sell. ;-)
@b.phenix: I just did exactly that. Again, this kind of hinges on the success of Plinkton, but I've got another good idea I'm formulating, and if Plinkton takes off, I'll devote some time to it. In any event, I squatted the name so that this wouldn't happen again.
So long as your singing is better than Linda's, Chris
From what I hear, the iTunes store gold rush is past. Like you said, there are a billion apps now.
My boss has an iPhone game on the market, separate from the company's output. It's not quite like post-dot-com-bubble-burst, but you do actually have to have some marketing in place if you want to make real money. Getting onto top sales lists though is like strapping on a jetpack and climbing onto the business end of a catapult.
No doubt. I was reading the taptaptap blog the other day, and the coin they pull from a simple format conversion app is fucking unbelievable.
-CR
Looking forward to playing with Plinkton, looks fun.
Two little bits of App Store advice you might or might not care about.
First, consider pricing it at $1.99 rather than $0.99. The biggest barrier is getting people to pay at all, and you need to sell twice as many to make the $0.99 thing pay off. In my (non music app) experience you only get about 50% more sales at the lower price, and a lot of the people you add don't give a crap about your app, won't bother to learn how to use it, and many will just delete it and leave a bad rating. Anyone who isn't a miserable cheapskate won't blink at throwing in the extra buck for something like this.
Second, you probably already know this but make sure to adjust your release date before it goes on sale. Google "iphone app release date trick" if you don't know.
This seems to mostly be a fun side project for you, so spending a lot of time optimizing sales is probably a low priority, just figured I'd throw it out there anyway.
And I know you already said this isn't where AD is going, but I have to say a stripped down Tattoo with some touchscreen controlled AD effects would be very cool, if you guys are ever bored...
You really should have named it "Spongebob Beatbox." I'm just sayin'.
-W
@no op: I agree about the $1.99 thing. The way to go, I think.
@quantize: Awww, man! 2009: Linda McCartney, still gettin' the sucker-punches. Makes me sad.
@CR: I think you're going to end up glad about the name rejection. Plinkton is a more clever, memorable and even cute name. Your wife knows what time it is.
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