Month: June 2013

Virtual Currencies: Stimulating Mobile App Markets?

June 24, 2013
 
Dan Katcher

What’s with this digital currency craze right now? Bitcoin, Litecoin, this coin, that coin. They’re popping up everywhere. But what is Bitcoin? Well it’s a bit of a rabbit hole once you start looking into it, but it’s a digital cryptocurrency that you can trade with others and use to purchase goods anonymously. Some bigger players, including a social networking website, OkCupid, and an online food ordering service, Foodler, have even started accepting Bitcoins as payment. There are some other less notable virtual currencies floating around that you can read about here.
Amazon Coins
But why does Bitcoin matter? Well, technological innovation has always spurred monetary reformation and, in this day and age, in our hyper-connected digital world, digital transactions now dominate trade. So it’s worth looking into how digital currencies could affect e-commerce.
Let’s focus on Amazon’s recent play in creating their digital currency, Amazon Coins, for our analysis. The e-commerce giant made this move to bring more developers to its platform and to stimulate the Kindle app market. They included, for free, 500 Amazon Coins (about 5 dollars) with every new Kindle Fire. Each coin equates roughly to a penny unless you buy the coins in bulk in which case you see a decent discount—500 Coins cost $4.80, 1000 cost $9.50, 2500 cost $23, 5000 cost $45, and 10000 cost $90—a 10% discount. Bulk buying has the additional advantage of reducing fees, on both ends, by decreasing the quantity of costly credit card transactions.
So what could this mean for Amazon? With this new currency, Amazon will capture more cash from their customers earlier, and lock them into the Amazon marketplace. Brilliant, right? …Maybe not. Let’s think about the other big players—Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Apple hasn’t entered this market yet, and perhaps for good reason. Let’s recall a bit of history:

Microsoft attempted a similar system to Amazon Coins with their Points system although that virtual currency has gone all but extinct. Points were the long-time default currency for the Xbox Marketplace, but there are rumors that Microsoft will soon announce a shift to cash equivalent alternatives, like gift cards, or to simply accepting credit card payments. Further, this currency could be causing problems for the tech giant, as a Youtube search will reveal numerous videos claiming to have a secret method for acquiring Points for free. That’s a problem.

And the story is the same with Facebook Credits—the former default currency for purchasing apps and in-app purchases on the social network—will be replaced by a simple local payments API, which will be the only accepted payment method as of September 12, 2013. Facebook’s new payment API will improve the overall purchasing process by making the experience faster and smoother, and allowing more flexible pricing models for developers. However, one thing is certain: neither of these virtual currencies will be making a come back any time soon.
We see two different roads for Amazon Coins: (1) the digital currency makes buying apps simpler, locks in more users, and stimulates the Kindleconomy as customers are more willing to buy products when they aren’t spending real cash; or (2) the new currency will confuse users, instill trepidation as they constantly wonder how much they are actually spending, and the currency goes bunk, like all of the others.

So, in the case that Amazon Coins is a success, how could this move affect mobile app innovation? With Amazon’s 1-Click patent, the Coins currency could help accelerate the Kindleconomy beyond expectations. Look at this way: if a user, in one click, spends 90 dollars purchasing coins, that money will burn a metaphorical hole in their tablet until they spend it on games and apps. So before the user knows it, they have spent all 10000 Coins, and now they need to purchase another bundle unless they want to become bored. In this way, Amazon Coins will become a mobile marketplace accelerating model, innovating the mobile landscape.
Let’s see how it plays out.
Let me know what you think will happen!

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Schedule a consultation today.

iOS 7: A Huge Opportunity for Mobile Innovation

June 18, 2013
 
Dan Katcher

If there was any question whether Apple could innovate without their iconic leader, WWDC ’13 surely put the naysayers to rest.

WWDC sold out in 71 seconds, reinforcing the fanatical support of Apple’s developers.  WWDC covered a wide range of topics, including a new retail store, new Macs, and more (see their kick-off Keynote), but from our perspective the most interesting news was centered around iOS 7.
Apple has chosen to redesign iOS 7 completely, with a minimalist style.  As Apple says on their site: “Simplicity is actually quite complicated.” Distinct functional layers—the Notifications Center and the newly added Control Panel—slide from the top and bottom respectively, giving users quick access to key utilities, including Airplane Mode, Wireless, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, AirDrop, AirPlay, and more.  Further, each layer has a degree of translucency, creating context across a unified environment.  As a consequence changing your wallpaper changes the feel of the entire user experience. Beautiful.

Panoramic wallpapers and parallax are two more great design features in iOS 7 that add depth and visual context. Check out the video below:

The multitasking interface got a face lift too: now, after a double-click of the home button, running apps appear in a horizontal list with their respective icons and screen previews, so you can see what’s going on before quitting the app, which can be accomplished simply by swiping up:

The new icons are completely redone although some critics have expressed so much distaste that Apple have begun revising a number of the least favorite icons already.  Here’s iOS 6 and iOS 7 side-by-side:
A second major announcement from the kick-off Keynote is AirDrop, which enables quick and easy file sharing between users in close proximity using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  We’ve been looking forward to this addition for a while now, partly so we can stop using email, and mostly because we think NFC is the future of mobile payments.  With Apple’s AirDrop, there’s no NFC involved, but it certainly feels like that’s not far off.  Sources say the transfers will work in different rooms of a house or at distances of up to 100m.  Unfortunately, AirDrop limits users to sharing only with other Apple products, so they will most likely adopt NFC eventually because Apple wants to dominate the experience from start to finish.  And with Apple boasting more than 575 million credit cards on file, its only a matter of time until AirDrop facilitates payments and completes the vision of iWallet.  You can read more about that here.

There are a number of other great, new features that haven’t received extensive coverage: audio-only FaceTime calls, but only over Wi-Fi; Activation Lock, which disables any kind of use after your phone has been remotely wiped unless you enter the Apple ID that was used to wipe it; automatically updating apps; Wi-Fi HotSpot 2.0; night mode and bookmarks syncing for Maps; camera filters and 60 fps video recording; Siri’s new voices and functions, including Bing and Wikipedia search; third-party game controllers and many more.  Read about those features in detail here.

WWDC ’13 proves Apple’s commitment to innovation on the mobile front.  There are now more 600 million iOS devices in circulation–iOS 6 being the most-used mobile platform globally, with the world’s largest app marketplace, boasting more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads to date.  If that’s not enough to inspire you, Apple has paid out more than 10 billion dollars to developers, and there’s still money to be made.
All in all, iOS 7 is not earth shattering but it’s a solid release with a large number of improvements.  Apple has, once again, advanced their thinking on a number of fronts.  Coupled with that gigantic user base, iOS continues to be the leading force in mobile and the premier place for innovation.

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Schedule a consultation today.

Brand New Site, Brand New Pig

June 5, 2013
 
Dan Katcher

Brand new site, brand new logo, brand new mascot.

Last week, after months of hard work, we hit a button and our beloved new website and Rocket Pig launched, imparting themselves to the world.

Our new site reflects perfectly the high quality of work we’ve done and are capable of doing, and our new logo captures the can-do attitude, coupled with a healthy spark of creativity and fun, that differentiates Rocket Farm from the rest. And it’s such a good logo that we’ve already promoted it to team Mascot. Way to go Rocket Pig!

People often ask us about the factors that distinguish Rocket Farm Studios from the many other companies building mobile apps today. Our answer: lots of things! We have a strong and deep engineering team that is not afraid to take on difficult problems—we can execute architecture and implementations on both the mobile side and the cloud side. iOS, Android, and the Cloud.

Nice combination. Likewise, our design team’s creativity and excellence constantly inspires us. Plus we have a solid, yet unique process for developing innovative user experiences that integrate brilliant visual designs with sound technical architecture on phones and tablets. Last but not least, we love to deliver.

Our project managers are world-class, and we take great satisfaction in thrilling every customer with a world-class experience—clear, concise communication, a schedule that makes sense and gets met … you get the picture.

Oh, and we love doing strategy work and thinking about mobile. The mobile revolution has changed the world and will continue to change everything about how we communicate, play, and transact. As Keith Teare so eloquently said: “Any company that isn’t primarily delivering its service via mobile five years from now will probably be irrelevant.”

We love mobile. We love the consumer. We love the enterprise, especially when we build enterprise apps to the high level of satisfaction that today’s workforce has come to expect from all of the apps in their world.

And we love our new pig.

Happy Rocket Farm!

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Schedule a consultation today.