It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged, and I have been stirred into action by someone a good deal more industrious than me.

Catherine (Cat) Wentworth is a young lady living and learning in Thailand. Her website, Women Learn Thai (WLT) is home to a range of “Thai language learning tips and techniques, local quirks and insights of Thailand”. She interviews language teachers, reviews books, and has a keen photographic eye too. She also reviews iPhone apps. Diligently.

Lingopal has been reviewed quite a few times. Some reviews are lengthy and verbose; others very short. A recent one from iApplicate.tv lasts a measly 57 seconds – perfect for the internet generation whose attentions span shorter than a Bolivian general’s temper. And most have been very favourable too. Where there has been criticism it has generally been justified, and we have, and will continue, to consider such criticism closely when developing future improvements.

But Cat’s WLT review is the first where we’ve actually been compared alongside our competition. It’s odd, because that’s what we do when purchasing things in our general lives, so why don’t reviewers do it for the App Store’s offerings?

Anyway, Cat has provided a fairly comprehensive analysis of no less than 14 different Thai language iPhone apps. Some are designed more as language-learning tools; others (like Lingopal) are more the ‘helping hand.’ I’m happy to say that Lingopal comes through fairly unscathed. Cat kindly pointed out that the addition of polite particles would be an improvement; it seems that just about all the apps failed in this regard.

The review was written from the perspective of an English-speaking person, which is fair enough, but I would have liked to see a little more emphasis on the fact that people from all round the world can use our app. In fact, we find Lingopal Thai to be particularly popular amongst our Japanese customers. And I would have also liked to have seen more consideration given to the relative value for money.

But those are minor whinges in what is an admirable undertaking. Carry on the good work Cat.

Yep, they’re here.

I’ve complained before about the length of time in getting apps and their updates approved, but Apple have really impressed in these last couple of rounds. Both took just under 2 weeks, which is pretty good considering the workload they must be under.

If you haven’t tried Lingopal out before then you can now, for free. Italian and Swedish come for free, and all the others are US$0.99.

Please note that we’re still waiting on the approval of our main Lingopal app (addition of Hebrew & Arabic plus extra phrases).

Here’s how they look in iTunes. Neat graphics hey? Pierre and Oliver from Pollenizer are responsible for those. MoGen did good stuff too getting the apps squared away.

We’re making some changes with Lingopal, and we think they’ll be for the better.

1) Lingopal will be available as single language apps. In fact, German and Japanese are available already, for US$0.99. These will be known as ‘Lingopal German’, ‘Lingopal Japanese’, ‘Lingopal language name … etc.’

These work very much like the main app, in that you first select your native language then your gender. What you don‘t need to select is your target language. All the remaining single-language apps have been submitted and are awaiting approval from Apple.

2) The single apps will have a rating of 17+. We’ve added in a bunch of phrases which we had to fleece when we first submitted the app. As you’d expect there are some quality salty ones. There are two new Categories too: X-rated Insults & Gay.

3) There will be two new languages – Hebrew and Arabic. Apple’s OS 3.0 update allows for languages which read right to left, so we wanted to take advantage of that.

4) In an upcoming update, Hebrew and Arabic will be added to Lingopal itself, bringing it up to 44 languages it total. Also, Lingopal will become a 17+ app.

5) (the bad news …) When all the single-language apps are available and the latest version of Lingopal has been approved, we’ll be putting up the price of the main Lingopal app. The single-language apps will stay at US$0.99.

Why are we doing this?

It’s become pretty apparent to all that Apple’s iTunes app store is in need of improvement. Ranking is really important, and $0.99 apps rank much higher, and hence get more exposure, than their higher-priced cousins. In effect, it’s become a ‘race to the bottom.’ Going hand in hand with this has been an expectation by large swathes of the app-buying public that apps should be priced at a dollar, and not a cent more.

So until Apple comes up with a better solution, we have to give the people what they want, and that means $1 apps.

There are positive drivers to this too though. For a start, the individual apps will be a heck of a lot smaller, and able to be downloaded and updated over the air. Also, a lot of consumers actually don’t want all those languages. Hey, I’m only going to Portugal. Why would I need Vietnamese? Fair enough.

Having a whole bunch of individual apps also allows us to make a few of them free, so people can try them out. If the free app is the particular language they need, then good luck to them. If not, then they can see exactly how it works and make a judgment about spending the dollar to get the language they need. And if they really like the app and want more languages, they can buy the original Lingopal with all the languages.

44 languages
25 categories
multiple language combinations
hundreds of phrases with audio

I just ordered room service in Italian from my Florence hotel room. Two days ago I knew zero Italian. What a great app!
- Phila G
Awesome app guys. Came in really handy when recently traveling
- Shaun J

more…

Kia ora is how you say hello in Maori, one of the many languages we’re planning on adding to Lingopal.

It’s also the title of Air New Zealand‘s inflight magazine, and I’m proud to say that we have scored ourselves a mention in the Hot News section. We’re in there amongst the crocodile-skin laptop, some high-end ugg boots and a very nice (and expensive) Longines watch with a leather strap. Lingopal differentiates itself of course, by the fact that it doesn’t contain any animal products. Mind you, if that crocodile skin laptop is anything to go by, then I’m sure you can get pelt covers for iPhones. Something sung for your ear on those chilly winter days … a hind-quarter of poodle perhaps.

A quick look at the back of the magazine tells me that, New Zealand aside, the airline flies to London, the USA, all over Australia and the South Pacific, plus several Asian cities, chiefly in Japan and China.

There’s a bit of development going on with inflight entertainment apparently. Some airlines are doing away with magazines altogether, citing the additional fuel costs caused by their weight. Others have negated this, saying that the advertising revenue more than makes up for it. Technology is playing a part too. This article found on Stuff talks about the growing use of personal technology, and its encroachment on the traditional offer of movies, tv shows and the like.

Regardless, we’re very happy to be flitted over by Air New Zealand’s passengers for the month of August.

It’s been over 5 weeks since we submitted the OS 3.0 update for Voyage, and it has finally been approved. There’s understandable relief on one part, but a gnawing anxiety on another.

We are in the process of submitting a new round of apps to Apple for approval, and based on our experiences to date, I’m fearful that they will take weeks, or months, to get across the line.

We’re not the only ones in this boat of course. There are plenty of tales out there of Apple’s notorious approval process, its delays, lack of transparency and seemingly illogical criteria for what is acceptable.

Unfortunately, until Apple chooses to change, it’s a case of having to grin and bear it.

I have blogged before about the frustrations in getting updates approved by Apple. And now I will do it again.

As it stands, we currently have 3 applications available for sale: Lingopal, Flirta and Voyage. The updates for all were submitted at the same time. Weeks passed, emails were exchanged, clients became angry, and eventually the updates for Lingopal and Flirta were approved.

A couple of weeks on, Voyage’s update still hasn’t been approved. Apple’s standard reply to my email enquiries doesn’t help that much:

“… still under review which is requiring unexpected additional time. While there is no additional information to share at this time, we wanted you to know it is still in process. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.”

Then last week I received an email from someone in Apple’s Worldwide Developer Relationship section, wanting to chat about the delay. My hopes shot up.

We had the chat, and Paul, the fellow from Apple, explained what the problem was. Because I wanted to avoid the situation where potential customers might download Voyage, only to have it crash on them (because the current build doesn’t work on OS 3.0), I put a nice fat warning in the Application Description within iTunes – *** Does not work with OS 3.0. We are waiting on Apple for our update’s approval *** – or something like that. I thought this a reasonable thing to do.

However, it seems that Apple’s system didn’t like it; the reference to OS 3.0 not working flagged some kind of error and meant that our update was deemed faulty.

But hang on – I only put that extra sentence or two in the app description of the current app, not the description for the update. So why should it be a problem? To investigate, I went into the iTunes Connect section where we manage our apps and their submissions, and sure enough, the app description for the current version was copied over verbatim to the update. So our update, designed to work on OS 3.0, had a warning about it not working on OS 3.0. Apparently you can’t have two separate descriptions.

That seems kind of silly to me. Anyway, I deleted the problematic sentences, and now there is no reference to either the current app or the new update not working on OS 3.0. That means two things:

1) there’s no reason why the update should not now get approved (it still hasn’t)

2) I expect to now get angry emails and poor reviews from people who (unwarned) download the current Voyage build and have it crash on them.

You can’t win.

After sales dropped right off in Japan following the OS 3.0 debacle, I was nervous whether we would ever be able to recover there. That #3 spot we held for so long was highly cherished.

Then something happened a couple of days ago. Our sales in Japan jumped over 1000% and we are now at #2. Curious (and very happy) I delved into the internet for a bit to find out what had caused this.

It was a review by a Japanese site called ipodtouchlab. All the literature about marketing iPhone apps recommends getting your app reviewed. There are plenty of outfits who do these (MacRumours, Ars Technica, iLounge, iPhone App Reviews.net, 148 Apps, AppVee, The iPhone Blog etc), but with over 50,000 apps in iTunes, it’s difficult getting their attention.

We’ve been reviewed in just a few (App Craver, Geek.com, iPhone in Canada, AppReview.com, The App Podcast and Just Another iPhone Blog), and some are understandably better than others. Just Another iPhone Blog for instance, is good. The reviewers look at the app in detail, question it and give an honest opinion. They also make use of video and use big, clear screen shots.

Just Another iPhone Blog.com - quality reviews

App Review.com, by comparison, are lazy. They simply drag all the text from the app’s iTunes page and give it a Good, Better or Best rating. There’s no other input at all. That they purport to have reviewed around 50% of all apps is meaningless when they do so little.

AppReview.com - lazy

It looks like iPod Touch Lab are one of the good guys. The review is decent in length, uses both video and screenshots, and most importantly of all, has a critical mass of readers who can act on what they have learnt in the review (I have a suspicion that a lot of these reviewers have a fairly low reader base).

iPod Touch Lab blog - screenshot of recent review

So, good news about Japan – thanks iPhoneTouchLab (@touch_lab on Twitter). It gives me a valid reason to revisit all those other review sites and press them again for a review.

Yesterday I went to a small supermarket to get a few things for dinner. There was a girl near the entrance serving soup with bread. Ah, the Global Financial Crisis has come to the Western Suburbs, I thought, before realising that this was no soup kitchen but rather a sample offering in hope of a sale or two.

The soup actually didn’t look that enticing. It reminded me of oft-used bath water, with the addition of some indiscernible stringy bits. Its name meant nothing to me, and the smell was unrecognisable too. But I was cold, and the soup was hot, and the girl was young and slim.

I took the cup from her while she explained, awkwardly, what other varieties I could buy. I smelt, not the soup, but an opportunity.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked.

‘I am from Russia.’

‘Drastveetsia’ I said, pretending to sip the soup. ‘Kak vas zavoot?’ Her eyes widened.

‘Menya zavoot Yulia. Your accent is very good. You have been to Russia, yes?’

Indeed it is. Indeed I had. Not to where Yulia was from though, near the Ural mountains. It was miserable there she told me; the place was decayed and the inhabitants sour. She had only been in Australia for 4 months, and before arriving, was unable to speak any English. My hand slipped to my iPhone, and while she talked, I quickly set Lingopal to Russian. Within a few seconds I had it: Вы прекрасно говорите по-английски!

‘Oh, you think?! I find difficult … when people talk so fast …’

Someone coughed behind me. I turned to see an older woman, tension drawn on her face. Through pinched lips she hissed: ‘If you’ve quite finished some of us would like to get some soup.’ With that she shuffled forward, edging me sideways in the process (she was a large woman).

‘For goodness sake,’ she spat at Yulia. ‘Are you here to do work or just chat?’

Poor Yulia flushed and hurried with the ladle. I said ‘Nice to meet you’ in Russian (the hag’s eyes darted suspiciously between the two of us) and turned again to my iPhone. Finding the phrase I wanted, in the Insults section, I enlarged the text and flashed it at Yulia.

Her shoulders relaxed a little, and the smile returned to her face. ‘Da’ she nodded. ‘Da’.

It’s been approved, and is now available in iTunes.

It’s been a curly couple of weeks. I’ve been getting testy emails from customers, both old and new, who had Lingopal crash on them when they upgraded to OS 3.0. Other customers let us know in the review section of iTunes. It’s pretty distressing to see 1 star ratings when we have only ever received 4 or 5 stars.

In retrospect we could have submitted our upgrade to Apple sooner, but with 50,000 apps, many of them also submitting upgrades, it was always going to be a wait.

So now we have to win back the good faith of the clients we’ve upset. Hopefully, once they’ve downloaded the upgrade and see that Lingopal works just as well as it did before, all will be forgiven.