Acceleroto

2009 was my first WWDC.  I had a ton of questions going into it on how to make it the best experience.  Here are some thoughts & lessons learned on how to make your 2010 WWDC the best.

Be ready to learn. Grab your thinking cap & be ready to learn from every session you go to AND from every developer you meet.  No matter who you are, there are things that someone else is better at than you.  Soak up all the knowledge you can.  If you have problems doing certain things (or questions about best practices), ask questions to any one who will listen.

Map out your sessions & labs. In addition to the WWDC web site, there’s a great app for the iPhone & iPad to help you figure out what sessions to attend.  Scan through the whole week before you get there.  Some sessions will be offered more than once.  There are sessions that will be announced after Monday’s Keynote.  Check the schedule often to make sure you don’t miss anything.  Make sure you check the labs.  There are wicked smart people there who can quickly solve that pesky UIScrollView problem you’ve been working on for weeks.  You can get the app here: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/app/

Embrace new things, but be afraid. You’ll have access to the latest OSs and sample code once you’re there.  It’s extremely tempting to quickly download all the new stuff & install the latest OSX on your computer or iPhone OS on your phone.  Slow down.  Think about it first.  There are pros & cons.  For example, if you install the latest Xcode version or operating system on your only dev machine, you’ll be able to see first hand what they’re talking about in the sessions.  However, your old projects may take work to compile with the new tools.  After installing Snow Leopard last year, I spent an entire day trying to get my iPhone OS 2.0 app to compile under 3.0 (because 2.x was no longer supported).  Because of that, I was barely able to ask questions about my app in one of the labs.

Bring your code. There will be times when you either sleep in late or decide to skip out of a session.  There will also be times for you to go to the labs.  You’ll really want your code then.  Bring everything you’ve done & everything you have at even a prototype stage.

Bring the right tools. You should bring a computer and whatever devices you develop for.  Your computer should be set up with all your provisioning profiles, etc.  You should also bring the 3-prong extension for your MacBook’s power cable (so you don’t take up 3 plugs in the power strips in the sessions).  Last year there was free wifi in Moscone that worked remarkably well.

Keep track of your stuff. Everyone at the conference was extremely honest & trustworthy.  There were, however, people last year that got MacBooks & iPhones stolen during non-WWDC hours.  Make sure everything you bring has a password set.  If you need to get up in the middle of a session to go to the bathroom, ask your session neighbor to watch your stuff.  Make a backup of EVERYTHING before you go to WWDC.

Shake hands. Many developers by nature aren’t outgoing people (no offense, just calling it like I see it).  This is a great week to meet people.  You already have lots in common with everyone there.  In between sessions is a great time to shake somebody’s hand & introduce yourself.  Ask where people are from, if they have any apps in the App Store (or out for the Mac), what their latest project is, where they live, what their favorite session has been so far, where the best party is that night, etc.  Go out to lunch & dinner every day with other developers or other folks in town for WWDC-related things (like the press).  If you’re out at a party, offer to get drinks for people.  If you have a plan for lunch or dinner, invite other people along.  The relationships you make while at WWDC will do you more good over the next year than the actual sessions.  (Bring business cards – even if you print them out yourself.  Put a picture on your twitter account that actually looks like you.)

Be nice.  Be patient. There are lots & lots of people all trying to get to the same sessions, parties & restaurants.  You are going to have to stand in line.  You are going to have to wait for a table.  Chill.  Everything will be ok.  Everyone’s experience will be better if you throttle back a bit.  While you’re waiting in line is also a good time to shake hands with someone new.

Show off – when it’s time. Every big name Mac, iPhone & iPad-related press company will be in town.  Keep your ear out for where they’ll be.  Last year TUAW had someone who tweeted that they’d be someplace for a couple hours.  He looked at quite a few apps & wrote lots of stories.  People sold lots of apps because of those stories.  However, don’t be a pain about it.  Writers are really no different than anyone else.  They are people too.  Shake hands first.  Take your time if you can.  Be nice.

Go to the parties. There will be more parties each night than anyone could possibly hit.  It might be tempting for some to stay inside & code.  Don’t even think about it.  Go out.  You don’t have to be a drinker or partier to have a good time.  In fact, taking a couple “health nights” and not drinking is definitely a good idea even if you are a full-time party machine.  This is what’s important:  meet people, share stories, learn from each other, buy each other’s apps, follow each other on twitter (to keep in contact later…not at the party), have fun.  You can check out http://wwdcparties.com for the latest on what’s going on.

Eat & sleep. You need to learn a lot this week. It takes energy & concentration to do that.  Eat well (good food, not huge food).  There will be snacks at Moscone in between sessions.  They’re mostly sugar though – don’t plan on the snacks getting you through the day. Eat a good lunch and a good dinner – with your new friends!  You know how much sleep you need each night to stay functional.  You can maybe skimp for a day, but you’ll seriously lose out on the conference if you try to get by all week on less sleep than you normally do.

That should get you started in the right direction.  I hope to meet everyone there.  Please follow me on twitter, figure out where I am, then walk up & shake my hand.  I’ll do the same.  It’ll be great to meet you.

-Bryan Duke

p.s.  Oh yeah…you’ll also need a copy of Doodle Hockey to play when you don’t have enough time to shake someone’s hand.  It’s awesome.  You can get it here:

Apple, Doodle Hockey, WWDC

Doodle Hockey is getting close.  It’s currently being scrubbed by the test team.  It’ll get a few more features added and any problems that the test team finds fixed in the next couple weeks.  Doodle Hockey’s on track for a launch in May 2010!

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Acceleroto is proud to announce Doodle Hockey™ !!

Doodle Hockey is next in a line of top selling and featured games from Acceleroto.  Taking lessons learned from our #1 best selling iPhone and iPad game Air Hockey, Doodle Hockey is a completely new game built from the ground up with all the best ideas from games past and filled with lots of new awesomeness.

We’re excited to work with the amazing artist Brett Archibald from Not How It Looks.  Brett’s art gives a cute, fun & instantly engaging feel to the game.  Kids, teens, and adults all the way up love the graphics!  Doodle Hockey’s sound design is handled by the award winning Tapio Liukkonen from Kaamos Sound.  With the high-powered combo of outstanding graphics & sound, Doodle Hockey is a completely addicting must-have game for the iPhone OS.

Doodle Hockey harnesses the power of Cocos2d for iPhone and the hyper-accurate physics engine Box2d.  Both work together to give you a game that anyone can learn in seconds that will keep you entertained with addicting replay value.  Stuck in a line?  Doodle Hockey.  Riding on a bus?  Doodle Hockey.  You need something to entertain your kids?  Doodle Hockey.  You need to play?  Doodle Hockey.

The graphics are done.  The sounds are rockin’.  The trademarks are filed.  Features & more features are being piled in.  Polish, polish, and more polish.  You’ll be able to get your hands on Doodle Hockey for your favorite device before you know it.

Doodle Hockey.  Available soon for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.  Only from Acceleroto.

Apple, Doodle Hockey, iPad, iPhone

Air Hockey & Air Hockey Gold will hit the iPad in a few days.  Here are a few screenshots for your enjoyment.

Watch the trailer here!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9pUXhz6BA&fmt=22

Air Hockey is the only hockey-style game in the App Store to hit the #1 paid game spot.  It’s been featured in nearly every category in the App Store and is currently featured on iPhone & iPod touch demo models in Apple Stores worldwide.  Macworld said “Air Hockey from Acceleroto is the best.”

Join the millions of people who’ve downloaded Air Hockey by Acceleroto.  You can get Air Hockey & Air Hockey Gold now for the iPhone.  When the iPad launches, no-cost updates will let you play in full resolution iPad-goodness.  Look for us at a local coffee shop on April 3rd playing Air Hockey on our iPads!

Air Hockey by Acceleroto. Hit it!

Get Air Hockey Gold for FREE!

Air Hockey, iPad

iPad is coming.  Acceleroto will will be there.

Today we submitted the latest version of Air Hockey.  It’ll be a free update update to those who already own Air Hockey.  If you don’t own it, it’ll still be just $0.99 to buy.  The new version (1.10) is what’s called a Universal Application.  It includes iPhone, iPod, and iPad versions all wrapped up in one application.

You can buy Air Hockey now & enjoy it on your iPhone or iPod touch.  When the iPad hits the stores on April 3rd go grab one & load up the updated version of Air Hockey.

Hit it!

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Air Hockey Gold hits the App Store on Friday, March 12th 2010 for free!  Air Hockey Gold is built on the same backbone of that made Air Hockey the #1 game in the App Store.  In cooperation with Google’s new and still very select Adsense for Mobile Applications program, Acceleroto is proud to unleash Air Hockey Gold to iPhone and iPad touch users worldwide.

The original version of Air Hockey was released on July 28, 2008.  After just over a month, it became the #1 paid game in the App Store.  Air Hockey has been featured by Apple many times spread over the last year and a half in feature lists including What’s New, What We’re Playing, What’s Hot, and Staff Favorites.  It was honored as the #1 game in Apple’s Our Favorite Games list and featured on over 50,000 demo iPhones and iPod touches in Apple Stores worldwide.  Air Hockey’s also been featured in Apple TV commercials.

Air Hockey won the Best App Ever 2008 Best Arcade Game and was a finalist in the Best Kids Game category.  Air Hockey was listed as one of iLounge’s top 100 games of 2009.  It was a finalist again and earned Honorable Mention for the Best App Ever 2009 Best Bluetooth award. Air Hockey by Acceleroto continues to dominate!

Air Hockey has been used by market and university researchers to understand how people like to interact with mobile devices.  One researcher said that after launching Air Hockey “every participant smiled.” Air Hockey’s intuitive design, beautiful graphics, and superb gameplay make it an instant hit.  Macworld said “Air Hockey from Acceleroto is the best.”

For the first time ever, Air Hockey’s price was reduced as it was featured by Free App A Day and OpenFeint as a free download for 24 hours.  In those 24 hours, over 100,000 people downloaded Air Hockey and it rocketed up the App Store charts.

Air Hockey Free has been a huge success.  While Apple doesn’t allow “demo” apps, Air Hockey Free has served as a feature limited and ad-free version that lets gamers try out Air Hockey’s Kiddie and Easy difficulty levels.  Air Hockey Gold has those same Kiddie and Easy modes, but also includes single-player difficulties up to “INSANE!”  With six difficulties to chose from and the groundbreaking choice for one or two pucks, Air Hockey Gold will keep you coming back for more trying to conquer that “if I could just do a little better” feeling.

Air Hockey has inspired may copycats – including games that have gone so far as to borrow our “Kiddie” and “INSANE!” difficulty names.  You deserve the best.  Now you can have it for free.

Air Hockey Gold launches from those huge successes.  Our existing Air Hockey games already have millions of downloads.  You’ll instantly fall in love.  Grab this unbelievable deal – download Air Hockey Gold.

Stay tuned for more announcements from Acceleroto.  You’re going to love Air Hockey on the

Get Air Hockey Gold for free!

Update: Air Hockey Gold is out!  Get it!

Air Hockey

With roughly 150,000 apps in the App Store, “there’s an app for that” is almost always true.  Surprisingly, I looked for an app the other day & couldn’t find exactly what I needed.  I fired up my computerized telescope the other day and needed to know my location & time in a specific format.

I didn’t have a handheld GPS, but I did have my iPhone.  I searched the App Store for “GPS Location” and there wasn’t an app with that name.  Huh?  I did find an app that gave me my coordinates, but they weren’t in the right format for what I needed.  So, I had to flip back & forth between the GPS app and the calculator to do the conversion myself.  Not cool.

So, here is GPS Location.  It’s super easy to use.  You launch the app and the GPS automatically fires up.  It figures out your location & shows your position on a map.  It displays your latitude & longitude in three different formats (DD.DDDDD, DD-MM.MMM and DD-MM-SS.S). If you scroll the map around, it updates the coordinates to match the center of the map.

I also needed time to the second.  You can’t get time to the second on the iPhone – huh!?  So, GPS Location also shows that too.  If you care about your lat/long, you probably care about the Greenwich Mean Time, so that’s what you get.  If you want to see the local time, just look in the status bar.

Check out GPS Location in the App Store.  Available soon.  Just $0.99.

GPS Location coordinates, GMT, GPS, latitude, Location, longitude, zulu

The numbers are in.

With a little promo work & setting the dropdown menu to “Free” in iTunes Connect, Air Hockey had 87,000 downloads in 24 hours.  As you might expect, that’s the biggest single day for the paid version of Air Hockey.  Of course, all those downloads were free.  Air Hockey’s been in the App Store since Jul 31, 2008 and has sold well ever since.  In App Store terms, that’s ancient.  I’m pretty sure that’s about the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

As best we can figure, Air Hockey’s done well because it has an easy to recognize name & icon, it’s super easy to learn, it’s average game length is only a few minutes at most, it looks good, and it’s gotten lots of features added over the last year and a half.  The importance of each of these could be argued.  It’s been featured by Apple a ton too.  That definitely doesn’t hurt.  There is a little bit of black magic in this software sales stuff too.

On a normal day, that many downloads would send about $61,000 our way.  So, did it cost us $61,000 to hold the promo?  Of course not.  Directly, it cost us the sales for one day.  Since nobody leaked that Air Hockey was going to be free, sales leading up to the free day were typical of what Air Hockey’s been doing.  Weekends bring in about 30-50% more money than week days.  Mondays are always slow.  Some people start their weekend early.

The real question is what will happen from here.  Since it was free yesterday, Air Hockey’s now lost it’s place on the paid charts.  The hope is that with all the press for yesterday’s promo, enough people will buy the game today to put it back where it was on the charts.  Well, the real hope is that it’ll end up higher on the charts than before.

Other developers have tried this same promo.  At least one posted sales figures from the Appvent Calendar.  From that sample size of one, it didn’t help much – if any.  So, we tried some things different.  As I’m sure Rana Sobhany (author of the soon-to-be released awesome book on iPhone marketing) would tell us, getting press is critical.  (She’d say it better than I did though.)  Instead of sending out a canned press release that everyone in the world would ignore, we sent personalized notes to important iPhone nodes around the internet.  Touch Arcade was the first to write about the promo, followed by Gizmodo, Geek.com, and several others.  Huge success.

In 24 hours of being free, Air Hockey raced up the charts to the #47 spot in the US, #13 spot in France, #17 in Italy, #52 in Japan, #66 in Canada, #67 in Germany and #99 in the UK.  According to Free App A Day, the next highest ranked app after a one day free promo was Reign of Sword at #60 in the US – Air Hockey made it 13 places higher.  In that 24 hours, 25,000 new people posted high scores to Air Hockey’s OpenFeint high score boards. We were very temped to leave the app free for a while longer.  Another day & it might have been in the top 10.  The world will never know.

The free promo is over.  Once again, the price of ownership is a mere $0.99.  Hit it!

The folks at Free App A Day and OpenFeint were outstanding to work with.  Many thanks to everyone that made this happen.

Air Hockey, promo Air Hockey, free, Free App A Day, OpenFeint, promo

For one day only, our hit game Air Hockey is FREE!  We’re honored to be part of a combined Free App A Day and OpenFeint promotion.

Air Hockey was originally released in July 2008 – the very early days of the App Store.  Since then, Air Hockey’s been featured by Apple in nearly every category and hit the #1 paid game spot in September 2008.  Air Hockey was top ten staple for many months & has enjoyed living in the top 100 in several game categories.  Now you can have it for free!

So, what will happen over the next 24 hours…or the next month?  How many downloads will happen when the app is free?  Will it see a boost after the promo is over?  It currently averages 4 stars over 1 1/2 years of reviews…will that change?  We shall see!

Enough words.  If you don’t have Air Hockey, you’re wrong.  Get it now!

Air Hockey Air Hockey, free, Free App A Day, OpenFeint, promo

Last week Palm let the first paid apps for webOS out from behind closed doors.  As luck would have it, our Air Hockey was the first app for sale in Palm’s App Catalog.  The first 24 hours yielded an amazing amount of press for Palm with Air Hockey riding on the coat tails.  Engadget, Tech Crunch, PC Magazine, and piles of others reported on the beginning of Palm’s paid App Catalog & all talked about Air Hockey.  As Engadget reported, Air Hockey was the only paid app for a little bit – 100% market share isn’t a bad place to start.

There have been lots of questions fired our way over the last couple weeks.  We can now spill the beans.

Why webOS?

We’re in the business of creating and selling great software.  Opportunities in nearly every platform are kicked around.  When Palm first announced their Mojo SDK, we applied to be a developer.  Palm has a long history of popular hardware (you had a Palm Pilot back in the day, right?) and the Pre was hardware worthy of some good apps.  They were only picking a handful of participants, so it seemed like a long shot.  As part of that application process, the questionnaire asked what app we would be developing.  We figured the best bet would be an established application instead of something new.  “Air Hockey” went in the app name section.  In the comments section (i.e. the “beg for approval” section), Air Hockey’s previous #1 paid game ranking in the iPhone App Store found it’s way onto our makeshift resume.  Couldn’t hurt.

While development was underway for Occurro! (for the iPhone), we got accepted into the beta developer program at Palm.  After all the signup was done, we realized that Palm had only announced plans for free applications.  Our development efforts were going full steam towards Occurro!’s release but without the option to actually sell apps, spending resources developing for webOS didn’t help our company grow.  Sure, free apps help build the brand.  Sure, apps could be supported by ads.  We looked at it.  It didn’t make sense.

Occurro! launched and was featured by Apple.  Starting a new iPhone project made sense.  Then they called.  Palm knew Air Hockey for webOS was at least somewhere in someone’s mind.  They asked how close the app was for release.  There wasn’t much to say besides “Ummmm…”

After dancing around a real status on the release date of Air Hockey for webOS, we talked for a while about why there wasn’t any progress.  There were several concerns, but #1 on the list was the lack of ability to recoup the cost of developing for webOS.  With roughly 300,000 Pres in circulation at the time (our best guesstimate), it would take multiple ad impressions per day from every Pre user to add up to much over the relatively short life of software.  To put food on the table, we had to be able to sell our apps.  Plain & simple.

“Uhhhh, we’ll call you back.”  After a few days, a non-disclosure agreement showed up.  I sent it back & we set up a meeting.  There was going to be a paid section App Catalog soon.  Oh yeah, and there’s a new device coming soon.  Palm wanted Air Hockey as a demo for the announcement of the new device.  It didn’t have a releasable name.  Just “new device.”  Things changed.

After meetings with product managers, engineers, vices of this, and chiefs of that, a demo of Air Hockey for webOS became #1 on the to-do list at Acceleroto.  We got to work with a very inside team to make the Air Hockey demo happen on time.  There wasn’t a “real” fast-motion game on the Pre yet, so there were a few hurdles.  We were invited to Palm to finish the development, but decided that timeline was so tight that the travel time to & from would actually impact the progress.  We had a Pre to test on & the SDK tools were in place to check for differences on the Pixi.  The demo for the Pixi launch was ready on time.  Next up, the paid version.

The demo version was very specific.  It was a technology demonstration to be used as part of the Pixi announcement.  The paid version needed more polish, more options, more features, etc.  The first 90% was done, but there was still 90% to go.  Through help straight from Palm and lots of sleepless nights, Air Hockey for webOS was ready the day Palm’s back end developer portal was ready to accept apps.

Did they pay you?

No.  No money made it our way from Palm for the development of Air Hockey (we didn’t ask though).  Palm keeps 30% of the sales.  We’ll get the other 70%.

How did you decide on that price?  It’s more than the iPhone version!?!

Economics 101.  It’s no secret that the iPhone version of Air Hockey has been $0.99 since it launched in July 2008.  When it launched, there were approximately 10 million iPhones & iPod touches that could run it.  At the launch of Air Hockey for webOS, there are something on the order of 1 million Pres that can run it (another guesstimate).  There’s more though.  There were about 3000 apps available when Air Hockey launched a couple weeks after the App Store opened.  At the time of writing, there are 125 apps available in Palm’s App Catalog.

No matter what the price, we don’t expect Air Hockey for webOS to bring in as many sales as the iPhone version.  Since we still need to make back our development resources, we have to charge a little more.  Economy of scale.  $1.99 made sense as our best guess for the sweet spot for Air Hockey.

Some people will think that’s too much.  Some people will not be able to afford it.  We know.  Some people will be very happy get Air Hockey for less than the cost of their morning cup of coffee.

How many sales do you have?

We’re still holding our breath.  After 24 hours, there were about 100 reviews for Air Hockey in the App Catalog.  Since you can write a review on your phone (instead of having to go back to a computer), we’re guessing the ratio of reviewers to purchasers is higher than it is on the iPhone.  We’re guessing sales are somewhere higher the number of reviews.  After that, we just don’t know.  Remember that the Palm developer program is still in beta?  They’re still finalizing the app sales stats stuff for us developers.  We’ll know soon.

How is webOS development compared to iPhone development?

Different. The actual hardware is remarkably similar between the iPhone & Pre.  The biggest difference is in the programming language & SDK.  iPhone development is centered around Objective-C.  WebOS development revolves around JavaScript, HTML & CSS.

The coding effort for the webOS & iPhone Air Hockey versions was tackled by Bryan Duke.  He knew C, C++, Objective-C, BASIC, FORTRAN, and even some ADA – but not a lick of JavaScript.  Thankfully JavaScript borrows from other languages so the nuts & bolts were quick to learn.  Objective-C (iPhone) programs are compiled to an executable binary.  JavaScript programs (webOS) are, well, scripts that are interpreted real time.  There’s an inherent difference in the execution speed of a given chunk of code.  Games require speed, so this’ll be a primary development concern for all you webOS devs out there.

Besides the language is the development environment.  The iPhone uses Xcode & webOS uses the Mojo SDK along with the Eclipse IDE.  Both work, but they’re different.  Intially getting your code onto a Pre is actually a whole day’s work easier than it was on the iPhone.  Bonus.  Debugging, however, is 1000x easier in Xcode.  Tradeoff.

What were the hurdles in development?

Speed.  We told Palm that we wouldn’t publish a game unless it ran at least 30 frames per second. Our webOS code is skinnied up from the iPhone version quite a bit to keep things fast.  After things were optimized, the single biggest time user is actually drawing everything to the screen.

Memory management (aka Garbage Collection).  WebOS is allows users to run multiple apps at once.  Users beg for multitasking.  You think it impacts game performance?  Absolutely.  Even if every app behaves nicely, they all consume memory.  Memory management is handled by the OS without any direct say of the individual applications.  Whenever the OS decides, it does a Garbage Collection.  Currently, this takes about 300ms (about a third of a second).  Air Hockey contains specific code to lessen the impact of these pauses, but developers can’t turn them off.  A lot of time was spent making sure objects weren’t needlessly allocated to minimize the frequency of the Garbage Collections, but you’ll see the pauses.  That may change in the future – we don’t know.

Touch handling.  WebOS runs apps basically as web pages.  So, touches are handled like mouse clicks in web pages.  Long story, but there are some specifics that equate to “touch neutral zones” in the OS.  If you look closely, you can tell that the touch response (drag your finger across the screen) isn’t as smooth as the background physics engine, puck & opponent movement.  We know & we’re working with Palm to make it better.

Sound.  The programming for sound is done, but there’s no sound currently in Air Hockey.  “WHY!?!?!” you’ve asked.  It’s not ready for this type of application.  The sounds work, but the ability to perfectly time them isn’t quite there.  If we included sounds, you’d be upset with them.  They’ll be included as soon as it makes sense to.

Timeline.  It happened quickly, but it was all-consuming.  Meeting the demo & paid timelines wasn’t trivial.  People are waiting on Occurro! and Air Hockey updates for the iPhone.  It’s time to get on that.  Oh yeah…and there’s another secret project starting soon.

Questions?

Leave a comment.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Air Hockey, webOS Air Hockey, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre, webOS