Is it worth supporting iOS 3 in 2011?
Now that we're well into 2011 the question has to be asked: Is it still worth supporting iOS 3 devices? There's a lot of cool APIs and language features you can take advantage of in iOS 4 (blocks - woo!), most new work I'm involved is targeted at iOS 4 and soon we'll have iOS 5 - but are you cutting off paying customers or future paying customers by requiring iOS 4.0 and above?
My short answer: no, not really. iOS 3 numbers are in steady decline and I don't think new or existing apps will be alienating too many active customers by requiring iOS 4+.
Quick Stats
- Only 11% of my active users are running less than iOS 4.0
- Only 6% of active users of my main paid app Seoul City Metro are running less than iOS 4.0
Now, lets have a look at some of the data I've compiled. Hope you enjoyed the graphs!
This first graph includes all the data I have collected so far summed up by month and major iOS version. The decline of iOS 3 is clear here with iOS 4 accounting for 89% of all active users by March 2011.
The second graph shows a sample of the last week's data split by iOS version.
The third graph splits up the 89% pie piece from graph 2 and shows the uptake of each distinct iOS 4 version. I found the iOS 4.3 update really interesting, since it was released on March 11 (only 9 days ago) and already accounts for 30% of users. (FYI: the first occurrence of iOS 4.3 was 15-01-2011) The previous version (iOS 4.2.1) is the second highest total at 55%. This means 75% of iOS4 users are actually quite up to date!
The same graph for the iOS 3 distribution (not included) shows the latest version of non iPad iOS 3, 3.1.3 accounts for 81% of users, and the version prior to that (3.1.2) accounts for 17.6%.
Graph four looks at the difference between paying customers and non-paying customers. The results are interesting but as I expected; paying customers are more up to date than non paying customers. There are half the number of iOS 3.x users (by percentage) of my $1.99 app as there are using my free app. It makes sense that people who pay for apps keep things up to date more than your user with a phone full of free apps.
P.S. I was inspired to pull all these details together today when I was noticed that my blog post about Delhi City Metro's iOS usage statistics had been linked to on Stack Overflow . I hope you find this all interesting.
P.P.S. Since July 2010 I have been collecting a basic set of anonymous data from users of my apps on launch. I collect iOS version, app version, unique device ID and the device type, I have recorded just over 109,000 pieces of data so far.
12 Months on the App Store
It was December 9, 2009 that Seoul City Metro 1.0 was approved for sale on the App Store after almost the full 14 days waiting in the approval queue. (See original blog post here)
The last twelve months have gone so fast, and I can't say I've managed to get as many apps published, or do as much marketing or promotion as I thought I could - but what I have managed to achieve has been a lot of fun and something I'm really proud of.
Here's some statistics from December 9 2009 - December 9 2010
Apps: 5
Sales: 36,965 (including free apps)
Upgrades : 20,522
Revenue (USD approx) : $ 4500
Coming up in 2011 I'm introducing iAds/AdMob ads into the mix, and hoping to expand to more cities, explore some marketing options and upgrade the citymetroapps.com website.
Presenting at Melbourne Cocoaheads Tonight
I'm presenting a talk tonight at Melbourne Cocoaheads (Google Group).
The topic is Apple's iAd framework, including how to add them to your project, a handful of things to remember about using iAds and an overview my first hand experiences with Seoul City Metro as an iAd supported app on the App Store.
You can find the source code for the demo I'm presenting over at git hub and the slides are below. The demo code (JCAdSupportedNavController) is an open source project I plan on updating in coming weeks with more advertising providers.
The Commonwealth Games experement
One of the original catalysts for creating Delhi City Metro was the up coming Commonwealth Games. Prior to the opening ceremony I released a substancial update to the app that included all the competition venues and allowed you to use the route calculating mechanism to find your way to each venue using the metro.
CWG Venues on the metro map
It was a programmers attempt at marketing. I changed the app's name, all the iTunes screenshots and key words and spent a considerable amount of time wrangling the train stations and train lines code to fit around commonwealth games venues. I created a neat little count down at the top of the app and a few new views to handle the slightly different content and added the venues in their approximate position on the metro map.
Did it all pay off? Well it didn't sell a million extra copies leading up to the games, but the app did see a sales spike and a considerable usage spike.
Delhi City Metro also moved back into the top 100 over all apps, and back to #1 in Navigation over the period.
There's also been a number of favorable reviews posted since the 1.1 update, and I've been trying to follow up user comments through twitter (@delhimetroapp) and via email.
App Usage
If you look at the usage over the past few weeks, you can see the spike in usage for the Commonwealth Games. It's also interesting that the usage appears to be maintaining a higher level than prior to the games, but it might change in the coming weeks.
Delhi City Metro usage statistics since the Commonwealth Games
Recent iOS Version statistics from Delhi City Metro
Not long after iOS 4.0 was released I pushed a small update to Delhi City Metro to keep track of some basic (anonymous) user statistics. I'm keen to gauge the audience of any specific iOS 4 features I might consider adding and now that I've been able to visualise these, I thought I'd share them here.
To add a geographic angle to the iOS usage statistics you can see in the second graph that the majority of Delhi City Metro users are from India.
Several weeks after the launch of iOS4 the split between iOS 4 and iOS 3 is 4.x 64% and 3.1.x 31% with iOS 3.2 at 4%. (Delhi iOS Statistics 13-26/8/2010)
Overall Delhi Sale Statistics
Delhi Metro is enjoying #1 in Navigation in India (Updated)
I'm very proud to announce that my fourth iPhone application and third city in the City Metro Apps Delhi City Metro has had a successful first week in the app store; it is now ranked as the #1 paid navigation app in the Indian App Store. Although the raw sales data show the Indian marketplace is incredibly small compared to the US, Australia or even Korea the statistic alone is quite exciting!
It was hard work gathering accurate GPS coordinates, route length and timetables for the Delhi Metro - but the most complete version of the data available is included with the app and I have developed a high resolution custom map too.
The Delhi metro is moving at an incredible pace, so I expect to be updating it quite often.
There's a temporary webpage with some screenshots over at delhi.citymetroapps.com and I'm updating the @delhimetroapp twitter feed with minor bits and pieces.
Delhi City Metro is available on the App Store .
27 August update, here's the navigation statistics for Delhi City Metro since it's launch, now that it's been about two months
App Sale!
Now that everything is up to date and Seoul City Metro has been up on the App Store for a few months I think it's time for a sale! I've orchestrated some facebook advertising, updated the Seoul City Metro Website and given the App Store time to propagate both the 1.1.2 update and the new price.
Seoul City Metro and Busan City Metro are now on sale until March 22nd!
I've decided to finally attack the $1 price point, as well as give away a premium app for free. I'm hoping this sale can raise the rankings of Seoul City Metro on the Korean App Store over and above the competition apps by being the best looking app at $1. I'm also hoping some good reviews and happy users will lead to some increased exposure and eventually sales for Seoul City Metro. I'll post results of the sale (good or bad!) next week when all the numbers are in.
Checkout the Seoul City Metro website front page for more info!
Seoul City Metro, and Seoul City Metro Lite are up to date again!
It had been grating on me over the last couple of weeks knowing that Seoul City Metro and Seoul City Metro Lite were not up to date with the new train stations opened on Line 1 (Dangjeong Station and Seodongtan Station) and Line 3 ( Garak Market, National Police Hospital and Ogeum). I held off an immediate update when the stations opened because I wanted to wait for the SMRT.co.kr maps to be updated properly and I wanted to include a few tweaks to the route detail interface.
New stations on line 3
As weeks moved on I was feeling increasingly like my apps were out of date, and the SMRT maps still hadn't been updated to reflect the new stations. So yesterday I just had had enough and pushed new stations, updated timetables and a manually modified map to both Seoul City Metro, and Seoul City Metro Lite. I was reluctant to manually update the maps because I don't have them in vector format but I was quite happy with the end result. Both updates were approved for sale in under 11 hours - and are available for download das you read this. (iTunes link)
I also managed to include one minor tweak to the route interface, allowing easier access to the timetables for a particular route. Although the timetables are far from where I want them, this is a step in the right direction. Also, the door side is now shown for the destination station the same as it is with transfers. (See screen shot below)
You can click the blue disclosure button on route start and transfers to see the next trains departing.
In other news:
Custom Map to scale in early stages
I've been building my own custom subway map for Seoul that will appear in upcoming versions of Seoul City Metro that will release me from the constraints of the SMRT map. It's well on it's way, you can see images of it's progress via @seoulmetroapp and here.
Busan City Metro is on sale this week too, I've reduced it to $0 as more of a test of the waters. (iTunes Link)
Oh, and I'm back in Melbourne for the time being.
Apple doubles maximum App size download over 3G or EDGE to 20MB
Apple has increased the limit for downloads over 3G or EDGE from the App Store and iTunes Store on the iPhone. Previously the limit was 10MB and anything additional needed to be downloaded via Wi-Fi.
From iLounge:
This limit now appears to have been increased to 20MB in both the App Store and iTunes Store on the device, allowing users to download larger applications and video content.
The reason why might be timed to get users used to downloading bigger apps before before the iPad arrives, or it could be a quiet response to an increasing demand for apps on the run over 10MB.
Whatever the reason it's good to see some relaxing on an arbitrary restriction. Seoul City Metro weighs in at 9.6 MB so I approve of this relaxing in restrictions.
Seoul City Metro V 1.1 is live, V1.1.1 in review and SCM Lite is coming soon!
It's been a long slog, I have to say. It took a solid six weeks of development and many hours of dead ends and frustration but I finally managed to pull together a complete, stable release that made it through the approval process.
There's still lots to do, and since Saturday morning I have already sent for approval Seoul City Metro Lite, and Seoul City Metro V1.1.1 wich contains a few small bug fixes.
Busan City Metro is also in the works, I expect that to be running on the Seoul City Metro V1.1.1 code in the coming days and up for sale soon.
There's lots more to write on the extended development period of SCM 1.1, but for now I'll let everyone get the update and I'll take a deep breath!
Current iTunes Connect status
JC Multimedia iPhone apps
Recent Posts
- Realestate.com.au iPad app goes live!
- WWDC 2011 Video recommendations (Updated)
- I’m attending: WWDC 2011 (SFO) and Swipe Conference (MEL)
- Xcode4 Shortcuts – Melbourne Cocoaheads, April 2011
- Is it worth supporting iOS 3 in 2011?
- A simple bash script to automatically create your iOS Icon.png files
- 12 Months on the App Store
- Presenting at Melbourne Cocoaheads Tonight
- Upcoming things
- Heading to #TEDxCanberra on Saturday Oct 23rd
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