News
Issue #50! Sweet. I have big plans for 2016 and am super excited to grow and expand the newsletter. Be sure to visit my two great sponsors this week and drop them a line thanking them for sponsoring Indie iOS Focus Weekly.
Correction: Last week, when talking about Obscura, I mentioned 'Ben and his team' as the creators. Turns out, Obscura is all Ben!
Design
User Onboarding Resource
Samuel has put together a site focusing on the techniques popular apps use to onboard users. There's a lot to learn by examining what is working for other apps. Proper onboarding increases engagement and helps your chances of retaining the user past the first few minutes of the download.
UserOnboard from Samuel Hulick
Marketing
Different Monetization Strategies
Last week I talked about Ben McCarthy and the new pricing strategy of his app Obscura. Curtis takes it one step further and talks about Obscura's success and how different pricing models work for different apps. It's not one size fits all.
"He earned almost 10x more not because of Apple, but because he found a pricing model that aligned better with what his customers actually placed value on."
Let Me Google That For You
There is a real opportunity here if any of your apps have the type of content that would be searched for on Google. Do you have a reference app? Drive downloads through Google searches without paying for Adwords.
Freemium Options
Andrew nicely sums up nine different ways you can earn revenue from a free app.
How Do Free Apps Make Money? The Complete List Of Ways To Make Money From Free Mobile Apps by Andrew Hubbard
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Tutorials
Demystifying App Submission Encryption Questions
Did you know that if you can make an https request through your app, that you are supposed to obtain an ERN? I had not idea. Luckily, I haven't faced this, but it's great to have a nice tutorial to familiarize yourself with the procedure.
How to legally submit an app to Apple’s App Store when it uses encryption (or how to obtain an ERN) from Carousel Apps
Working with Unwind Segues Programmatically in Swift
Unwind segues are very handy to jump back several views. Bookmark this tutorial from Andrew for when you need to implement one in Swift.
Working with Unwind Segues Programmatically in Swift by Andrew Bancroft
Xcode
Did Neo Choose The Blue Folder Or The Yellow Folder
Every newbie developer has to figure out the difference between the blue and yellow folders in Xcode. As Thomas explains: "you should use folder references only if some kind of assets should be dynamically inserted into the project".
Resources
Free Book Downloads
Indie's love free. Here's a free download to add to your library.
The Appreneur Playbook: Game-Changing Mobile App Marketing Advice from the Pros by Charlyn Keating via Paul Solt
Also, Steve Young has his book about how the best app developers get featured in the app stores for free for a limited time. I'm not sure how long these ebooks will be free, so be sure to grab them while you can.
App Store Feature: How the Best App Developers Get Featured by The App Stores by Steve P. Young
Frameworks
Easily Check Out Core Image Filters
This has been linked to a lot over the last few days and I wanted to make sure to share in case you haven't seen it. If you work with images and filters at all, this is a very handy Core Image Filter explorer.
Filterpedia from FlexMonkey
