It's been over a month since I launched Clips on the App Store and I thought I would reflect on the first month on the app store and share a little bit about how things have gone and where I see things going over the next few months.
The Response
When I launched the app, there was an incredible response in the youth worker community. I was blown away by the number of people willing to help get the word out about the app. In the inital days of the launch, the app peaked at number 11 in the Top Reference apps. Being in youth ministry it was incredibly awesome to have a lot of "important" names in the youth ministry world recommending the resource I made.
"As much as I’d like for people to continue to buy my books (Videos that Teach), I think RJ’s app will be more helpful (and cheaper at only $2.99)." - from Doug Fields' post about the app launch
The Sales
Sales have been good, but certainly not amazing. I haven't lost any money that I've invested in the app and it continues to make sales everyday. There are a significant number of people that have downloaded the app and I'm extremely happy at that and have some great plans that I think will make these users pretty happy. On the same hand, it is nowhere near selling 300 copies per day like the Top Reference apps likely are. I'm okay with that, but I'd also like to see the numbers climb a little. The chart reflects the progression of download numbers; it seems this pattern is relatively typical in the life of an app. My hope is that I can get some features and coverage that will help with this.
The Future
We're currently at the 1.1 version of Clips and I continue to work on additional updates for the future. The biggest feature requests at this point have been to grow the library, to include the actual clips, and develop an iPad app. I continue to be looking for movies to add to the library and will keep adding more with each update to the app. Adding actual scenes from movies is a bit difficult due to copyright issues, but I'm hoping that I can figure out some kind of alternative. And I've been hard at work at building Clips into a universal app, meaning it will have both an iPad version and iPhone version of the same app, for one price. There sitll is a lot of work to do to make the iPad app a reality, but it's coming.