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#ProTip: The best book on marketing for app developers

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AltConf profile
Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli, the indie devs behind Astropad, a hit app that turns an iPad into a graphics tablet.
Photo:

We’re down here at WWDC, fishing for ProTips. It’s rich hunting ground. WWDC is the world’s biggest gathering of Apple developers, the alpha geeks, experts par excellence. What’s a ProTip? A ProTip is a nugget of knowledge, a little bit of expertise from someone in the know — a pro.

Astro HQ is a two-person indie software company that launched its first app in February.

Run by two ex-Apple engineers — Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli — their app was successful. They’re now making their livelihoods from their software. They’re living the dream! Independent app developers!

They’re as rare as unicorns.

Only 0.01 percent of app developers are financially successful, according to a depressing survey by Gartner.

Ronge and Donelli did a lot of things right, including their own app marketing, which they say was key to their successful launch.

They did the app marketing themselves, with no prior experience, and a lot of what they learned was thanks to one book.

#ProTip: How to get users in the habit of using your app

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Sally Shepard was speaking at AltConf about how to get users to actually use your app.
Sally Shepard was speaking at AltConf about how to get users to actually use your app.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac is at WWDC and AltConf fishing for ProTips. It’s a rich hunting ground — it’s the world’s biggest gathering of Apple developers, the alpha geeks, experts par excellence. What’s a ProTip? A ProTip is a nugget of knowledge, a little bit of expertise from someone in the know — a pro.

It sounds counterintuitive, but for many iOS developers, the easy part is getting people to download their app from the App Store. The hard part is getting people to use the app. Ideally, developers want them to use the app regularly. They want them to get into the habit of using it.

How do you do that? Sally Shepard, an app consultant who spent many years working with big publishers, has a great little tip.

Xcode 7 lets everyone install pirated apps and emulators on iPhone

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You don't need to go through the App Store to install apps now.
You don't need to go through the App Store to install apps now.
Photo: Apple

For years, Apple’s software engineers have played a cat-and-mouse game, closing loopholes that let non-developers install unsigned apps on their devices. But it looks like they’re finally giving up and will let any user install anything on any Apple device — as long as they’re using Xcode 7 to do it.

My awful life inspired Law & Order, Gamergate dev says

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Game developer Brianna Wu
Brianna Wu, a female game developer whose life was turned upside down by Gamergate.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

SAN FRANCISCO — Game developer Brianna Wu’s life became the inspiration for an episode of the hit cop show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

While she was kinda flattered, she wasn’t entirely pleased. To get Law & Order: SVU‘s attention, your life has to be messed up one way or the other.

“There’s no good way to be on Law and Order,” she joked.

Apple Music’s cool free features will cost Android users $10 per month

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price-beats1
The only way to get Apple Music on Android is to pay up.
Photo: Apple

Steve Jobs hated Android so much he once said Apple would never make an iTunes app for Android because he didn’t want to do anything that would make Android users happy. At yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Tim Cook sang a different tune by announcing Apple Music would be available on Android too. What he didn’t say was everyone with an Android phone is going to have to pay. Even for the free features.

You’ll be able to download songs for offline listening with Apple Music

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Eddy Cue demos Apple Music at WWDC 2015.
Eddy Cue demos Apple Music at WWDC 2015.
Photo: Apple

Apple Music may be a streaming service, but you won’t always need an Internet connection to enjoy it. Apple has confirmed that you’ll also be able to download songs for offline listening, so you can enjoy albums and playlists when you’re on the road without data.

Apple’s predictive keyboard has never heard of ‘El Capitan’

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Meet OS X El Capitan's best features.
Meet OS X El Capitan.
Photo: Apple

I’ve finally been able to start processing Apple’s overly long WWDC that was packed with celebrity appearances, tons of great software, and Eddy Cue’s horrible shirt. All of my nerd friends are chatting about iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, which is kind of hard to do because Apple hasn’t added ‘El Capitan’ to its predictive keyboards yet.

Try texting your buddy about how stoked you are for the ‘El Capitan’ beta from Mac and it’s automatically corrected to El Capital, which actually might have been a better name for it now that it’s suggested.

This is me in basically every chat window today:

Want to look like Drake? eBay has your vintage Apple jacket

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Drake talks Apple Music at WWDC.
Drake talks Apple Music at WWDC.
Photo: Apple

While Eddy Cue was busy winning this year’s worst-dressed award for WWDC 2015, hip-hop icon Drake surprised us all by hitting the stage with a vintage Apple jacket that oozed fashion from every stitch.

The hip-hop icon said he used “this tool called the internet” to score his dope threads, and you can, too, thanks to a number of eBay auctions that are selling vintage Apple jackets just like Drake’s. We haven’t found one yet with the exact same brown leather sleeves, but you can score an all-black Apple jacket that looks pretty similar for $350. If that’s out of your price range there are a bunch of other stylish options.

Check out some of the awesome Apple jackets below: