Please review my Bugzilla iPhone app. | Hacker News Reader

Please review my Bugzilla iPhone app.

blog.getbugbox.com

11 pointstmpk8 comments

The app is named Bugbox, and it allows you to access your Bugzilla bugs from your iPhone, on-line & off-line. It supports almost the entire range of functionality that Bugzilla's web interface offers. You can find more details on the app store page.

HN readers who use Bugzilla for bug tracking can get free promo codes by sending an email to support@getbugbox.com, and mentioning HN.

I would greatly appreciate any positive or negative feedback. Thanks.

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It looks like you put a lot of work and thought and iterations into your app. An app that is a better way to use Bugzilla (which does not look to have good UX). Fast interface, offline mode! Unfortunately, the iTunes AppStore landing page can't tell the customer that (yet).

A $20 app isn't an impulse try purchase. Perhaps a free or cheaper Bugzilla lite that only allows reading, not updating. Or better, a 17+ mature rated Free app that is hardcoded to connect (IP+ user/pw) to a demo public Bugzilla db instance that is refreshed to a pristine state daily - this would allow more evaluators easily. I'm not totally sure Apple allows this. Or if not demo, a Bugzilla for only major open source projects (pay for access to your own).

The limited space and screenshots Apple gives you to promote your app does not seem to be enough to click the Buy button. (I don't use Bugzilla but if this were for Jira, I'd evaluate it). Videos could nicely showcase the sexiness and speed of the UI. And testimonials (from your rockstar users)!

I'd put more of a benefits page on your main website. The offline mode is tremendous - that deserves to be treated with spotlights and tasteful CSS.

How am I going to do my daily workflow? Perhaps you can go through mini use cases of how a mobile Bugzilla client will help. And try to give away licenses to more, less rockstar Bugzilla community members.

The satellite bugs in your screenshots are cute but you might consider something more serious, as a manager might check out the iTunes link themselves prior to ok'ing an expense for the app.

Thanks a lot for some very thoughtful feedback. I will make an effort to incorporate all of this.

What do you think about a lite version that limits you in terms of the # of bugs downloaded to the app, but otherwise offers the full range of functionality?

If n is too high, you risk giving away your app. Check out http://exitstrategynyc.com for an example of a decent (IMHO) app landing page. You're welcome and realize that some of the feedback you get will annoy you - don't take it personally, especially if it's from a non rockstar (hints of elitism in your copy).

Now a tangent: Bugzilla seems to not be very corporate / because it is free. We had a Wiki at the department-level but only until someone powerful saw the value of that (knowledge sharing, freeing information usually buried in a thousand inboxes) and brought in Atlassian's Confluence did it take off, such that it is now literally enterprise-wide. Corporations don't want free software, especially if it looks free, like Bugzilla's PHP UI implies. Corporations want polish. They want license agreements. They want evaluation versions that can be locally hosted and maintained by IT (e.g. you'd sell a server + mobile client package). They want to pay you money to make their daily tasks a bit less tedious. They want to pay you lots of money to make them look good (for proposing your product). Yes, this might not be the direction you want to head in but corporations are looking for your product.

If you can make a version for Atlassian's $$$ Jira - that is a serious corporate market -you might want to just out of the blue contact Mr. Peldi of Balsamiq and ask how he developed his Confluence plug-in (e.g. did he initiate a relationship). Please consider Jira - if nothing else to see if they are open enough (web services or plug-ins) to make it feasible.

I would try a full version that is limited to a public demo database (with permission, ideally a clone in the past of a major project or at least one that enough bugs to demonstrate your performance - neutered, of course, in that assigning a bug does not send real notifaction emails).

Or, as doublec has suggested, a special version to demonstrate linking to the databases at bugzilla.mozilla.org.

Or, use the ad-hoc (UDID) feature to distribute time-limited, domain locked evaluation versions for corporate evaluation.

Either way, the cost is so high you need to let users try it hands on so they can see the value for their own Bugzilla instances.

I forgot to add this in the original posting.

Any HN readers who use Bugzilla can get free promo codes by sending an email to support@getbugbox.com, and mentioning HN. The promo codes only work in the US app store.

Add screenshots to your web page.

I would consider adding more description blurbs for this app. $19.99 is definitely too expensive. It is a niche app and I'm guessing it took you a couple months to build but that kind of pricing may not work on the app store for such an app.I'd drop the price to at most $9.99 or even $5.99. Marketing, marketing. Getting noticed after a few weeks in the app store is always a problem. I hope Apple can come up with better ways for developers to market their apps.

I've published 2 apps in the store and it's been a fun experiment : http://dearcloud.com/mobile/

Sales do spike up the first few weeks while your app is on the first or second page of its respective category. Good pricing will get you more downloads. Good luck

I stumbled across this in the app store today searching for a bugzilla iphone app. It looked good but I didn't buy it for two reasons:

1) The cost. Too much for a 'just buy to try'. 2) I had no idea if it would work with the bugzilla systems I use (Mostly bugzilla.mozilla.org) and it cost too much for me to risk it not working.

FYI: It's verified to work with Mozilla's Bugzilla installation.

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