Thanks ! According to my wife who is english to french translator - which helps me a lot to check my writing - my english is not so good ;-) But I believe it is enough to explain clearly what I want to say
It is a big discussion in the Montessori community. Some montessorian love my apps, some wants kids to play only with wood objects... Nobody knows what would think Maria Montessori but since she was an innovator, I think she would be open-minded and uses all the tools that can help kids to learn. If you check my last app about tracing letters, the sense of touch coming from the sand paper has been replaced with sound (another sense). Anyway, I say it again: the iPad is just another tool, it does not replace all the existing materials.
it really depends on your skills. Coding is one thing. Designing is another and graphics and third one. If you are weak in one, you should get help... I'm good in coding and designing but I'm not so good in graphics and for some graphical tasks I outsource, and always ask for feedback about the graphics I do.
Of course I forget a very important one skill : marketing !
If you put all EU markets together I think you've got something as big as the US (although one would need some figures to prove that). Now the issue is that you need to market in each country and in a different language. In addition, it is very complex to localize an if you do a literacy app - language, culture, way of learning, testing with teacher, etc... I don't know the size of the Russia market but I think it is the 10th if I remember well just after France (also to check on reports like Distimo's)
Nice feedback on Android market (yes the issue is that I sold mostly on tablet). I don't agree about cloning - what is difficult is to have a good/large user base and being featured. Cloning will not help you a lot for that. Gaming the app store (at least the ios app store) is not easy at all (or very expensive and not applicable for this kind of app). I don't think the trick you describe would work.
kid's game market (not "purely" educational) is more competitive, and you have to fight with big players like toca boca/disney/nickelodeon. So you have to innovate even more. I've seen great apps disapearing from the charts in 2 weeks. Did you try free with not consumable IAP ? Did you try to work on your keywords ?
Thanks ! Yes it's not a secret that the best way to market app is word of mouth but the issue is really to get a large user base so that it works. Happy to read that you play with your kids with my apps - I'm always thinking about that when I do an app because it is very important for me.
yes it is still an open question for me. There are many big brands that don't do this - why ? I think everybody is experimenting in kids'app world - it's not clear as in games where (consumable) IAP are very profitable.
The issue in schools is that older kids are smarter that the teachers and can fool them to do what they want on the iPad Or simply they can the hack the device to do what they want - there was a big story in LA schools about this - but I believe it is learning as well no ? I remember I learnt a lot about security and Unix when I was hacking the network of my university 20 years ago :-)
Let's say that you can't always play with your kids, so sometimes it's nice that they have some toys to play with...By the way, my kids are just around with friends and they are playing with.. Playmobil (whereas there 5 ipads available)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
Now there is a lot of discussions on how this approach can be translated to touch devices because moving things in the real world is something important in the approach. But most of Montessori people thinks that it is just another tool that can be useful (I think that too - it is just another tool) and there are certified Montessori teachers (I'm not) that are doing apps, and a lot of teachers told me that they love my apps
France is strange. I've got articles in NYT but never in french major medias. Recently, I've got more exposure in the US App Store than in the french app store... Perhaps I don't know the right person (or big medias are not interested in apps for kids ?) - or I just need a french PR
thanks - but I don't think it is the case anymore. There are indie,big publishers, funded startups that are doing great stuff (some have based their business model on my previous reports!!).
As I've said, when the iPad was released nobody thought that the iPad could be useful for education and that there will be iPads in a lot of schools...
Thanks - it's just because I'm still a kid somehow, so I like it to be fun for kids like me ;-) For the UX, I worked in this field so I've got some experience/feeling/theoric knowledge in this field. Pedagogy knowledge comes from having homeschooled kids - you need to learn (and also you experience) how kids learn the best way.
yes it is after Apple cut. Sorry for my bad english - I should use profit I believe.
I've got a little bit of expense but not much since I work alone and from home. I just have some royalties to give back to a text to speech engine for one of my app (I think it is around 30/40K for all my expense for 2013)
I think my luck is that I was here at the beginning of the /marketiPad. I was not thinking the market would grow so much. Using the Montessori name was not a big marketing plan actually (I was really dumb about marketing 3 years ago - just check the name of my company, it is really not good - especially for the US Market!). It was just because the concept was coming from a Montessori activites my homeschooled daughter was doing...
Some people told me that it was a very good marketing to have used the Montessori name, and now I agree but at this time I didn't know that.
My second app and 3rd app has no "Montessori" in the title because I don't want to use this name too much (perhaps I should because my work is always inspired by Montessori methods we use at home...)
Anyway, picking a niche and sticking to it is definitively something important and that worked well for me. All my apps are in this niche.
As a final note: when I release my first, there was almost no competition. The market was empty.
actually I've done this report in 2011 and 2012, and at this time this was really a good question because there was not so much competion. Nowadays as maxerison unerlined, there is a lot of competition (and I'm happy to still have a good visibility). I was even wondering if it was interesting to publish my report this year (I mean not only for my ego) but several devs told me that it was inspirational and give them energy to read such posts...
it was simple - I tried all the major engines on the market and take the best one for iOS. All companies almost offer the same license (20 to 30% of your income).
it's 75% after 1M euros (before it is 45% maximum). and I believe there is a lot of ways to prevent from paying this (eg if you do an investment in french island)
text to speech engines do not work like this. They built the pronunciations of any words on the fly using their phonetic sound library. so 90M is for the sound library I think