WWDC is underway and Apple has given us all loads of shiny objects to play with.
That’s a good thing and can also be a bad thing. I watched the Keynote with a smile on my face throughout and then it ended with a surprised face when Craig Federighi dropped the Swift bombshell!.

Don’t Implement Swift. Even Though it Looks Like Fun

All apps in a couple of years time will be programmed in Swift and I’m so excited to jump in and learn this cool new thing along with my team. As a developer, my first instinct was to re-write everything we’ve got in Swift 🙂 Wouldn’t that be cool?

But I had to step back and think. The phrase “wouldn’t it be cool” serves me and not you as a customer. And that’s something you should also think about. You are the one having fun implementing a new language, but is your end user getting any benefit?

Make sure you don’t join the bandwagon, chase the shiny object and neglect your main goal. Delivering value.

I think the best way to go about it is to integrate Swift in stages into your app. Good thing, Objective-C and Swift can live together in harmony.. At least for a while.

Let’s jump onto the other things you need to know about iOS 8.

New Marketing and Monetization Opportunities

From the screenshots in WWDC, it seems the App store search results are now scrolling vertically and not horizontally anymore. Each entry shows the Title of the app and then a couple of screenshots.. That’s good. I hate swiping to the left to browse.. and this is going to change the way your apps are discovered.. again.

Your screenshots are more important than ever.

Also, we see the opportunities for bundled apps. This is going to be a game-changer. Now you have the opportunity to up-sell your users to spending more with you. When you go to McDonalds and you order a burger, you get the question… “Do you want fries with that?”, that’s an up-sell and it’s a fact that McDonalds makes most of it’s profits from the add-ons they sell to you. The fries and the cup of water (cough, sorry.. Coke)..

This will work best for you if your apps are related. For example, if you have a Scanner app and then a Photo Editing app, you can offer your users the whole suite of apps in one bundled price.

User Experience in Notification Center

It seems you can now drop a full UI into Notification center!. Well, I’m sure there will be restrictions but this is another game changer. I hate seeing some app notifications mostly because they are irrelevant and this is due to the fact that they are forced to show me the notification as text only.

Imagine a podcast app telling me there is a new episode and I can play it right from the lock screen or your quiz app sends me a single questions challenge from a friend. I can;t wait to see what ideas come up. This is going to help with retention more than ever.

And More..

There is a lot to be excited about. I’m also looking forward to using CloudKit to add a backend to our Newsstand template to re-implement our Push notifications and Background downloading. Right now, we use Parse but it would be better to have everything under the Apple roof. Easier for you to work with.

HealthKit and HomeKit looks like it is going to allow a new category of apps. That’s something you should consider. The competition will be non-existent on Day 1 of iOS 8.

At the end of it all, make sure you deliver value to your end user and have fun while doing it. Here’s to a profitable implementation of iOS 8!

You could say that Twitter has seen better days when it comes to their growth rate, as many of the popular media outlets and analytical magazines are reporting that, Twitter’s user growth is in fact on a very thin line.

Despite more than doubling its revenues to $250m (£148m) in the first quarter, Twitter’s user growth is slowing and shares have plunged more than 10pc, it was announced on Tuesday. You can watch that small video report here.

However, there are roughly 200 million mobile users that are averaging 350 million tweets per day, which makes it a very appealing place to go to when it comes to advertising and marketing. Especially so, when we’re talking about marketing our own applications. Such a large mobile user base means only one thing, if people want/like your app - they’ll install it right away.

The first time we got to hear of the Mobile Install Ads was back in November, 2013 - BusinessInsider wrote an article which went into little bit of detail about the new platform, and how it’s being pushed out now, because Facebook reportedly has been able to make a huge revenue gain from offering the same way of advertising.

Just a couple of months later, Twitter finally announced the new way of advertising to the public. In their announcement, they clearly state that everything is being handled by the MoPub’s advertising exchange, which means that you’re able to expose your apps to more than 1 billion unique, mobile devices.

You can try and rely on 3rd party services to take care of all the marketing aspects for you, but you can also try and implement the following tips in order to create your own successful mobile advertising campaigns, which are guaranteed to boost your application downloads and installs the next day.

Know Your Audience / Demographics

Trying to advertise your application for every single Twitter user is not going to be a great start, and you’re most likely going to lose a lot of money along the way. You should beforehand know who your audience is, and where it is coming from. This can be easily achieved if you’re monitoring any sort of analytical activity of your website and product in general.

Don’t Invest Everything at Once

One of the most common rookie mistakes is that advertisers just want to pour thousands of dollars into a platform, and then expect millions of dollars in return revenue. This is not how it happens, and especially not in the market of mobile app installs. It’s a delicate market that should target only those people who’re genuinely interested in your product.

1. Test the market multiple times, with different types of demographics and settings. Make sure to document everything, and only then begin to make bigger decisions.
2. Create campaigns for multiple countries at the same time, with a low budget for each. See how much impressions and installs you’re getting.
3. Combine all that newly found knowledge into more wise decisions for future campaigns. This is very crucial when it comes to big networks like Twitter and MoPub itself.

Call-to-Action on Your Images

Okay, now that all of that is out of the water, one thing that I’ve found very useful when it comes to maximizing the potential of my mobile install ads is very simple. I add call to action text on my images as well, because the ‘Download’ button is there by default. Anything as simple as ‘Install Now’, ‘Get This App’ will be sufficient enough to increase your overall CTR.

The problem: Twitter doesn’t treat images as genuine links, but it will trigger some attention within the user who clicked on the image, to make him further explore your application. It’s all about telling the user what to do, before he even does it.

Making the Most of Twitter Mobile Install Ads

At the moment, it’s a very delicate market, and there is yet to have any big development in this. I’ve only used these ads a couple of times myself, and from the overall experience and results, most of my installs have ended up costing me anywhere from $1 to $1.50 per install. I think that is a pretty good investment, given that you’re able to sustain that new customer for longer than a day or two.

The journey continues, and WWDC 2014 is approaching rather quickly - we’re surely to hear a significant amount of news and updates to the current Apple platforms, and the ones yet to be revealed. Are you excited?

In the past couple of weeks we’ve covered things like user experience for Flipboard, and how to build a Newsstand application that can stand out from the rest of the crowd. It’s not as difficult as you might think, so we recommend to check those posts out and perhaps get something going.

It’s all about being able to understand the Apple’s vision of good design, and then taking those concepts and merging them into one, together with your own applications. As far as the iPhone goes, every iOS 7 update brings us a set of new features to play with, sometimes even design changes.

We want to focus upon the design changes in this post, more specifically - we want to look at some of the trending design trends for iPhone applications in the year 2014. In my research, I’ve looked at several dozens of iPhone applications, and have come up with what I believe is the ‘strong five’ of what makes a good application to sell and stand out from the crowd.

Native Environment is Way to Go

Trying to get the user to read an 10 page manual on how to use your latest radio application is never going to work out, in fact - we strictly advise against the innovation of new systems for application building. You should focus on native functions and implementations, which enable to build easy to understand action calls for your apps.

Flat, flat, flat!

You want to take advantage of the flat design trend, iOS 7 comes naturally flat, and while many people will disagree that it has any real advantage - it’s not getting popular just on mobile, it’s everywhere. And because it is everywhere, people are more likely to adapt to it, know what it is and have a more familiar experience with your application that uses a flat design.

How Minimalism Evolved Over the Years

Flat and minimal go together like bread and butter. Just take a look at this following picture, it’s a showdown of how the minimal design trend has evolved over the years, featuring the top performing companies in the world. I think the trend is clear.

I just love the fact that it’s so obvious, and with such evidence - there is no reason to say no to minimalism, it’s all about making the user experience flawless.

Great Typography is Invaluable

It’s more than just knowing how to use Comic Sans. In fact, so many people are starting to steer away from the trend of using typical fonts - and instead are starting to rely on more mature and professional font types, which may or may not cost you money.

I was reading this post from a familiar developer resource, and it really explains well - what the current state of mobile typography is, and what we can do to improve it. It’s all about personalization and making the typography work together with our style choices.

Privacy is Caring for Your Users

The last big iPhone application trend to pay high attention to is definitely privacy. We’re seeing a massive influx of privacy invasion in the last couple of months, and there are no signs of that stopping - not by a long shot. We need to make sure that we’re providing our users with the highest quality security standards that are available.

If we’re tracking our users, not only should there be a clear message about it - we should also enable the user to opt-out from being tracked; in the best case scenario - never enable tracking by default. It builds trust, which is so important to keeping our customer base.

Conclusion

I think if we can manage to implement all of these steps within our iPhone applications in 2014, we’re looking at a much brighter future, and - there is no need to innovate or reinnovate something that is already working so well for so many developers.

You’ll find it tempting to use the latest ‘kick-ass’ technology on your apps, but make sure you’re analyzing it from the both sides, and always make sure that you follow the steps we’ve discussed above.

Any business, company or individual serious enough about his ventures, should always considering working with a Press Release company, in order to be able to spread the word about the latest product launch you’re doing. But, at the same time, press releases are not just for trying to lure in more customers.

You’re also building PR whenever you need to directly communicate with your current user-base, and it’s also crucial for times when media companies want to quote something about your given platform. Though, in modern times - press releases are more of a way for journalists to communicate the message of your story, in their own publications. It’s not a bad thing, but it does take some steps to get there.

It’s important to take into consideration the fact that journalists are overwhelmed, with the massive amounts of press releases that get released every day, and frankly - hardly 1% of them are worth looking into. While some prefer to trust only one particular source, you can still optimize your press releases to the level where they get noticed. Lets see how that can be achieved.

Publish Press Releases Only Within Reason

If you think that you can just send out press releases every day (as expensive as that might be), you’re totally wrong and should stop thinking that way right now. I’d even stay away from publishing as often as every two to three weeks, a month seems reasonable, but even then - not very common. Have good reasons for writing a PR, and good things will happen.

Treat Press Releases as a Story

You should avoid the common misconception that a press release is only good for attracting more customers, or at least eyeballs to your business. It might be so for some people, but the most important thing to focus on is telling a story of that new thing you’re inventing, and telling it in a way where people will want to learn more. You should take the advantage of those entrepreneurs who treat their PRs as news, and so devalue themselves, not knowingly.

Choose the Right PR Company

There are literally hundreds of PR companies out there, willing to offer you the cheapest deal - just to have you use them, and perhaps recommend them in the future. It’s all business, but your part of the bargain is to choose wisely - you should consider your options when it comes to publishing a PR trough a reputable company, and not to mention - making sure that you’re not publishing stuff about classic cars, to a publication that published about natural notepads.

(In some cases, the PR company will help you with some parts of the PR - to adjust to their own standards, which are often tailored by experience and past success reports.)

First Sentences Are for The Context

You might end up having a lengthy press release, if you’re all about going into details, but the most important part should be the first couple of sentences. No more than four. You should convey the message in elegant manner, clearly state what are the news about and what is about to follow. Nobody likes to get tricked into some bullcrap story, which ends up being a bunch of words thrown together. Be concise.

Data Will Make an Impact

Whatever it is that you’re announcing, can probably be told/displayed within the context of data, and you should totally go that route, because data is what makes it easier to understand what drove you to that decision that you’re announcing - and it’s particularly good for getting noticed by high quality journalists, who prefer to work with data: rather than plain words.

Writing High Quality Press Relases

It’s not all that difficult, it’s not even more difficult that writing a blog post or an article, all it requires of you is some professionalism in the language and the right approach to the news you’re announcing. By taking into consideration all of the above steps, you’re bound to make it much easier for people to find you, and for people to consider reading your press release - top to bottom.

Blogging is evolving, it’s growing and it’s certainly becoming the norm for a large part of the planet. It used to be the thing for those who could wrap their heads around writing in an online editor - these days, it’s everywhere, and it’s changing.

Nowadays, bloggers are encouraged and expected to rise above the limitations of normal writing, and instead focus their attention on creating additional channels of information: video content, visuals, infographics, podcasts…you name it. It’s all about more content, more things to learn about.

Just a couple of years ago, it wasn’t very viable to turn your WordPress blog into an application for the mobile phone - for the most part, it was because there weren’t enough people admiring the idea. Let’s just say, the supply had no demand. Now, tables have turned, and it’s time to start thinking of how to turn your blog into an app for the masses.

Meet NewsFeeder, an outstanding iPhone application template that will enable you to turn your WordPress blog into an iPhone application within a couple of minutes. It’s really easy to work with, and there is plenty of support available to get you started.

But, why would you switch and what are the real benefits of doing so? Is it going to increase your readership, engagement? I guess we can look at some of the benefits of using NewsFeeder as your starting point.

It’s Really Easy to Get Started

Couple of years ago, only professional developers would be able to build reading applications from their blogs, it really wasn’t all that common and it seemed that at the time, magazine apps were more popular. Now, you only need to get the NewsFeeder template and you’ll have a ready to go app for your blog, in few short moments.

Your Apps Shows the Essentials

Unlike a full-page blog, where the reader is presented with all of the cool gadgets, plugins and widgets of your blog - using an app, they’re presented with only the most crucial stuff, which is, of course, the content itself. NewsFeeder is great in this particular area, because it provides you with social integration as well. Which leads us to…

Greater Social / User Engagement

By having only a few, direct, features on your application - like reading, and social sharing, you’re encouraging a lot of discussion around the content you’re producing, because think about it - the person has your app installed already, he has enough trust and praise in your content that it will surely get shared every time. (most likely, to multiple social networks at a time)

Mobile Blogging Apps are Forming a Trend

Yeah, not every blog should have an mobile app, it will be stupid to think that every person is now going to read all of their favorites blogs from within separate applications. But, if you’re in particular niche, attracting a one of a kind community to your content, it’s definitely worth considering. Your job is to make the app stand out, which NewsFeeder can help you achieve.

People Who Install Your App - Trust You

It’s the second time I mention trust, but I think it really should be emphasized. Peoples mobile phones are their one crucial aspects of their lives, and if they choose to install a mobile blogging app that you’re providing - that is a huge signal that you’re doing something right, and it gives you the advantage of being able to directly interact with your readers and potential customers.

Conclusion

I’d definitely consider grabbing a copy of NewsFeeder right now, if only to see how it can help you and your blog to expand and grow at the same time. Not to mention, if you can show the initiative of taking the first step towards trying something, your readers will appreciate you for that very thing.

You should know that, not only are these all crucial benefits of converting your blog into an iPhone app - it’s hardly touching the tip of the iceberg, some other advantages include:

• giving readers something new
• increased visibility, through the app store
• word of mouth advertising (cool app, where’d you get it?)
• etc,.

as you can see, the list could go on forever, we just need to acknowledge that those are the real benefits and then go ahead and build our very own, mobile blogging app!

If you’ve been living under the rocks, the best way to explain Apple push notifications is by saying that it’s a way of getting people/users to jump back to your app, from whichever screen they’re using.

Imagine that you’re playing a video game on your iPhone, and then all of a sudden, someone has mentioned you on Twitter - you naturally get a push notification, if you choose to click on that notification, you’re directly brought back to the Twitter’s application, the end result.

It’s all that push applications are, but they’re quite essential to your apps, and for many businesses, are an important part of their business strategy. I’ll be going a little bit more into detail as to how we can use our push notifications to engage our users in the best possible way.

At the moment, there are 3 different - common - types of push notifications:

1. Alerts
2. Badges
3. Sounds

we can use whichever suits us the best, to capture our users attention and hopefully engage him back to our application. As for the badges, it’s those little numbers that you see appearing on top of application icons, that’s a push notification as well.

Apple first announced the service on June 9, 2008 with a stated release for that September; however, as stated by Scott Forstall at the iOS 3.0 preview event on March 17, 2009, the rollout was delayed after a decision to restructure the APNs for scalability purposes due to the allegedly “overwhelming” response to the announcement of the APNs. At both events, Forstall stated that push notifications were a better means to maintain battery life than background processes (which are used for pull technology) as far as receiving notifications are concerned. [W]

You will want to start by creating your own Push Notification server, it’s a pretty difficult task for newcomers, and so we recommend reading this tutorial from ServerDensity, which goes through all of the aspects of building a stable push notification server; including the information on how to handle tokens.

Watch the above video to better understand how the tokens work, and why they’re so essential to your apps. I think once you grasp those basic concepts, it gets a lot easier, and the tutorial will seem a lot less of a hassle as well.

Your next step in this case, is to visit the official Apple documentation on push notifications, it would be silly to try and copy/paste everything from there into this post, and it’s better to read from an official resource than it is to read as interpreted by a 3rd party.

How To Effectively Use Push Notifications to Engage Your Users

At this point, you’ll have enough knowledge to build your own push notification server, and begin pushing those notifications to your apps. It doesn’t get easier than that, but what are some other aspects we can utilize in order to improve the quality of our service? I’ve gathered up a few things, I think you’ll find them useful.

• 3rd Party Services - you can avoid setting up your own server, by using the services of businesses that provide solutions to push notifications. they’re built to scale, and you’ll find quite a few online.
• The Right Library - Node.js, PHP and many other programming languages have their own classes and libraries built for handling push notifications, always make sure to use software that’s reliable and secure.
• SSL Certificate - remember that you need to generate an SSL certificate for both development and live environments, Apple disallows talking to the APN server without a certificate.
• Use Them Wisely - going overboard with your push notifications will end up in people leaving your app for good. make sure you’ve got everything figured out, and send notifications only for the highest priority things.

It’s easy to confuse something for what it’s not, and notifications are definitely not a thing to use for constantly bombarding your app users. Instead, try and figure out the best way of using them, and then take that knowledge to your advantage, to increase the engagement rate.

I hope these tips will come of use to you, and feel free to reach out in case you need help or advice.

Mobile application businesses are growing by each day, and while there are many specific jobs necessary to allocate for certain people, a business type application will usually need an application designer - more than anything else.

Looking through the salaries of app designers, we’re in no position to argue that $90,000 per year is a very good salary, especially if you love what you do. But, what to do if we’re not app designers, and we actually need to hire one? What is the top advice for hiring an app designer?

The market is growing, and so is the demand for experts and professionals alike. Lets remember the traditional rule of 10 year experience, to be called an expert. That means, every year we get thousands of more proficient, potential app designers available for hire.

Do You Need an App Designer Right Now?

The first, and probably the most important step is to make sure that we’re hiring an app designer at the right time, not too early, and not too late. Otherwise, we’re wasting a good chunk of money, for having the designer sit around and give philosophical advice, instead of doing actual, hard work.

Developer or Designer? Both?

Right, well, these days - developers and designers actually have their own little jobs to do, and it’s recommended to look deeply within the infrastructure of your business/application, to make sure that you’re hiring the right people at the right time.

Try Friends, Reddit, Twitter - First!

Okay, having decided what you really need, it’s time to look for the actual designer himself! Do this by applying any of the above methods I’ve mentioned in the headline. Your friends might know of good designers, or their friends might do (it’s called ‘networking’), but if all that fails - Reddit and Twitter are GREAT alternatives for finding the right people.

Listen to Feedback Carefully

Tough, take everything you hear about a person with a grain of salt, it might just prove to be a case where the designer is really good, just not particularly with the type of a design that you require. Which leads us to..

Analyze Every Candidate

Look at their previous work, their current projects and what their overall style of work looks like. Most app designers will have a portfolio of apps, websites and other work related stuff that can help to make a better decision, in less time.

Reach Out to the Potential App Designer

A simple email will do, it should most likely contain the phrase ‘are you available for any projects’, and perhaps even a phrase that hints to the fact that you’d like to hire this person full-time. But, you’ll want to setup an interview before making any swift decisions, as you do in professional workspaces, right?

Either Remote or In-Person, Interviews Matter

We’re assuming that the business you want to build based upon your app is going to require some maintenance for a while, and there should always be someone who could take care of the crucial parts of the application. In this case, the designer.

Interviews should conclude whether the given designer is proficient enough, knows programming or only design aspects, and what other experience he is able to bring to the table.

At the end of the day, those are people that you’ll end up working with, sharing your vision with, and most importantly - put on the payroll!

Setup a Demo Project

If you want to be foolproof about this, you should, beforehand, setup a demo project for the given designer to work with. Now, this applies only if he is interested in the actual job proposition, but most are fine with such ‘projects’ and will do their best to showcase their work on something you’ve taught of before.

Monitor the Progress of the Project

Your demo project is going to be a great way to get to know the designer more, learn more about his skills and experience, and definitely see how well he copes with types of technology you throw at him.

You Should Take Things Slowly

The last tip we’re going to leave you with is quite simple, you should take things slow. In app development, there isn’t a race going on. Most businesses who enter the mobile market understand this. It’s not like you’ve got millions of dollars to throw at marketing, to get yourself at the top spot. First, you’ll want to cater for a specific niche, and then let that niche grow by itself.

Conclusion

Hiring the right app designer is not difficult, it requires of you to know where to find potential employees, and how to approach them in a way where you both are on the same page. These days, cheap developers and designers will try to overshadow those who’ve been working with the latest technology since the early days.

Good luck.

If you’ve been into the app market for long enough, you’ll know how saturated it can get, especially when it comes to popular titles. Remember Flappy Bird? Haha, yeah, that went over well for many - except the creator himself. No doubt he was able to rake in large amounts of money, and I don’t blame him.

Your pricing strategy might very well be considered something of a path that you’re going to take with your application. Most businesses/app companies plan for months ahead, and while the recent trend has been to reduce the price to $0.99/per download — the trend of freemium is also starting to emerge.

Paid Apps

The initial pricing module since the very early days, has been that of where you pay for what you’re given. It’s hard to think back and see freemium as a viable payment option - except for the gaming industry - for apps.

In many ways, the size of your business/company that you run is going to determine the initial signup rate of your paid application. That will also be responsible for some of the early reviews, which should help to drive more sales in future.

A paid app means that you’re selling your product directly, there is no middleman involved and the user knows that he is going to get access to all of the features, within a single payment. I can imagine this being very successful in the categories of education, business, technology, etc,.

Those were people don’t want to spend a lot of time making decisions on whether they want to upgrade for the latest cool thing. You could say that a paid app is more like a product. (of a product, in many cases)

Freemium Apps

With that in mind, we can look at freemium apps as a good way of making money for the categories that fall under gaming, entertainment, content, etc,. Gaming is definitely the top category as far as freemium pricing model goes. Extras, new levels, new features, new characters, skins, all those things are great for a freemium application.

They bring in constant revenue, and you can always add additional ‘products’, and keep making steady revenue. But, it’s not that simple, not in most cases. A freemium model can also mean that the user is never going to become a paying customer, and instead use the application only for the necessary (and free) functions that it offers.

The problem lies in apps/games sharing very similar rewards for a small payment. It’s hard to provide something unique for the value of under a dollar, and many developers are starting to realize this. Which ultimately leads us to…

Increasing Your Paid Apps Price

Just a few years ago, nobody expected to see applications and games on the app store, priced at $5 dollars a piece. You’d think that is a crazy amount of money to spend on an mobile phone app, but the truth is - it’s actually a lot cheaper.

When you think about it, paying all that money that a freemium application is squeezing out of you is just pure nonsense. Even if you’re the type who can discipline yourself, the average payment for ‘extra 100 stars’ is roughly $2-3 dollars. That’s insane!

It’s safe to say that trying out this method might actually prove to be of more profitability, I’ve seen colleges who’re developing apps for the app store, raise their prices from $2 to $4 and cash in those profits overnight!

But, Always Consider the Customer

Yes, it’s a lot of talk. Most of this is going to be relevant only if you’ve tried both pricing models, and seen the benefits and disadvantages of both, before committing to making swift decisions.

What we need to do, is analyze and survey our customers, get their opinion on what they think is the best way to price your applications and whether they’d be ready to pay a single - pricey - price one time, rather than investing in something over and over.

The question is, what have you done to improve your understanding of these two pricing models and are you confident enough to be making the decision right now?

In the past, people would say you’re crazy for jailbreaking your iPhone, but these days - it’s almost the norm, as it enables more freedom and capability of customization. I’ve had several iPhones before, and nearly every time; I end up Jailbreaking them to play around with cool stuff.

This cool stuff I am talking about, is of course Cydia - the alternative to the App Store for those who have chosen to ‘unlock’ their devices. I really enjoy Cydia, but it can sometimes be a little tricky, and a lot of apps are heavily bloated with advertisements.

I always return to a set of Jailbreak apps, ones that I use every time I break my phone; and they’ve continued to evolve as the industry itself evolves. Some of these are so good, and offer such high customization that I’ve seen people jailbreak their phones, just to use these apps. Crazy!

BioLockdown: Secure Apps With TouchID

This is a magnificent application to have, you can literally manage all of your iPhone settings and apps within your fingerprint. It’s easy to lock apps, lock settings, and the same way unlock them - by using your TouchID.

Basically, every time you want to make a significant change to your configuration, you’d need to provide your fingerprint. It’s perfect for setting up before a night out.

biteSMS: Advanced Messaging App

biteSMS is fairly new to the market, but is already making itself popular by offering a service that you will not find anywhere else. It’s a messaging app that is global to your iPhone, and so you can easily do all of your messaging from any screen within your device.

You can be watching a video, while answering to a text; etc,. etc,. It’s pretty rad, and many of my own friends who’ve got jail-broken phones, use this app for messaging.

CCControls: Control Center Toggle Customization

It’s not the only app on the market that does this function for us, but it’s certainly one of the most nicest and pleasant to work with. CCControls gives you the ability to modify your control center in any way you like. It’s a real personal customization tool; you can change colors, shapes, and plenty of other things - to make it feel like it’s all built only for you.

I’m loving the fact that you can assign different colors to specific buttons, makes it a lot easier to do some tasks, especially when in a hurry.

iCleaner Pro: Clean Up Your Device

iCleaner Pro, developed by Ivano Bilenchi and one of the most popular tools jailbreakers use to remove unnecessary files from their devices, has been updated to match the look and feel of iOS 7. In addition, there are many performance optimizations, improved text search, and more files you can cleanup.

You get a lot of customization options with this, and there are plenty of features that will allow you to clean your device even from the most old files and settings.

TetherMe: Turn Your iPhone Into a Hotspot

It’s not a free app, but I think it’s worth the investment of $5, for the amount of flexibility you get in return. With TetherMe, you’ll be able to connect all of your nearby devices to a one single hotspot that’s hosted by your iPhone device. It’s probably my favorite app, as far as usability goes.

Conclusion

Cydia is a great little app store, full of surprises and unusual things. I honestly think that the fact that they don’t really have any strict rules, in terms of what kinds of apps you can publish and download - is what attracts so many people to jailbreaking.

I used to think that it’s a bad idea, and I’ll lose some value; but from what I can tell, I have only gained value and the list of apps I’m using trough Cydia is starting to grow rapidly.

There is both community and the support available, so I don’t really see the reason not to do it. Are any of these apps on your list of favorites? Would love to find out.

Facebook has been very active in the overall technology community for the past couple of months, major acquisitions like the Oculus Rift have certainly created a huge impact for this company, and are surely to set some long-term foundations as far as trust and dependability goes.

Whether you like it or not, you’re about to see a lot more Facebook ads in apps you use on your smartphones and tablets. That’s the upshot of a long-anticipated announcement by Facebook today of an advertising network that will allow its ads to be distributed throughout mobile apps. [F]

It looks as if Facebook is definitely looking towards making more revenue, and this is the perfect time to consider joining the ranks of marketers and advertisers who’re building their communities and user bases through the Facebook Mobile Install Ads platform. Why not grow the downloads of your applications on the fly, right?

With over 1 billion active mobile devices using the website every single month, one can only imagine how big of an impact that can create for your products, or in this case, your applications. It’s easy to get started, and Facebook offers an extensive introduction on how to setup your first ad campaign.

Facebook is only now starting to experiment with broader mobile advertisements, which are being rolled out over the course of the next couple of months, there is already a huge, untapped into market that will drive a great deal of traffic to your apps.

TheNextWeb reported back in 2013, that there were roughly 8,000 developers using the mobile install ads platform, when we begin to narrow that down by taking into the account all of the active mobile users, we get a better idea of how much potential there is.

Decide on Your Market and Audience

As with all Facebook advertising campaigns, the most strategic part is always going to be the demographics. We want to be targeting only those people who’re going to be genuinely interested in what we have to offer, and thankfully, Facebook makes it easy to customize our campaigns to our specific needs.

The one thing to watch out for, is the fact that we need to run a couple of smaller campaigns to make sure that our predictions are in sync with our goals. We wouldn’t want to invest thousands of dollars into a single campaign, without ever making sure that the market is even interested.

I’d say that a couple of cheap campaigns on few different markets will give you a better perspective on both how the Facebook ads work, and how the market is reacting to your product.

Using Custom Call-to-Action Buttons to Your Advantage

Just a few months ago, Facebook rolled out a major update to the mobile install ads platform, which now enables developers and advertisers to use custom call-to-action buttons for their campaigns. The buttons that you’re now able to use:

• Watch Video
• Listen Now
• Play Game
• Shop Now
• Use App
• Open Link

On top of the good old ‘Install Now’, which is, of course, still available, you get access to all of the above. Which means that you’re able to build campaigns for different kinds of apps, giving you broader exposure.

Always Monitor Your Results

The biggest mistake we can make in this particular situation, is to avoid monitoring our performance results. Although I mentioned that already above, it’s important that we know how well our ads are performing, and combining those performance reports with the feedback we receive at our end, we can make for better future decisions.

Learning the Basics of Facebook Mobile Install Ads

It’s all about investing and taking the time to analyze the performance reports of our campaigns. The Facebook overall growth rate is indicating that this is a very good time to explore this particular way of advertising. If you’ve been thinking about launching a new app, or looking to expand the size of your current one, this might be a good place to begin your journey.