Sinobytes

iPhone developers in China: The Apps boom is coming

Mar 8, 2010 23:23

This weekend, I interviewed three iPhone devs in China to hear more about their apps, and how they see the market for iPhone apps in the country now that Apple's smartphone is slowly but steadily gaining traction here.

All three of these iPhone devs are primarily engaged in making travel-based apps, which gives them an international audience, as App Store punters the world over buy up the apps before arriving in China for travel or business, in addition to their local customers.

Truth Soft Studio - makers of The Forbidden City app

The Forbidden City (iTunes App Store link) app is a good-looking app that serves as both an interactive map and audio guide for visitors to Beijing's historic, sprawling Forbidden City palace complex. In addition, it can create customized routes based on the amount of time you have available to tour the vast site, and give users bilingual text and/or audio historical background info.

The Truth Soft Studio was set up in 2008 specifically to make iPhone apps, and its Forbidden City app is one of a handful of Chinese software to be featured in the official China Unicom/Apple TV ad. I spoke with Shen Zhuo Li--a.k.a. Joey--who's the company's co-founder:

[Sinobytes:] Your Forbidden City app can be used by tourists who're actually inside the City and Palace as a sort of audio guide. This is a neat idea. What inspired you to do this? Will you make more apps for other locations?

[Joey:] As a frequent traveler and museum lover, I have been to many museums all around the world in the last a few years: The Louvre, the British Museum, the Metropolitan, etc. I found almost all of them were still using the old-style, boring audio guide. In those museums I wished for a better user experience with a modern device. When the iPhone SDK was released I realized the time had come, so I started Truth Soft with some of my friends to provide a brand-new tour guide experience for visitors. The Forbidden City is our first; we are working on many others right now. The second will be released pretty soon.

Are most of your customers on the China App Store, or in other countries?
We researched before we started and found 70 percent or more of visitors to the Forbidden City itself are from China. And now most of our customers have the Chinese language app. It's not necessarily bought on the China App Store, but the Chinese version has more downloads than the English one. However, we didn't do much marketing in English-speaking countries yet.

What kind of apps do Chinese iPhone users love most at the moment?
As most iPhone users do, they love games best. Games are still the No. 1 category by far. E-books, too. They also love apps which provide information relevant to their lives. For example, train timetable apps were doing very well during the Spring Festival holiday.

It seems your app would work well with "augmented reality", or is this too difficult to create right now?
AR is one of the most popular buzzwords recently in mobile business. We're doing R&D into it right now; it's definitely in our plan for some time later this year.

Would you remake your apps for Android, for sale in Google's Marketplace or on China Mobile's OPhone platform, or maybe for the new Windows Phone 7 software?
We've an agreement with Apple, since Apple selected our app to be featured in the iPhone TV commercial in China. So we can't talk in public about other platforms and stuff. However, I'd say we are interested in how the Android market is going.

Explore Metro - makers of Explore Shanghai, Explore Beijing, Explore Guangzhou & Explore Hong Kong
Interactive subway maps are Explore Metro's speciality, and right now they have four apps covering the ever-expanding subway networks of four major Chinese cities: There's Explore Shanghai (iTunes App Store link), plus Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong apps, too.

Its apps offer up route planning, ticket prices, suggested times, and lots more useful info, which all work offline, and are all bilingual. Matt Mayer, who's based in Shanghai, from Explore Metro, kindly volunteered to field my questions:

Travel apps, especially for subway, trains and buses, are very popular and profitable in the UK and US App Stores, I've noticed. Are you guys experiencing this with your four "Explore" Metro map apps?

[Matt:] Travel and Navigation apps are some of the bestsellers, particularly in cities like London and New York. The market in China isn't as developed yet, but as more lines are rapidly added to metro systems here, the convenience of having a metro map in your pocket grows. I'm also really excited about location capabilities: The latest versions of our apps automatically show you your closest stations.

Are most of your customers on the China App Store?
Sales are split about 50/50 between the China App Store and other countries, particularly the US, UK, Germany and Hong Kong. We offer a choice of Simplified/Traditional characters for Hong Kong.

Are customers in China complaining about needing a credit card for the Apple App Store. Are you also in China Unicom's alternative iPhone app store?
Yes, its definitely a big barrier at the moment. One potential customer contacted me and requested to pay me 7 yuan via Alipay [China's most popular online payment system], then get a promo code in return! We're looking into getting listed on Unicom's store. Providing easier payment methods for customers such as prepaid cards definitely should be a priority for mobile carriers here if they want to grow app sales.

You've been running a cool-looking subway map Web site long before you got into iPhone apps. How did that first start?
In 2006, I moved to Shanghai and found there was no up-to-date metro map available in English online. The system is growing so fast. This year, Shanghai will have the longest metro system in the world that normal maps just can't keep up. So I decided to make an interactive online map which had all the latest stations and train times, and so Explore Shanghai was born. People responded so well to the site that I built sites for other cities.

Any stance on making your apps for Android, for sale in Google's Marketplace or on China Mobile's OPhone platform?
Currently, making apps for multiple platforms is time-consuming, and the return on investment for Android apps just isn't as high as on iPhone. However, Adobe will soon launch Flash Player 10.1 on all the major smartphone platforms except iPhone, which I think will provide a great pathway into making our maps available on Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

Paul Wood--indie dev of SHBusApp

By day, Paul (his blog) is one of a team of whizzes at Red Rocket Games, a US game developer who have studios in Shanghai. By night--well, in any free time he has--he puts his coding skills to a different use, making the quite-soon-to-be-released SHBusApp, which'll help locals and ex-pats alike make sense of Shanghai's labyrinthine bus routes. I chatted with Paul about games, Shanghai, and competing app stores...

Your Shanghai bus app is nearing completion for a relaunch... How did it come about?
[Paul:] I've spent the last few months doing very little code writing and much more game design work. This relaunch of the SHBusApp was due to enough people asking for it, and a general desire to get back to programming.

Is your app bi- or multilingual, including a Chinese version? Are most of your customers on the China App Store?
This version of the SHBusApp will be in both Chinese and English. I've only launched apps for the American app store before, so the Chinese App store will be a learning experience for me. You want your app to be useful for commuters, but that means frequent updates.

Are you personally doing the legwork for this?
I've done the legwork to get things started but I'm hoping I can pass the app off soon. From the commuters perspective most of the buses don't change routes. But don't worry, I'll be publishing the source code under an open-source license on Github.

What kind of China-specific apps do you think would be really popular in 2010?
I think games will be a big hit in China. Micro transactions should help developers find paying customers, something all developers are struggling with in the Chinese software market. Software as a service also has opportunities here.

Would you recode your apps for Android, for sale in Google's Marketplace or on China Mobile's OPhone platform?
Don't forget about Windows Phone 7! Developers like the App Store model and most developers stick to the App Stores that are making them money. Until the Andriod Marketplace and OPhone Stores prove themselves to have paying customers, most developers will stay away. If an App Store gets significant market share, developers will move their apps to them. I personally feel that in the long term Google will prevail, but for the moment I'm sticking to the iPhone for development.

Many thanks to Joey, Matt, and Paul for taking the time to talk to Sinobytes.

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