Reviews Welcome

I pushed a major update to Bingo Machine in early July and it didn’t quite have the impact on sales that I wanted. This update was long overdue — it was the first update to the app in over three years. It added iPhone 6 (and iPhone 5) support, new modern aesthetic appearance, simplified design as well as brand new UI localisations into Spanish and French.

I wasn’t really expecting the new version to increase sales, maybe a one-day bump, but I didn’t expect sales to fall through the roof. Which is what happened. Daily sales dropped from double digits to single digits. This obviously was worrying. Reception to the app has been good and it doesn’t have game-breaking bugs as far I can tell.

So why did sales evaporate? I don’t know. That’s the most frustrating thing. The blank wall that is iTunes means I can’t get detailed analytics; the App Analytics offered in iTunes Connect is very limited and doesn’t give a good picture of where sales originate from.

My only guess is that the lack of reviews for the new version has caused it to fall off in top charts. If I knew for certain, I’d love to write this post as an angry attack at Apple or a enumeration of my failings. Sadly, it’s just a guess.

Here’s what we are gonna do. I hate just asking people to review something out of the blue. Instead, I’ve made Bingo Machine 3 free for a limited time. Free for 48 hours. Download it (or in modern App Store nomenclature, ‘Get it’), play around, reviews welcome. Please make sure ratings are honest and fair, I am not asking for people to post fake reviews in return for a giveaway.

Much appreciated. I’ll let you know if it turns my sales trajectory around.