Naming Your App

The Hook

SimCity, Grand Theft Auto, Command & Conquer. Intriguing, right? In just a word or two, even if you hadn’t heard of these games before, you get some idea about the game; a simulated city, stealing cars, and something having to do with controlling armies. Now take these names; Half-Life, Madden, Halo. Who the hell knows what these games are about based only on the name, without any prior knowledge? Obviously all of the aforementioned titles are among the best selling of all time, but their names serve very different purposes. One set provides some kind of instant information about the game while the second set assumes its customer has a deeper knowledge of the title. Unfortunately for you, smallbore iPhone app developer, you are neither as recognizable as John Madden, nor do you look as bad-ass as Master Chief. So, unless Microsoft Game Studios is publishing your app, you’re going to need to stick with the “SimCity” prototype when it comes to naming your app. All you’ve got to catch your potential customer’s eye is one or two words, and an icon. Here’s how to make the most of them.

Action + Description. That’s the key. Don’t get caught up in names that are too complicated or that depend on your prospective customer’s ability to link the name to some other reference. Say you’ve got a game about blowing up planets in space. For us of the Star Wars ilk, it may be tempting to name this app “Alderon” after Princess Leia’s home-planet which was destroyed by the Death Star in “A New Hope”. Bad instinct. Assume your clientele is not as well versed in the minutiae of Star Wars and instead call your app something like “PlanetBlast” — there’s really only one thing that name could mean. As for this game’s icon, apply the universal rule of thumb: Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t go with a squadron of one millimeter long spaceships attacking four microscopic planets. One planet with a big explosion coming out the side of it will tell us all we need to know: “PlanetBlast has to do with blowing up planets.” Once you’ve made a name for yourself, you can get a little more risky, but for the moment, all you’re looking for is the jingle that sticks in someone’s head, gets them to tap-through and, hopefully, buy your app.

Good App Names/Icons:

Solitaire – We all know solitaire, and we all know the playing cards’ meaning. Perfect example of Keep It Simple Stupid.

iSniper – A nice play on the iPhone name combined with a recognizable idea, the sniper game. The crosshairs say it all for the icon.

Crazy Penguin Catapult – A catchy and memorable name. Even if you don’t exactly understand how the game consists of catapulting penguins, you don’t really care because you’d like to see that flying penguin on the icon in action.

Flick Fishing – Active words, and intriguing because it suggests movement from the user is required. The icon, a fish going for a hook, is safe and simple.

Bad App Names/Icons:

Blackbeard – Well, we assume it’s pirate related. But is it an action game? An adventure game? Turns out it’s a puzzle game, but who would know? The icon – just a pirate ship – looks fine, but doesn’t give us any further hint about the game.

Oort Storm – This is in the “Alderon” vein… We assume it’s in space because there’s a spaceship on the icon, but that’s all we know. You lost me and I’m on to the next app.

Abigale – Who? What? When? Wh- ahh, who cares. Next app.

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How To Prevent iPhone App Piracy

Get Off My Boat, err, App!

The waters off Somalia isn’t the only place pirates disrupt the work of good, honest folks just trying to get their haul of tuna back to port. The iPhone app store is picked apart daily by the world’s internet pirates and a burgeoning library of apps – some 6,000 of the 25,000 for sale in the app store – are now available online for free. Big Brother (Apple) sits back in his chair – hands up, palms out, to show how clean they are – and spouts some kind of “the enemy of my friend is my friend”-type of head scratcher. So we’re on our own out here in a leaky fishing trawler trying to protect our catch from zooted up pirates and, let me tell you, Obama’s Navy Seal sniper team ain’t nowhere in sight, brother. So all you got is your wiles; here’s how to use ‘em.

First, you’re going to want to know if your app has been hacked. That genetic code of your app – Info.plist – will give you all the evidence you need.

1. If the file, once uploaded, is in text format, you’ve been hacked. When you upload your app, the file is converted into binary code, so if Info.plist is in text, it’s because someone wanted to change the parameters to allow your app to work on any phone and they’ve converted it back to text in order to do that.

2. Search for “SignerIdentity” in your uploaded Info.plist file. This is the fingerprint of a hacker. It’s the Shibboleth for your app to work on any phone. If it’s there, it shouldn’t be there.

3. When you’re finished with your Info.plist file, you know its size. So if that changes once it’s been uploaded, somebody’s gotten into it and screwed around.

Ok, so the pirates have their grappling hooks thrown over the side of your boat and a dude with no teeth and one ear has you looking cross-eyed at the business end of an RPG. It’s time to get diplomatic, so get out your sticks and carrots.

You’ve got a couple options. You can either shut out users who have a pirated app and just make the thing not work. But this is overkill, there’s no need to scuttle the ship right away. Instead, set a time limit, or max number of times a user can open the app, and when one of those parameters is met, display a message and explain that it appears the app on their iPhone is pirated and, please, we’re just family people trying to eke out a living in this cruel, electronic world, so why not click this link and dole out the measly $2.99 for our app? This tactic has been tried, and the results were surprising — conversion rates – from pirate-copy user to legit-copy user – of around 10% were seen when a calm explanation of the situation and an invitation to purchase the app were offered. The added bonus to this approach is that when someone cracks your code, it won’t be immediately obvious to the hacker that there is a built in fail-safe; he/she may play for a few minutes and move on to the next app thinking that this one is cracked. But when the hacked app is downloaded, after a few minutes, or a few uses (whichever you decide) users will get the notification that their copy is pirated and a request to buy the legit version.

There you have it. If only diplomacy worked this well in Somalia.

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