Last week, BusinessInsider.com interviewed Vadim Dagman, CEO of the mobile gaming company Digital Prunes. Dagman has made over million with his mobile applications so far, and he provided some insight into what makes a mobile iPhone™ app successful. To sum it up, he said: Keep It Simple.

But he also provided these tips. From Business Insider:

Keep it simple. People are carrying iPhones around in their pocket. They’re going to play in bite sized chunks, so don’t try to make your game overly complicated or involved. A user should understand how to play a game immediately.
Make it visually engaging. Have it be something that’s nice to look at, and nice to show friends. Have it draw people in.
Be ready for it to be a success. Don’t launch a game thinking it will be a flop. If you’re ready for success, you’ll be in better shape. That means being ready to monetize immediately. Vadim said he didn’t have advertising lined up at first, which cost him a few dollars.
Keep updating. This keeps people interested in the app. It’s like a TV show; they keep tuning in to see what’s new. So push out updates with new characters or levels or tweaks.
Keep an eye on quality. There are 200,000 apps in the app store, but most of them are really crappy. If you make a quality product it will stand out.
Spread the word. This one’s somewhat obvious, but Vadim emphasized using social media and anything else to tell the public about your game.

Designing a new application can be difficult because there is always the balance between providing the right amount content without overdoing it. But as Dagman says, simple is better. Apps are very small in scope, and not expected to fulfill a broad range of needs. Instead, they benefit from being very targeted and purpose driven.

Also emphasized is app marketing and promotion. This is a new field of marketing that some app makers seem to be doing rather well, and others are not doing at all. Currently, an estimated 150 applications are submitted to Apple’s® App store every day. Add that to the 200,000 apps already available, and you see that marketing becomes a very necessary, and often very effective, method to increase the value of your application.

Dagman also mentioned providing regular updates to keep people interested. We call this “App Retention” and have written a two-part app retention guide (and part 2) to help you retain your users. App retention describes the length of time that people will keep an app installed on their phone (hint: it is very short). For ad-supported applications, retention can greatly impact overall profitability.

In addition to marketing and retention, usability and quality are some of the biggest factors in the popularity of applications. We have seen very good paid apps be hugely successful in “free app” markets because the quality was superior. People still pay for quality.

To increase quality, make sure that you plan your app around the user and creating a good user experience. If necessary, find a professional user interface designer that can help create an intuitive and engaging user experience for your mobile application.

In addition to the six points listed above, there are some other factors for success that are frequently overlooked in custom applications:

Plan Ahead for Additional Platforms:  An iPhone application can be run on the iPad™ with no additional optimization required. However, since the iPhone and iPad are different devices (size, usability, features, etc), you should plan ahead for an optimal experience on both devices. You can either create slightly separate apps for each device, or build the design so that usability does not suffer between devices.
Determine a Support Structure: Platforms and operating systems change with relative frequency. Say, for example, that Apple releases a new phone, or Android™ updates its operating system, your app may end up in trouble if it cannot adapt to the new market. Make sure you define a support structure fairly early on so that you can fix and update your application to deal with any unexpected changes or bugs.
Know Your Competition: Competition is not a significant barrier to entry, but it can be an important factor in developing something unique and superior. This will help you determine everything from pricing, graphics, platform, and marketing.
Know Your Audience: Knowing your audience can help you design an application that fully fits their needs and gives them a beneficial product.
Know Your Business: Most importantly, know what you want this app to accomplish. More than anything else, a clear business goal will help you design an app that will hit your business needs.

At Amadeus Consulting we build custom mobile applications (as well as many other types of custom software). Clients approach us with their ideas, and we make them work. We have been more than impressed with the ideas and plans that many of our clients have presented and we are always happy to work with any company to help build and design a custom application that fits its need.

If you are planning on building a mobile application for you or your business, let us know how we can help.