3 Must-Have SDKs for Mobile App Developers

Are you developing mobile apps?  Here are 3 SDKs which we have found extremely helpful in deploying and debugging our PicCollage app for iOS/Android, which has been downloaded more than 5 million times.

• Testflight helps you deploy iOS apps to your test users.  
• Crittercism helps you find and debug crashes. 
• Flurry Analytics helps you monitor your app and understand user behavior.

Testflight:

Here we see the summary for a test release of PicCollage, showing how many minutes each person spent testing the app, and how many checkpoints were hit.  This allows us to understand whether our app is sufficiently tested, and whether the test coverage is sufficient.

Crittercism:

Here we see a screenshot from Crittercism, showing how the number of crashes has gone done over time, as we fixed some bugs in our Android app:

In addition, Crittercism lets us know which what percentage of users see crashes, which is a very valuable metric to focus on.

Flurry Analytics:

Here we see the estimated age distribution of the users of PicCollage, from Flurry Analytics:

In addition, Flurry allows developers to define their own events, allowing for tracking of what features users are using in the app.

PicCollage Android Launches in Japan, in Partnership with KDDI

Over the past few months, we’ve been working closely with KDDI to launch the Android version of PicCollage!  We are excited to announce that it is now live through KDDI’s “au Smart Pass” and fully integrated with their au Cloud service. KDDI is the second-largest telecom carrier in Japan, with tens of millions of subscribers.

We have over 4 million users on PicCollage so far (on iOS), and look forward to growing much more with our Android version and partnership with KDDI!

We’re keeping PicCollage simple and fun with intuitive touch gestures that will help you create beautiful collages.  Here’s the Japanese help page, and some collages created with PicCollage:

PicCollage is the #1 Photo App in Japan

We’re excited to announce that PicCollage has reached the top of the charts in Japan and is right now the #1 Photo App!  In addition, it is now the #7 top app OVERALL in Japan (for all free iPhone apps).  

We are pleasantly surprised by this sudden surge in the rankings and can’t fully explain it, but we’d like to share with you some things that we have done to try to increase PicCollage’s growth in Japan:

• We integrated with the Mixi social networking service, which is very popular in Japan, so that users can pull photos from and share collages to Mixi, just like they can do with Facebook.  
• We used the MyGengo service to get prompt translations of our iTunes description and app text, and then additionally had a native Japanese speaker review the resulting translations once we put them into the app. 
• We translated our iTunes keywords into Japanese, and made use of the AppGrooves ”APP SEO” service for optimizing the keywords.  Very cool!
• Also, we chose the title “PicCollage 写真コラージュ” for the Japanese version, so that the app would rank high when people search for “写真” (photos).
• We have also launched a Japanese Facebook page.

We believe that these efforts helped slightly, but ultimately, traction needs to come from the design of the app itself. Five-star reviews are probably the best form of marketing.

A PicCollage from us to you… Happy Holidays!

There are a few things on our end that we’re thankful for this holiday season.  Since our launch less than 5 months ago, we have grown from a single-page app with zero social features to a Top 10 Photo App in more than a dozen countries with over 2 million downloads. w00t!!

What means more to us than that, however, are the 5 star reviews that we’ve consistently been receiving from our users around the world.  Building a product that people actually use and love has been the most rewarding part of this whirlwind journey.

We’re closing out this year with a festive app for you to turn your holiday memories into a work of art (and thanks to our partners at Sincerely, ship it off as postcards, too):

Download Holiday PicCollage today, and have fun using it as a canvas for your holiday fun!

Wishing everyone out there an insanely fun holiday season with the people who just… make you happy. :)

Mixi-ing it up in Japan

   We’re excited to be integrating Mixi into PicCollage, which is now LIVE in the App Store! Mixi is the largest social network in Japan, and now our Japanese users will be able to pull photos from Mixi into their PicCollage collages.

Now hiring… iOS/Android developers!

我們正在尋找開發iOS/Android的工程師，若你熱愛寫 code，喜歡矽谷式的外商文化，來加入我們團隊吧！

加入我們團隊將共同參與全球受歡迎的app - PicCollage - 的成長，PicCollage目前已超過一百萬人次下載，而且下載人次依然在成長中! 在未來，我們也將一起開發更多酷炫的app! 

我們的公司文化重視設計、創新思維、程式開發，Heroku也曾把我們的作品選為成功的案例!

若你有興趣加入我們，歡迎參見http://cardinalblue.com/jobs 或來信 jobs@cardinalblue.com

*** 此外，也歡迎推薦優秀的工程師給我們，推薦成功就有機會獲得最新的iPad2喔!

We’re looking for iOS / Android developers to join our team in Taipei to build the future of social photos. You will work on popular apps such as PicCollage, which has been downloaded by over 1 million iPhone and iPad users!  

We have a culture that emphasizes good design, creative thinking, and reusable code (see our open source projects).  We were selected as a Heroku success story.

Please visit http://cardinalblue.com/jobs or email us at jobs@cardinalblue.com

We also have a referral program: Refer a developer and receive an iPad 2 (if we hire the developer for a full-time position.)

Position filled: Taipei operations

This position has been filled!  Thanks!

我們正在尋找台北分公司的營運助理，若你喜歡矽谷式的外商文化，想要成為有趣好玩團隊的一份子，一起參與最酷的app成長，就快加入我們吧!

• 聰明、有責任感、可靠，而且喜歡把事情做好!
• 可以協助各種工作，包括記帳、管理、招募
• 擁有流利的中文及英文能力
• 喜歡拍照、喜歡玩手機app、喜歡玩社群網站

如果你符合以上所述特質，歡迎參見http://cardinalblue.com/jobs將你的個人簡歷寄至job@cardinalblue.com，我們會再與你聯絡!

We are looking to looking to hire an Associate for our Taipei office.  Here’s a chance to work with a fun group of people at a Silicon Valley startup on cool mobile apps!  

• You are smart and reliable, and like to get things done
• You can assist with various tasks including bookkeeping, operations and recruiting
• You are fluent in Chinese and English, and can write well
• As a bonus, you really like photos, mobile apps and social media!

If this is you, please visit http://cardinalblue.com/jobs or send an email to jobs@cardinalblue.com