Developer Labs

A brief, compelling video on your Airspace app profile is a great way to grab people’s attention and promote your app. In this post, we’re going to highlight our best practices for app trailers and demos, along with some real examples (and exceptions) from the Airspace Store.

Short and sweet. Keep your trailer as short as possible, while conveying the full story of what makes your app unique and exciting. Most developers will find that 1 minute or less is ideal.

For specialized or niche audiences, some developers will find longer videos necessary. Clocking in at 2:04, AeroMIDI’s video shows professional musicians how they can configure 3D cube structures to trigger notes.

Make an entrance. Include an intro splash screen or animation to introduce the name of your app, the developer/studio, and an indication that the app has been designed for the Leap Motion Controller (e.g. “Created for the Leap Motion Controller”). You can use our developer marketing assets while following our branding guidelines.

Show application interactions. What’s the goal of your software, and what will your users be doing? Your trailer should reveal the story of your app along with the fundamental interactions that your users will experience.

Keep it in perspective. Make sure to include shots with both hands and the computer screen in view, so that your audience can imagine themselves using the app. This has the added advantage of introducing new users to your app’s key interactions.

The Boom Ball Adventures trailer has a distinctive intro, shows key interactions, and includes the “Available for Leap Motion” badge. It doesn’t include shots of people playing the app, but the gloved hands within the app already demonstrate the key interaction – point and move your hand around. Plus, it’s a sequel, and the trailer for Boom Ball does feature hands.

Show the big picture. Your trailer should reveal quick views into different modes (or levels if applicable) so that people can see how the experience of the app progresses and what users will experience.

Highlight key features. Show the essential actions, characters, or tools that define your software and distinguish it from the crowd.

The trailer for Blue Estate Prologue does a great job of showing the characters, features, and scenes that make the game distinctive, fun, and darkly funny. Since the game is built around a simple interaction – just point – showing the user playing would take away from the trailer’s cinematic experience.

Keep it current. When submitting your trailer video for your Airspace app profile, be sure to remove any “Coming Soon” messages. When people see your trailer in Airspace, it’s because they’re just about to download it.

Do you have any great tips for making app videos? (Pierre Semaan’s advice on the old developer forums still holds true!) Post your ideas and thoughts in the comments section.

Everybody loves a great story, and your app is a story waiting to happen. Whether you’ve created a game that takes people into another world, or a plugin that will make it easier for artists to work their craft, it’s important that your Airspace app profile tells that story. Here are five tips for writing a compelling app description.

Make It Readable

Great stories can be ruined by clunky writing, so your app description needs to flow smoothly. As we mentioned in Airspace Store Essentials, be sure to break up your description with headings and bullet points. Avoid emojis, slang, or inappropriate language, and always use proper spelling and grammar.

Why Should Anyone Care?

This is the first question that your app description should answer. You know that your app is awesome – otherwise you wouldn’t have made it! Bring the unique idea behind your app to the surface and let it shine.

Bad: Hands-Off Cookery brings touchless Leap Motion control to the kitchen. Browsing recipes has never been easier.

Good: Browsing recipes on the computer is great – but it can be messy. With Hands-Off Cookery, you can easily prepare meals and browse recipes with touchless control.

Talk to Your User

Imagine the person reading your app description as a single person, like a pen pal. Avoid referring to your reader as a collective blob (users, people). Instead, speak to them personally (you) or as a member of a particular userbase (artists, musicians, gamers).

Bad: Users will love browsing through recipes with touchless control.

Good: You’ll love browsing through recipes with touchless control.

Also good: Home cooks will love browsing through recipes with touchless control.

Show, Don’t Tell: Use the Active Voice

As human beings, we don’t want things to happen to us – we want to make things happen. Use the active voice to help potential readers imagine themselves using your app:

Bad: Hands-Off Cookery allows you to browse recipes in a whole new way.

Good: You’ll be able to browse recipes in a whole new way.

Also good: Browse recipes in a whole new way with Hands-Off Cookery.

Actions First, Features Second

Another key to showing, not telling, is to focus on actions rather than features. If possible, tell your readers what they can accomplish with your app, and save the list of features for the end. (Easy reading bonus: if your app has lots of features, use a bullet-point list!)

Bad: Hands-Off Cookery has a variety of features, including touchless browsing, recipe ratings, and a search function. Users can browse and read recipes in the kitchen without getting their computers dirty.

Good: Browse and read recipes in the kitchen – without getting your computer dirty. Rate your favorite recipes and search for dinner ideas.

What are your favorite tips for compelling app descriptions? Let us know in the comments.

(Photo credit: Steve Evans, Wikimedia Commons)

Since we released our cross-promotions feature, several developers have taken advantage of this powerful tool to create trial versions of their apps in the Airspace Store. To help you get started, I’ve written a quick sample that integrates the Cross-Promotions API into apps. It’s basically a single GET request – your app simply parses the JSON that it receives back to see if the cross-promoted app is active, and if it is, which URL to direct the user.

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Want to make a good first impression? We recently highlighted how app menus and settings are crucial to setting the tone for the rest of your app experience. But before your users download your app, they’ll be looking at its Airspace profile – and most people will make a purchasing decision within a few seconds.

While our app assets and marketing guidelines and marketing assets are a great starting point, here are five extra tips for ensuring that your Airspace app profile stands out from the crowd.

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Starting this week, we’re excited to announce a brand-new feature for Airspace developers. With cross-promotions in the Airspace Store, you can now pair two apps to allow one to promote the other. To kick things off, we’re calling on developers to take advantage of this new feature by cross-promoting trial and paid versions of your apps.

How App Cross-Promotions Work

With this new feature, you can pair two apps in a given direction – so that the promotion flows from one app to the other. To create a trial app model, simply set up two cross-promotions, one in each direction.

From Trial to Paid. Allow your users to try a limited free version and point them to the paid app when they’re ready. People will discover your app in the All Free Apps section and see calls to upgrade within the trial.

From Paid to Trial. Many users are hesitant to spend money on an app before trying it. Overcome one of your app’s greatest purchase barriers by pointing potential users to your trial app in the Airspace Store – so they can try the free version before buying the full app.

Here are a few examples of the promotion in action:

Why Cross-Promoting is Awesome

Since we launched the Airspace Store, we’ve heard from lots of developers who want to offer trials of their apps. Here’s what this feature can do for you:

• Drive traffic to your paid app from the trial app’s App Details page.
• Engage visitors who are hesitant to purchase the full version of your app to try before they buy. Entice them with your trial app’s features and show them why they should pay you.
• Use an API endpoint in your trial app to query for data about the paid app. This lets you create intelligently displayed calls-to-action (CTAs) within the trial app, which drives traffic to your paid app. Plus, you’ll have access to automated analytics and conversion tracking.
• Create an audience for apps in development. By launching a trial app with built-in CTAs to upgrade, you can finish your paid app while your free app attracts a crowd. Once the full version launches, the API integration in the trial app will instantly activate the CTAs.

How to Create Cross-Promotions in Airspace

To begin, you’ll need 2 different apps that you want to cross-promote (they don’t need to be live in Airspace yet). One should be a paid full version, while the other should be a free trial version. If you already have an app in Airspace, you can simply limit some of its functionality. If not, you can submit a trial version while the full app is still in development.

1. Access Cross-Promotions in Warehouse. When you log into Warehouse, you’ll discover a new Cross-Promotions section beneath your list of apps. Click on “Create New Cross-Promotion” to get started.
2. Cross-Promote in Both Directions. Create a cross-promotion from the trial app to the paid app, and vice versa. The former will allow your users to try your app and upgrade when they’re ready, while the latter will point potential users to your trial app in the Airspace Store.
3. Create In-App Calls to Action (CTAs). Once you’ve created your cross-promotions, you’ll have API access to integrate CTAs in your trial app. By querying the API endpoint from the trial-to-paid cross-promotion, your app can display CTAs at the right times (e.g. after the user finishes a level or reaches the limits of trial functionality). For more information, check out “Show Integration Instructions” on your Warehouse home page, as well as the Cross-Promotions Developer Guidelines for fully detailed instructions and requirements.

As usual, once your apps are submitted, the App Review Team will work with you to ensure that they meet all the cross-promotion guidelines before launching your trial app in the Airspace Store. Any comments or questions? Feel free to post below.

Today, we took another major step forward in localizing our platform to countries around the world with support for 4 additional currencies – the Euro, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and British pound.

What This Means

Airspace users in 30 countries (Japan, China, UK, and most of Europe) will see pricing in their local currencies. With this change, they’ll feel more comfortable browsing and shopping for apps in Airspace.

How It Works

As a Leap Motion developer, you’ll continue to select app pricing tiers in USD, and your regular payouts will continue to be based on the USD list price. Airspace consumers will see stable prices that have been set according to a conversion table – available here. In this way, we’ll ensure that fluctuating exchange rates don’t interfere with your payout stream or the Airspace user experience.

Here’s a full map of the countries affected: