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How Apple TV Turned Me Into a Game Developer→
Alexander Repty documents his experience in developing his first game, Cosmos — Infinite Space, which launched last week on iOS and the new Apple TV:
For several reasons, I have never created a game before. This changed on October 30th, 2015, when I released my first one, Cosmos — Infinite Space. In just over seven weeks, I went from not knowing the first thing about making games to having published a complete, viable game on the App Store for two platforms.
This is a great little story, and whilst the app isn’t selling in great quantities, Repty approached the project as a hobby and in that context the result has been terrific. Something that was particularly interesting to me was that Apple’s introduction of Top Charts to the Apple TV’s App Store earlier this week appeared to have quite a meaningful impact on sales of Cosmos. Hopefully yesterday’s introduction of Categories to the Apple TV App Store will be a further boost to Cosmos and other App Store games.
When Apple slowly introduced top charts and categories, the effect on sales was really noticeable. Before the introduction of charts, my sales in Europe were almost double those of the US market. When charts were introduced in the US, sales there started surpassing sales in Europe by over 50%.
After six days on the store now, Cosmos has brought in $463 for us with no sign of slowing down. Even if it were to keep this up, it would not be remotely enough to live off, but it’s nice to see some reward for all the work in addition to all the lessons learned.
Apple Adds Categories to the Apple TV App Store→
Jeff Benjamin on iDownloadBlog notes that the Apple TV App Store now has a Categories section:
Good news for Apple TV owners looking for better ways to discover new apps on the App Store. After adding Top Charts, Apple has added a new Categories section to the App Store as well. As of now, the Categories section appears to be a bit limited, so far listing only Games and Entertainment.
On Monday it was the introduction of Top Charts to the Apple TV’s App Store, and today it’s the introduction of Categories (albeit limited to just two at the moment). Apple’s listening and (thankfully) moving quickly to address concerns about app discoverability. The next thing that should be on their list, in my opinion, is the ability to link to Apple TV apps and preview them on the web. And whilst we’re on the topic of Apple TV wishes, let’s hope a few developers at Apple have also been re-allocated to quickly update the iOS Remote app to support the new Apple TV.
Although the Categories section appears to be US-only for the moment, this will likely roll-out internationally within a few days. Top Charts was also limited to the US at first, but is now available internationally.
Inbox by Gmail to Add New Smart Reply Feature This Week→
Inbox by Gmail is about to get a whole lot smarter this week with a new feature called Smart Reply. Bálint Miklós on the Official Gmail Blog explains:
Smart Reply suggests up to three responses based on the emails you get. For those emails that only need a quick response, it can take care of the thinking and save precious time spent typing. And for those emails that require a bit more thought, it gives you a jump start so you can respond right away.
The feature will be rolling out to the Inbox by Gmail app on iOS and Android later this week, but will only work in English for now. Smart Reply uses machine learning to recognize which emails need responses and then generate three appropriate responses for the user to pick from. The Google Research Blog also has some more details on how the researchers got the feature to work.
And much like how Inbox gets better when you report spam, the responses you choose (or don’t choose!) help improve future suggestions. For example, when Smart Reply was tested at Google, a common suggestion in the workplace was “I love you.” Thanks to Googler feedback, Smart Reply is now SFW :)
AgileBits Announces 1Password for Teams→
AgileBits yesterday announced 1Password for Teams:
1Password for Teams allows you to share the convenience and security of 1Password with everyone in your life. It gives you the tools you need to control and manage access to your most important information.
New to 1Password for Teams is the Admin Console, a central location to manage your team, vaults and items. The Admin Console makes teamwork a breeze and it completely changes the way you use 1Password in a group environment. It’s packed with features you’ve been asking for, and several new ones you didn’t know you needed :)
Agile Bits is currently accepting sign ups for the 1Password for Teams beta, which will run for the next couple of months. 1Password for Teams is free during the beta period, but when it launches it will cost $4.99 per user per month (which will include licences for all of the native 1Password apps).
I’ve been using 1Password for years and this seems like a fantastic product for any business or team that needs to share logins between users. Just the ability to easily control who has access to which passwords and easily remove access to employees who leave the company will be invaluable. You can view all of the features of 1Password for Teams here.
Plex Now Available on Apple TV, and Apple Adds Top Charts to Apple TV App Store
The highly anticipated official Plex app for the new Apple TV is now available on the App Store as a free download. The Plex Apple TV app can play all of your video, music, TV and photo collections from any computer or NAS device that you install the Plex Media Server on. You can view more screenshots of the Plex Apple TV app on the Plex Blog.
There truly isn’t any other platform we’ve wanted to be on for as long as we have the Apple TV. Today’s the day, and we’re celebrating. The app is free in the app store for everyone, and requires the latest media server.
Meanwhile, Apple appears to have listened to some of the complaints about the lack of discoverability in the Apple TV App Store and added a Top Charts section. Just as it does on iOS, the Top Charts section is broken down into Top Free, Top Paid and Top Grossing lists.
Top Charts is currently limited to the US App Store, but it seems likely that the feature will roll out to international stores over the coming days. Unsurprisingly, the lists for the Top Paid and Top Grossing apps are dominated by games, whilst the Top Free list is mostly occupied by media and entertainment apps. If you don’t have access to an Apple TV or live outside the US, you can see the top 10 apps in each list on MacRumors.
Perhaps in another effort to increase the discoverability of Apple TV apps, Apple has refreshed the App Store Featured page and is now highlighting some new apps. Typically on the iOS App Store they only refresh the App Store Featured page once a week on Thursdays. Hopefully this happens more frequently on the Apple TV App Store, at least until they introduce categories or some other ways to discover apps that aren’t featured or trending.
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