The bar for iMessage sticker pack screenshots is really low right now. Take a look at some of the sticker packs on the App Store, and you’ll soon see what I mean. Many sticker packs have one or two screenshots max; many are obviously hastily snapped from within iMessage without much thought to presentation. It’s a huge missed opportunity. I can’t tell you how many sticker packs I’ve passed over because of poor quality screenshots. I know making screenshots of iMessage is a huge pain. The…

Indies love to fall on their sword and die with dignity. I love Ned Stark[1] as much as the next guy, but in the end Varys is right: Ned died because he sucked at playing the game. Worse, he had an opportunity to help the realm, but instead his pride got in the way, and Westeros ended up with Joffrey. The latest controversy in the indie community is over Apple’s new App Store ad system. Is it or is it not ethical to bid on keywords that are…

I’m sure we’ll be hearing tons of jokes about consistency from the spelling and grammar police, but I get why it would be MacOS, as opposed to macOS. Mac is a proper noun. The Mac has always been capitalized. It’s a shortened form of a non-generic product: the Macintosh. The “i” in Apple’s names over the years has always been lowercase, since the original iMac. So, of course it’s iOS.[1] For tvOS, Apple is using tv as a generic term. It doesn’t refer…

As a follow up to my post yesterday, check out this video from McDonald’s Canada on the actual process they use for taking product shots. (Thanks to @greghao on Twitter for the link.) A couple of things I want to point out from this video: Part of the reason for manipulating the burger is to be sure that all ingredients are visible in the shot. This is actually critical. If they just shot the burger as-is, and I didn’t see that it contained onions, for instance, I’d…

Last week I was making screenshots[1] for the next version of Setlists. This is a necessary ritual for any major new app update, as any developer could tell you. At Bombing Brain, we spend a lot of effort to present our apps in the best light possible. We add some copy to the pictures to give direction about what is going on in the shot. We show the app running on the device, rather than just showing what is on the screen alone. And, of course, we doctor up…