Xblaze

It seems to be some kind of trend – the hip, cool thing to do – to share your stats on your iPhone App. So I’m going to join in!

First of all, the amount of downloads received in 10 days is pretty impressive for an app with no marketing strategy and a fairly niche user base:

over 1,400 downloads in 10 days! Incredible.

From this we can see where the downloads spiked on Jan 20th when Xblaze 1.0.2 was released. Jan 21st is the latest data available for this graph, but there are even more downloads since then!

Next up is the usage stats. It seems that the majority of people are using Xblaze in 6-7 minute sessions which is exactly what I would expect from an app like this. It’s something you can just pull out of your pocket, sign in, tell someone that important tidbit you needed to, and then log off and not have to worry about not being able to tell someone what you needed to!

With 7,334 session, we can see proof that users are coming back to use Xblaze time and time again, which is the signature of a good app. Why would people keep using it if it wasn’t good?

Next is an interesting one. Of the 1,400 downloads mentioned earlier, it may appear that a majority of them were upgrades from 1.0 or 1.0.1 to 1.0.2. This would support the spike seen in the first graph. The number of active users (those that have used the app at least once every day) climbed quickly at the beginning of Xblaze’s release. It seems to be still growing, but also slowly levelling off at approximately 250. 250 people use Xblaze at least once every day for 10 days – that shows some loyalty right there.

The yellow spot and dotted line shows that the data for that period is not yet finished being collected, which means there’s still more to come before that spot turns white.

Finally, and I think most importantly are the reviews on the App Store. I think iPhone App Reviews are a huge part in whether or not an app does well on the App Store. Even one bad review amongst a sea of good reviews can have a negative impact on the applications downloads. However, it seems that people love the app so much that they just want to shout about it. Here’s a small sample of some of the reviews Xblaze has received over the past 10 days.

People all over the world are showing their appreciation for Xblaze, and I thank you all for your kind comments and excellent feedback!

Here’s to another excellent 10 days! Things can only get better!

Very happy to announce that Xblaze has just been approved by Apple and should appear in the App Store very very shortly!

I’m really happy about this, and I’m really impress at how fast Apple worked through my submission. The app went into review at 9:15am EST, and was approved by 15:51pm EST. That’s just over 6 and a half hours! Excellent work Apple!

So everyone must go and download it, and don’t forget to leave a review!!

PS. I’ll have a page up soon where you can see a screen cast of the app…

I know its been quite on the Xblaze front recently, and for that I apologise, but here’s a surprise to make up.

I’ve been hard at work since the release of Xblaze on a new project that a small number of you already know about. Here’s a sneak peek:

So if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch with OS 3.0 or later, and want to help beta test Xblaze for iPhone, all you need to do is with your full name and the UDID of your device.

To get the UDID of your device, you can download and install a free iPhone app called UDID sender.  Alternatively, you can copy it from iTunes:

1. Connect your iPhone/iPod Touch to your computer and wait for iTunes to open.
2. After any automatic syncing has finished, click on your device in the source list on the left side of the iTunes window.
3. There you should see some information about your iPhone/iPod under the summary tab. Click once on the Serial Number label and it will switch to show the UDID.
4. When the UDID is showing, press CMD + C on your keyboard, or select Edit > Copy from the menu bar. This will copy the whole 40 character UDID string to your clipboard, which you can then paste into an e-mail to me.

Personally, I find it easier to use the UDID Sender app.

Once you’ve pasted the UDID into an e-mail, please ensure that it is exactly 40 characters long. I can’t do anything with a UDID that is missing a few characters.

When the beta starts, if you’ve sent me your UDID, you will receive an e-mail from me containing a Zip file and some instructions on how to install the App.