//www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9FMlv5a_FI

That was shot by Nate Bolt with a DJI Phantom quad-copter and both a GoPro Hero3 Black and an iPhone 5S. Slowed down with Twixtor in After Effects to make up for the glaring lack of a Gimbal.

A stunning video taken over Niagara Falls this past summer with the same helicopter (watch this one full-screen):

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfoLYTKObiU

Not as lovely, here’s an example of flying the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch and the Museum Court house in St. Louis with a turbo Ace X830 helicopter. This has potential, but the blades hurt the effect.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP62Bk-ydRo

Inside the Australian Museum is a charming, short view of the collection from Journeys to the Deep. However, the shots are shaky. The stabilization methods used in the above library example are important.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnR0tGpGJmw

Drone regulations vary by locality, but is generally legal within height and distance limits from the operator.

Not only are the results a fresh view of scenes, lending an appealing aerial perspective, but audiences are now used to complex camera shots on television and film, so  step up your game with your visuals.

At present, ~350 iPhone apps have been actually created by museums. Of those, only one out of ten was created by a U.S. museum (the rest are non-U.S.). The other 760 iPhone apps matching “museum” in their title or description were created by travel and culture publishers, most of which are poor quality.

These pathetic numbers ignore smartphone reality. In the U.S. alone, half of all mobile phone customers now have smartphones, and there will soon be 1 million new smartphone (smartphones run apps) subscribers a week. This will be virtually all U.S. households in 5-7 years. Currently, Android and iOS are the two main app platforms. Numbers in Europe are similar. 

Despite mobile’s potential to connect to visitor’s pockets (and pocketbooks), of the ~17,500 museums in the U.S., fewer than 2% currently have a mobile app.

Two recent surveys reveal some of the thinking behind this. These surveys asked questions to a few hundred internet-savvy staff. This was a self-selected pool who saw the surveys in blog posts, Twitter postings, and emails. Even among this internet-savvy community, only 29-40% currently have apps.

These surveys found that history museums are less inclined towards apps than arts and science museums, and European museums are ahead of the U.S.

Since the real number of museums with apps is closer to 1.7%, that means that 95% of museums are not even part of the discussion (or are ignoring surveys about apps).

Most museums are small, and it’s the small museums that don’t have apps. From the Pocket-Proof survey, the red bars are museums with no apps and no plans to make one. Annual visitation is the left axis:

Among the survey respondents who don’t have apps, it was mostly a lack of experience that has led to ignoring apps. Other factors were that it was “not a priority,” and high cost:

This means  there is still a big void: There’s a lack of support in the field for sharing resources and information about making apps, and there are insufficient tools on the low-end for making nice, useful, inexpensive apps that will get these museums onto mobile devices.

Another big problem is that mobile apps and social media are considered “marketing” expenses, as opposed to tools to educate and inform the public. Unless curators and educators are involved, apps will be further hampered because they will be vacuous and uninteresting. NOUS’ survey asked what departments in museums were in charge of mobile and social media:

Will museums get a clue, and realize that the museum experience should not stop at the edge of their property? We’ll see.

Notes: 

• The third of museums apps actually created by museums was calculated by randomly sampling 2.5% of the 1060 iPhone apps matching “museum,” was returned as search results by iTunes. Of the 9/27 which were real museum apps, only 1 was a U.S. museum. Analysis by IDEA on 16-April-2012.
• The ‘2012 Museums and Mobile Survey‘ was conducted by Pocket-Proof and Learning Times, and surveyed 554 people currently working in museums, 78% of which were in the U.S. Their respondents where 43% from historical organizations (museums, monuments, local heritage), 20% from art museums, and the rest from other types. Data collected Nov 2011 – Jan 2012.
• The ‘Mobile Communication’ survey was conducted by NOUSGuide, and surveyed 122 institutions, reflecting mostly European respondents (the countries were Austria, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and the US). Data collected Dec 2011 – Feb 2012.

Keeping it simple

Apps just need to be good enough. No need to get too fancy or reinvent the wheel. While custom apps run from $25-100k, many vendors will create an app for you for less than $25k, and some for well under $5k. This is a summary of the vendors offering apps for less than $25k at yesterday’s 3rd Museums & Mobile online conference.

The key to a tour app on a budget is creating a ‘templated’ app. You upload content (“tour stops”) to the vendor’s online content management system (similar to creating blog posts), and then the vendor packages your content into their pre-existing framework, creating an app that gets submitted to the Apple or Android app stores.

Summary of vendors: 

TourBuddy: List of tour stops from 'Savannah Walking Tour', detailed view of a stop, and their GPS view. Good for large outdoor areas.

TourBuddy – $1-2k per app, with reasonably priced updates, and options for additional features. Inspired by the IKEA model of anchoring on a low price, yet delivering good design, Yvonne Jouffrault, says Tour Buddy is creating apps for organizations who want an affordable app, and don’t need a lot of customization. Jouffrault says GPS maps are one of their best features. The GPS works well for any large, outdoor location with a clear view of the sky. The map mode allows users to pan over a map to choose a tour spot, or see their location on a Google map. TourBuddy has created approximately a dozen apps so far, and their apps run on both Apple iOS and Android. Coming soon, TourBuddy is adding a web app option, a better organization of tour stops, and more visual styles. Later in 2012, Tour Buddy may add support for tablets and video. They have two apps with many ratings: their “Savannah Walking Tour” has a free and $10 version, and 4/5 stars in the Apple App Store; “Dutch Utopia” is free and has 3.5/5 stars. See pricing.

OnCell iPhone App: On the left, list of stops, and map view. On the right, a view from their sample web app.

OnCell – $1.5k for audio tours, $3.8k for multimedia. OnCell built their business creating audio tours run from cell phones, i.e., visitors call a phone number and enter stop numbers into the phone to hear recorded tour messages. Their call-in business has hundreds of clients in the US and Canada, including many major institutions like the Grand Canyon and 80+ other National Parks, the Met, the Smithsonian, etc. The call-in market is being disrupted by the tour apps, which don’t require visitors to make a phone call and burn their cell phone minutes. They have two apps so far on the “OnCell App” platform, the “New Orleans Jazz” app was published this summer, but has no reviews yet. See pricing.

TourSphere: Underground Railroad app, list of stops, a stop, and a keypad mode. Not shown is a non-GPS map mode.

TourSphere – $500-900/month for native apps. $400/month for web apps. They have a CMS for uploading content. No upfront fees, no contracts. The price depends on which combination of phone and tablet sized iOS or Android apps you make. Their ‘National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’ has 3/5 stars. See pricing.

Tristan: Browsing stops and viewing detailed information in the 'Canadian Museum of Civilization' and the 'Infinity of Nations'

Tristan – $8-15k per app for an exhibition guide and walking tour. Tristan’s authoring platform is called Autor. Vanessa Vanzieleghem, Tristan’s Global Sales Manager, notes that Autor supports up to 7 major languages, and publishes to iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad and creates a web app. Their more expensive, custom apps have ratings in the range from 2.5/5 stars (“Phillips Collection,” U.S. app store), to 3.5/5 (“The Art at Cowboys Stadium” and “Smithsonian: Infinity of Nations,” U.S. app store), to 4.5/5 (Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian app store).

GuideOne: Alaska Native Heritage Center app. Alternating between portrait and landscape orientations, the app has coverflow-like and map methods to browse stops. The stops play as videos. At right is a scavenger hunt, visitors go find the object and answer a quiz question.

GuideOne – $15k+ per app. Their “plug and play” apps draw on a number of preset modules: audio tours, zoomable floor maps and images, scavenger hunts and quizzes, membership/donation features, and links to social networks. GuideOne has lowered their prices and improved their offerings since the Spring. According to product manager, Juan Sanabria, their Alaska Native Heritage Center app launched in May (4/5 starts), the Inupiat Heritage Center app launching soon for iOS and Android. Their app for the Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA) was released in February, but has only garnered one review. Coming soon is a Boston Historic Sites iPad kiosk and Android and iOS app launching in launching in Spring 2012. Their apps have an offline mode, but the option to download content into the Alaskan app didn’t work for me on a high-speed network.

KanvaSys' Biosphere app: List of tours, map mode (non-GPS), a tour stop, and empty search results for "ecosystem" with no alternative suggestions.

KanvaSys – $20k+ one-time, or $8k+/year if hosted. KanvaSys is part of Ideeclic, a Canadian company which began creating web sites and educational games for the Alberta and Quebec school boards. Their platform is called “inSitu,” and they can skin it for different apps. KanvaSys’ latest app, “Biosphere” for the Environment Museum is free, but doesn’t have many reviews in the app store yet. Their “Cleveland Metroparks Zoo” app has a 3/5 rating.

Adlib – €2k EUR/ year for a 3 year contract, plus the cost for underlying Adlib Museum system, a local collection management system. The advantage is that the app content comes from the collection management system, so it does not need to be re-entered.

CMS and custom hardware from Antenna International.

Antenna International – Full pricing is not disclosed. Antenna is a big player in audio tours. They have two billing models. Their ‘Universal’ plan involves Antenna taking the risk, owning all the content, and handling all the logistics of the hardware. All visitors have access to the tour as part of their admission fee, and the museum commits to pay Antenna approximately 50 cents per head for 3-5 years. So a million visitors = $500k to Antenna, with no upfront cost to the museum. Their other main option is ‘leasing’ which costs $17-20/month per device. As with the Universal plan, Antenna handles logistics (headphones, maintenance, repainting damage, staff training on best practices, and delivers sufficient devices to meet demand). Often museums have seasonable demand, so Antenna will ship over a few hundred (rarely as many as 1000) additional devices for a few months. A baseline of 250 devices would cost around $55k per year. Prior to launching their proprietary XP Iris device, which is a touch screen and number pad, they had options to buy iPod Touches, but Antenna is phasing out commodity hardware, and pushing customers to use their devices. A downside of working with Antenna is that you usually don’t own your own tour, and especially not any celebrity voices they might recruit, so you can’t spin the content into less expensive tours, post them to YouTube, or use them for any other purposes in the future. Antenna has a new CMS, called “publisher” which allows organization staff to rearrange a tour, or upload a new piece of content. Examples of the CMS in use, offered by Ken Husband, was the marketing department adding a “stop” promoting a sale in the museum shop, or the curators removing a stop for an item which is on loan.

Other vendors at the conference are higher-end, full service firms who create custom apps. These vendors are often vague about their pricing, though  vendors try to keep costs down by reusing features between apps. Full service firms at the conference were: Art Processors, EarPrint, Espro Acoustiguide Group, GVAM, and Imagineear.

Why native apps?

With a native app, visitors don’t have to struggle to read your web site into their small screen. And while you should have a mobile-formatted version of your web site (a web app), native apps give organizations better branding with an icon directly on audience’s home screen, and provides a smoother and richer user experience. Plus, a native app can work when there’s no internet connection.

One important detail: Make sure you are the official “publisher” of your app, so that when you improve the app in the future, or change vendors, your visitors automatically get the new version of your app.

Update: 27-Oct-11. Added new information provided by Tristan.

(Left to right, top:  while waiting in line, socializing, in the bathroom, while watching TV; bottom: while using a computer, playing video games, reading a paper, or a book.)

The most common place to use a smartphones is at home (93% of smartphone owners), but people use their smartphones all kinds of places:

While people are out and about, they are often doing other things at the same time they are using their smartphone. These are opportunities for educational outreach. Time spent waiting and commuting are particularly good time windows of idle time which could be filled with art or science:

Aside from making phone calls, smartphones serve as pocket PCs, extending the desktop/laptop experience. 81% of smartphone users browsed the internet within the last week, 77% used a search engine, 68% used an app, and 48% watched videos. Moreover, 72% use their smartphone while consuming other media. Here’s how people multitask:

Source: Data fromes from The Mobile Movement Study, Google/Ipsos OTX MediaCT , Apr 2011. N =  5,013 US online adults (18-64 years of age) who identified themselves as using a smartphone to access the Internet were interviewed. Data collected Q4 2010. From Google Think Insights.

Web sites for mobile devices (web apps)

The easiest way to go mobile is to have a web site formatted for the small screen — often called a “web app.” Robert Pyles, CEO of TourSphere, advocates for web apps, saying “part of the mission of museums is maximum accessibility, and reaching as many people as possible,” which he says web apps allow. They are easier to edit than native apps, and will work on future devices that don’t exist yet. The downsides  are that devices need to be online to work (either on the cellular network, or by installing wireless routers in the museum), and interactivity is limited compared to a native app.

These companies offer web-based content management systems (akin to a blog engine) for quickly making mobile-friendly web sites.

TourSphere — For $399/month, no contracts, they will give you a web site at their domain, e.g., YourMuseum.TourSphere.com, with several templates, a media manager, maps, multiple languages, links to your current site via RSS, keypad navigation, surveys, and some other features. Pyles says, “Depending on the complexity of the app you can do get something going in one to three days.” Customers can make a full backup of all their data and images. Their sister company, Audissey Media, offers audio/video production, providing an easy way to produce additional content. They plan to launch a public beta next month at Museums and the Web 2011, and also plan to make native apps.

Guide by Cell — The “MOBI site” product produces a bare-bones mobile web site. Using an online administrative site, museum staff chooses items, uploads media (e.g., audio tour recordings), and enters text. The visitor’s interface on the phone is a scrollable list of items, which can be objects or topics. The system is suitable for a few dozen pages/topics. Pricing not disclosed.

Kanvasys — Offers web-formatted web sites, edited via their CMS. Pricing not disclosed.

Alternatives: A cheap and easy alternative to these services is to use the WordPress blog engine and the $40 WPtouch plugin. You can set up any suite of pages and posts, browsable by tag, delivering information and a tour. (You would not have keypad navigation, surveys or other interactive features of TourSphere.) If you want to put an extensive collection onto mobile devices, you’ll probably need a collection management system. Two options are the mobile plugins for the open-source Omeka, or using custom plugins and themes in the commercial, cloud-based eHive.

Native apps — semi automated

Native apps can be a better experiences than web apps. The apps can be preloaded on rental iPods at a museum, or downloaded to visitor’s phones/tablets, ready to launch. Apps are popular: There are currently 369k apps for Apple devices (77k publishers); 295k apps for Android devices; and 11k apps for Windows 7 devices (4k publishers).

Native apps are expensive and time consuming to create from scratch. Costs rapidly exceed $20k for a small app, and the development process strips museum staff of control. Costs are inflated because app development is new (since March 2008 for Apple, and August 2008 for Android), so there are fewer app programmers than web developers (since the mid 1990s).

To cut costs and speed development, several companies offer a semi-automated, modular approach, in which content and programming are separate. Museum staff can create the content (via a Content Management System, CMS), and the vendor’s programmers create a placeholder-based app with fixed bins for content. The app consists of filling the predefined bins with content from the CMS. Vendors differ in the features they offer (audio tours, calendar, panoramic images, movies, etc.), how much time it takes for updates to reach the app (instantaneous or a few days), the underlying speed and elegance of their user interfaces.

GuideOne — Their CMS is called “G1 Curator CMS” and they only target Apple devices. Their preset modules include: audio tours, zoomable floor maps and images, scavenger hunts and quizzes, membership/donation features, and links to social networks. According to Juan Sanabria, head of product development. the costs vary widely, from $12k to over $100k, with a typical price around $25k. They don’t have standardized pricing yet. Their apps are used on the floor in museums, and are not in the app store. The Detroit Institute of Arts has been distributing iPads with their app since March 2010, the Chrysler Museum of Art has been distributing a fleet of iPods since mid February 2011. An app related to Alaskan Natives is launching later this year.

Kanvasys — Based in Gatineau, Québec. Offers a variety of services for iOS and Android. The costs vary widely, from $8k to over $100k, with a typical price around $25k. Their free Eco-Odyssée app was released in Dec 2010, but has fewer than 3 ratings. They have 3 more apps available later this year. Their apps work online and offline, and content can be edited via a web-based CMS.

LookBackMaps — Free. Created by Jon Voss in 2008, this system was designed to provide mobile access to historical photos in various online archives. Museums or archives can create an account, and submit photos, location info (lat/lon), and some other meta data, and the site will make the image available to users via their mobile web site. The app has 3/5 stars rating in the Apple App Store.

MobileXpeditions —  Based in Dublin, OH. The company founders previously ran a Macintosh development company. Their first museum app is in the works for Ohio’s COSI (Center of Science and Industry). According to co-founder Mark Gilicinski, they are not sure about pricing, but hope to charge around $10k or less for apps. They are building a CMS. They currently have one art-related iPad app, which is used on Celebrity Cruise lines as a walking tour of contemporary art on their Solstice ships (2,850 passengers).

NOUSguide — Coming from a background of creating handheld audio guides for European museums, Nousguide has made the jump to commodity hardware. According to CEO Alexander Stickelberger, “we have long term relationships with our clients, and all of them shifted to the Apple iOS or Android devices.” NOUS can deliver apps (see list), or a full package with sturdy cases for an iPod Touch. NOUS has an extra focus on accessability, and has incorporated sign language in several apps. They also design the apps to work with or without network coverage. Stickelberger says the costs for an app for the app store is in the ballpark of $10-25k. That includes streaming content, and various interactive features. Adding their Mac-based CMS, the “NOUS Conductor CMS” in their all-in-one solution adds $25k.

NOUS’ SFMOMA Rooftop Garden iPod/iPhone app is free, released Jan 2010, has accumulated 33 ratings in 14 months, 3/5 stars; the sister iPad app released April 2010, also free, has 79 ratings, 3/5 stars. Stickelberger says their Red Bull Hangar-7 museum app has a couple thousand downloads every week. They publish apps under their name, and also white label under the brands of museums. Approx 50 apps are public (in the app stores), and another 100+ are distributed only within a museum.

Toura — Depending on the features and the target devices (Apple or Android), program director Chris Alexander said the cost is approx $5-20k, negotiated per client. According to their marketing rep, Christina Daigneault, the cost depends on how many apps a museum buys, the features they activate, which platforms (Apple and/or Android), and how long they want the app to be in the app store. When museum staff is done creating content with the CMS, with two-day turnaround, Toura programmers deliver a working app which can be tested or submitted to an app store. Currently, Toura has published 21 apps in the Apple app store, and 11 in the Android app store.

Toura’s most popular app is British Library: Treasures. The app was featured in Apple’s app store in mid January and was a top education app, but as is typical, download rates plummeted when it was no longer featured. The $4 iPhone app has 10 reviews in the UK and US, averaging 3.9/5 stars. The $6 iPad app has 41 reviews, averaging 3.3/5 stars; the Android versions have 35 ratings, and a rating of 2.5/5. The second most popular app is French Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago, which has 14 ratings in the Apple app store, 3.3/5 stars; and 11 ratings in the Android store, 4/5 stars. According to the Android marketplace, both Android apps have been purchased between 100-500 times.

Native apps — fully outsourced

To make a totally custom app, museums will hire design/development firms. This is costs more, makes edits harder if not impossible, and can yield better results. Often these companies have a pool of source code they can re-use from project to project.

LookBackMaps — Based in San Francisco. Jon Voss’ team also offers simple native apps, starting at $1-2k. Their first custom app for Historic New Orleans was released earlier this month.

Nousguide — NOUS, listed above, also offers full development services.

Tristan Interactive —Their free Infinity of Nations app for Smithsonian was released October 2010, has 13 ratings, 3.5/5 stars. Their free Canadian Museum of Civilization app, released Dec 2010 has 32 ratings, and 3.5/5 stars. Pricing not disclosed.

Alternative: The field is expanding. There are currently 77k publishers for apps on Apple devices. There are other museum-focused app developers (see vendors at MW2011 in April), and thousands of generic developers.

Audio production

Regardless of the methods used, if you have audio or video, someone has to produce it. The vendor, Earprint Productions, promoted their content design, audio production and digital storytelling. They have worked with several museums.

Alternative: If you write scripts in-house, tons a great voice talent can be easily auditioned and hired within a matter of days via voice123.com. Those audio producers will deliver great audio, inexpensively. Many voices are seasoned radio announcers. I’ll cover games in a follow up article.

Games

Another type of app is games, which can be appealing for some museums. Two vendors who showed their games are SCVNGR and Hide&Seek.

Update: Added new data for NOUS. Update 2: and Kanvasys.

Apps represent a shift in how students and the public learn about science. Currently, the best science apps are not being created by museums, traditional publishers, or curriculum developers — They are being created by enthusiastic solo developers, research centers, and new software companies with a penchant for science and public education. We’ll look at what motivated these app creators, what it took to make the apps, and how successful they have been.

The Elements is one of the best known science apps for the iPad. This $14 app has now sold over 186,000 copies. The app is a beautiful eBook — a coffee table book with interactivity — and is a modernization of the best-selling coffee table book by Theodore Gray. Mr. Gray is a software developer, as well as a science writer working to popularize science. In 1997, he co-founded the company that makes the computational software “Mathematica,” widely used in science, engineering, and mathematical fields. Mr. Gray says, “I became inspired to create living interactive books in 1988 and have been working on the problem ever since.” In 2002, Mr. Gray began collecting elements, a hobby into which he has invested “probably around 100,000 dollars, but it’s a little hard to say for sure. I haven’t really added it up.” Within a few months, he created a hobby website, where he shared photos and information about the elements. Soon after, Mr. Gray started writing a column for Popular Science magazine with cool science demonstrations about elemental chemistry. Later, he decided to start selling a poster, and then a coffee-table book, upgrading the quality of the photos as he went. The book photos are unique. He notes, “Ninety-nine percent of the objects in the book and ebook are in my office somewhere.”

Work on The Elements app started January 2010. It was a 4-person team, consisting of Mr. Gray, 2 partners (John Cromie and Max Whitby), and photographer Nick Mann. Virtually all the content already existed, so costs were minimal; they only spent a few hundred dollars  for  extra disk drives. Mr. Gray remembers, “There was no time to spend money. This was pure work, work, work” for 60 days. The result presents the periodic table as a luscious spread of animated photos (e.g., a rotating nugget for element Au). Tapping on any element fills the screen with a detailed view of the element, more rotating photos to spin with a fingertip, key facts, and short stories. There are several versions, including those for the iPad and iPhone, as well as a few language translations. The success of the app led Mr. Gray and his partners to start an ebook publishing company, Touch Press. Their next ebook app, “Solar System,” was released two months ago. Mr. Gray says, “Solar System has done extremely well. Very roughly speaking it needed to earn about $250,000 [25 thousand downloads] to break even, and it did that in about five weeks.” And he hints that more titles are coming in 2011. (iTunes link)

Exoplanet is a database of all known extrasolar planets. The free app has been downloaded approximately 1 million times. It was created by Hanno Rein, a 27-year-old astronomer who works on extrasolar planets at the Institute for Advanced Study. Dr. Rein was inspired by “playing with my new iPhone,” and after 2 evenings designing an app, and another 2 weeks of programming, he released a very simple app in Aug 2009. Dr. Rein has actively worked on it one or two nights per week ever since, continually improving the app. His audience is “science-interested people, as well as amateur and professional astronomers.” (iTunes link)

SkySafari is a virtual telescope for exploring the night sky. You can pinch and zoom to look around the sky, or hold it upside down to see an annotated sky behind the device. The app has data on over 300,000 stars and deep sky objects, and photos of planets and moons. Since launching in June 2009, the app has been downloaded 329,000 times. Half of downloads (160,000) have been on free promotion days. The app has two versions. The simpler version has had 92,000 purchases at prices between $1 to $3; a more advanced version has had 72,000 downloads at $10 or $15. More stars and 300 extra photos cost $5 more. The app was created by Tim DeBenedictis, a 39-year-old software developer and astronomy enthusiast in San Francisco. He started the app in his spare time while working for an astronomy software company in 2008, and formed his own company in summer 2010. Development took the equivalent of 6 months, with programming by Mr. DeBenedictis and a freelance programmer, at a cost of $10,000.

Promoting the app was a challenge at first. Mr. DeBenedictis says, “The first month, it sold 100 copies. It was very well received — reviews were great, but sales were pitiful.” Trade shows and email campaigns fell flat. The second month, Mr. DeBenedictis got creative. “[I] noticed buzz about the 20th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing. On a whim, I decided to try an app giveaway in honor of the moon landing. I emailed a few bloggers, folks at Sky & Telescope magazine, etc., set the app price to zero, and went to sleep.” Within a day, they had 135,000 free downloads, and a lot of buzz. “It was the push we needed to make the app a commercially viable business.” Another sales spike came from a top award at a trade show. But sales are cyclical and erratic, weekend sales double weekdays, winter is slow, and “sales vary dramatically day over day. Sales on a good day (such as last December’s total lunar eclipse) might be six times greater than sales on a bad day.” The app’s target market is a few thousand “very serious amateur astronomers…who use our app, with their iPad and telescope, out in the field,” plus a broader audience of “people worldwide who think ‘space is cool,’ are casually interested in astronomy, and like apps.” (iTunes link and here)

Luminos is another astronomy app for the iPad. It is similar to SkySafari, but also allows the user to travel around the solar system, looking at stars and planets from many viewpoints. (The screenshot at right is a view through the rings of Saturn.) The $10 app launched in December 2010. Developer John Stephen is in his mid-40s. He says, “[I have] written commercial software my entire career for companies like Adobe, Apple and Microsoft, but this is my first major self-published app.” He became interested in amateur astronomy around 10 years ago, and as a hobby worked on software to control his own telescope. When Apple announced the iPad in early 2010, he was inspired by the touch interface and the App Store business model. Using his old code as a starting point, he started planning the app in March 2010, started coding in May, and was done 6 months later. His only cost was a MacBook Pro for authoring the software; his partner created his user’s guide, and his brother helped with testing and market research. Mr. Stephen has not invested in advertising, and has not had success with small-scale promotion via forums and blogs. For the first 2 months, he sold only 2-3 copies of the app per day. Meanwhile, he worked on several improvements. He says, “[It was not until] Apple featured my app in the New and Noteworthy section that my sales really took off.” He says that if he can sustain his current sales rate, it will generate a nice income. However, it’s not enough income to support more than one person. He has tried putting the app on sale (20% off) a few times, but that had no significant change in units sold. Mr. Stephen designed the app for a broad audience, with technical features for amateur astronomers, and an appealing and intuitive interface that families can enjoy. (iTunes link)

Molecules is an app for looking at any of thousands of molecules, spinning and zooming them in 3D. The free app was released in July 2008, and has been downloaded 1,056,111 times as of last week. The developer, Brad Larson, lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and is the co-founder and  chief technology officer for a company that makes machines that dispense small quantities of fluids for creating microelectronics and doing microbiology research. Making apps is a hobby. Dr. Larson did programming as a kid, and minored in computer science in college. He has a Ph.D. in materials science. His brother does protein crystallography research, and provided the genesis of the idea for the app. Dr. Larson says, “[My brother] was talking one day about how hard it is to show 3D structures of molecules. He complained that he couldn’t hold a laptop in his hands while standing in front of his poster at a scientific conference.” At the time, the iPhone had recently been announced. “I thought that it was a crazy idea to try and display complex 3D objects like this on a mobile phone, but decided to try it out and see if it was possible.” Development was fast. He says, “It took me about 3 weeks of nights-and-weekends work to get the application ready for the launch of the App Store.” He had no costs and invested no money. Since 2008, he has improved the app, and worked less than 250 hours total. He has not worked to promote it. “Apple has promoted it themselves, so I’ve had to do little to get the word out about it.” Each time Apple promotes it, he gets a bump in downloads. Dr. Larson says, “The largest of these came when Apple placed a banner advertising Molecules on the front page of both the iPhone and iPad App Stores. That one promotion led to approximately 100,000 downloads in the week that it was up (the average had been about 500 downloads per day before that).” He has recorded a lecture for developers, available in iTunes U.

Downloads for Molecules “wildly exceeded my expectations,” says Dr. Larson. “[I originally] built Molecules for scientists, but almost all of my users are now interested in it for educational uses.  I’ve heard from many teachers, professors, students, and parents since the launch of the application, so I’m shifting the focus of the application toward their needs. For many researchers, the application is too limited in one way or another… so they’ve now fallen to being a secondary audience.” Some newer, technical molecule apps have been launched by other developers. He’s still dumbfounded by the app’s success, saying that his “niche scientific application has no business being downloaded this many times.” (iTunes link)

EarthObserver App is like a Google Maps for data. It was created by Bill Ryan, a marine geologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), and launched in December 2010. Dr. Ryan says it has had about 60,000 downloads in the first two months, though the rate of downloads dropped considerably when they raised the price from  free to $3 two weeks ago. The app is analogous to Google Maps, in that users can pinch and swipe to zoom and pan around the earth. But instead of roads and landmarks, EarthObserver App allows viewers to choose from dozens of overlays, ranging from color coded ocean salinity, to the extent of Antarctic sea ice spreads in different months, to infant mortality rates, to types of geology. The scope of data is impressive: terrestrial landscapes, oceans and seas, frozen ice caps, atmosphere and clouds, geologic terrains, topography, nautical charts, natural hazards, human impacts, and many other earth and environmental science topics. The data is compiled from published sources from various scientific teams and government agencies.