Out with a bang… or BOOM…
Yesterday, I announced that Apple is featuring Classics in their new commercial. Today, I’ve just come to find out that Tipulator is also featured in another of their new commercials (I did mention that the app briefly appeared in the Classics commercial).
Even though Tipulator is no longer a tap tap tap app, this is very exciting to me because it’s the last app that I actually did the programming on myself. I’ve “retired” from programming several times in the past to only come back for “one more little thing” but this time I’m really leaving the future stuff I work on to be programmed by much more capable fingers. Having your app be in a national Apple commercial is a great way to go out at least. 
Yeah, I know that tip calculators (and flashlight apps, etc.) have become somewhat of a running joke of the App Store and I’ve made my share of tip calculator jokes myself, but it’s still huge for me to see this happen. Hey, if it’s good enough for the mother-ship to feature, it should be good enough for you to use. 
We did know in advance that the Classics commercial would be happening, but the Tipulator one was a complete surprise to us. Too bad I almost never watch TV anymore, so I’ll likely never see it on actual TV, though.
As I mentioned in the other post, we’re curious about where the commercial is airing, so if you happen to catch it, please comment below or @reply us on Twitter on where you’ve seen it.
See the ad on Apple’s website (the Tipulator one is titled “Fix” and the Classics one is titled “Read”).
mark
10:25pm, January 26
congrats! yes, tip calculators may be a “running joke,” but tipulator’s the only one that *looks* like anything — and apple knows that. hence, the nod.
with the iphone as a new platform for computing, people who previously weren’t developing software for the mac are now developing software the iphone. i suspect many (most?) of these new developers come from a windows background, because i’ve never before seen so many ugly applications on any apple device. it’s more than a bit jarring — and i’m sure the folks at apple cringe constantly.
unfortunately, apple’s nod to tipulator will probably go unnoticed to the average customer, but you’re to be commended, nevertheless.
Justin
12:18am, January 27
I saw the commercial in San diego on Fox during 24.
Dustin
5:23pm, January 27
@mark
I’m not sure I’d say “Apple’s nod to Tipulator will probably go unnoticed [by] the average customer…” because I saw it at #70 on the top 100 list. I was so baffled as to what caused the sudden spike that I checked TapTapTap’s blog and saw this entry. I haven’t seen the ad on television yet, but man, what a difference a commercial makes! It’s a terrific app (kudos John), and it’s about time it got its due—actually, I vaguely remember it in the top 100 way back in July or August (though I’m likely wrong). Anyway, it’s about time for that keypad update like John mentioned in his Macworld post!
Ann
2:00am, February 1
In the past you mentioned:
“The last class that I listed consists of apps that, no matter how much you market them, stand little chance of success. The App Store has thousands of apps in it, and unfortunately most of them are in this category. So no matter how many success stories you hear about the App Store, never forget that probably 99% of the apps in it are only selling a few copies per day. Tipulator, one of the apps that we developed is one of these apps, so we know this from experience.”
Now Tipulator is number 14 in the US top 100 paid apps.
Now looking at the top 100 charts and Tipulator it seems that it is possible to say
“Having proper marketing (TV commercial from Apple, or ad video on the Apple web-site or something similar) it is possible to sell almost anything. It is possible to sell an app which did not sell well with your own marketing efforts.
John Casasanta
5:03am, February 3
@ Ann:
It’s important to note the distinction between sales and profits here. Pretty much any app (or product, for that matter) can sell if you throw enough money at it.
While we did throw a huge amount of money at Where To to get it’s sales up, we made a decent profit on it. And the profit margin for Classics has been significantly higher.
But with Tipulator, when we were selling it, we established that we would’ve lost money if we advertised it the way we did with Where To. Granted, we had plans to revise it in several ways and take another attempt at it, but by then we’d given the app up to Sophia.
So yeah, if you’re lucky enough to hit the “Apple Lottery” and have your app featured, whether on the App Store home page, a TV commercial, or whatever, you have the benefit of tons of free advertising. And your app will get a ton of sales as a result. We’ve “hit the lottery” with Classics in this regard a few times and the app shot up the charts as a result of the ongoing flood of sales from it.
There’s no substitute for free advertising, especially when it’s something as huge as Apple advertising.
Britta
10:10pm, February 4
I saw it on ABC while watching LOST last week!
Ramy
3:26pm, March 8
Yes, Tipulator is another one of those “Tip calculators” but it’s certainly the best app of the category. It’s well designed, never crashes, fun to use and really easy to use. Plus its design is sexy! Good job, that feature was well deserved. Keep up the good work, we love your apps!
Dreamer_uk
6:12am, April 17
The advert is airing in the uk loads. The classics ad did appear but the tipulator one is the most common iphone app of the moment.
Congrats.
Long live macheist