How to get featured in the Kids section of Apple’s Appstore

Matt Wasser is the creator of ‘Frosby Apps’ – a fun learning brand for preschool kids, based in London, UK. In this article he details the improvements made to the new Appstore Kids Sections and shares his personal experiences on getting featured, localisation and the Android appstores.

The New Appstore Kids Section on iOS7 – First Impressions

The iOS7 update has brought a much needed improvement to Apple’s Appstore, and app developers who design for children now have their own dedicated kids section to target, which brings new hope for better app discovery. I personally love it – it’s the most enjoyable browsing experience, minimalist to the max, animating between pages with zoom transitions to add a real playfulness to the user experience. It makes digital window shopping fun. As a speaker at a games event I went to put it: ‘the best app on the Appstore IS the Appstore.’

The Education section now features more adult educational apps, allowing the Kids section to flourish with new sub-categories such as ‘Create & Play,’ ‘Learning Made Fun,’ and ‘Interactive Kids Stories.’

The Kids section banner which links the user from the front page reads ‘Browse Handpicked Apps & Games by Age.’ The age groups are ‘Best for Ages 5 & Under,’ 6-8, and 9-11. This is helpful because the apps in this list can be of any type suitable for the age group: it could be a book, and educational app, or even a non-educational game for kids.

It is the app developer who chooses their age range, but to be listed in one of these sections, your app must link to a privacy policy explaining how the app uses data. Your updated app must be in line with the latest Apple specs, icons, splash screens etc. – I call this app admin, which is a regular process if you want to stay in the game, and takes up a lot of our precious time!

A view of the kids section in Apple’s app store

Apple’s New Standards

Apple likes to set new standards and practices, and we as developers must keep up with them if we want a chance to be in their curated lists. Now, any instance of an external link that takes a child out of the app, or an in-app purchase must use a ‘parental gate,’ which means a digital lock is required. I use a pop-up with a 2 fingered swipe, others might use a maths question or ‘press and hold for 5 seconds’ – it can be anything you can think of, providing the parents can unlock it!

This shows Apple has responded to the negative press that continues about some developers tricking kids into expensive in-app purchases. Sarah Perez from TechCrunch says “as word gets out that the “safe” apps for children are found in the Kids section of iTunes, those still trying to monetize via children’s in-app actions and purchases may see their businesses affected negatively.”

I totally agree with enforcing this on the younger age groups, but for the ages 9-11 I would query this, depending on the app’s content. Many kids of this age can use mobile devices and iPads as or more expertly than their parents, and since they can read, the parental lock in this case seems wrong. This summer I helped to make an app called ‘Cybersafe’ for Excite-ed, a company that teaches game design in schools. The app was National Lottery funded through Goffs School in Herts, UK. The app features 3 mini-games conceived by students aged 11-15 to help kids deal with the issue of cyberbullying, which is a growing problem that many of them experience. We submitted an update for the app, selecting the 9-11 category, but it was rejected due to the fact that external links we had placed in the app did not use a ‘parental gate.’ The links were there to give kids additional advice and skills about dealing with online bullying on the CEOP website, and since the target audience is likely to be using their own phone to play the games, it is perplexing that a child-lock should be added – creating a barrier to access the very help they need to be safe online, which is quite a contradiction

Getting featured – is there more chance now?

In the documentary ‘Indie Game’ the creators of ‘Super Meat Boy’ are nervously waiting for the game they have spent a good year making to be featured on the Xbox live store. They were promised a feature, but it is nowhere to be seen on the marketplace. The game’s developer, a sullen looking Tommy Refenes is asked “what happens if you’re not featured?” His great analogy is “it’s like going into a store and you have to ask for it, because it’s not on the shelf – it’s round the back somewhere.”

Most iOS app developers know that being featured by Apple is the single biggest driver of sales, so hitting the ‘New & Noteworthy’ section for paid apps is usually make or break, and the odds are tiny. Since I don’t like in-app purchases for kids apps (or even adult apps for that matter), I mostly rely on promotion from the appstores to get a boost in sales. I’ve only been featured in America once, which was incredibly lucky, but with the increasingly intense competition, I can now only dream of those giddy days of last year, and I have no way of influencing Apple’s decision making.

This gives the app business a boom and bust feel that is just too unpredictable for my liking, although I can’t resist coming back for more. The pace of new apps being released is gut-wrenching – I don’t think being featured in a one-off spot today is enough to pay back your app’s costs. Your app would need to be regularly featured worldwide over a year to be considered a hit.

This new kids section is still a curated list, but there are more categories, so we will see more developers getting a chance to get their apps seen in the various promoted sections that Apple create. This means that there will also be more rediscovery of old apps, not just this week’s pick.

But what about app discovery through search? With such a fine display of quality apps in the curated lists, it doesn’t seem likely that parents will look much further, unless for very niche topics. The search display has improved in iOS 7 though – the user now gets six app tiles per page, and these can be endlessly scrolled downwards, quickly updating like a web page.

Even developers can now be featured with their own page, so users can discover their app portfolios all at once. To list some: Toca Boca, Nosy Crow and Les Trois Elles Interactive have all received the badge of honour from Apple.

Educational ‘volume purchase’

iOS App developers can tick a box within their iTunes portal to offer a half price discount for educational institutions if they buy 20+ copies of your app. This has happened very occasionally to me, and on one day in August this year I was stunned to see 190 sales for Frosby Learning Games in one day! As Apple makes more deals with schools and even countries – Turkey is rumoured to be buying up to 15 million iPads for schools – there is an exciting prospect ahead. I envisage that Apple may soon be providing app catalogues to schools, so getting on this curated list will be the jackpot. Curriculum, and what schools might be looking for, is the subject of another article.

Localisation – the global picture

The most exciting thing about Apple’s Appstore is that it’s growing a truly global app market, and that the individual countries have their own say in the apps they promote.

By looking at the different countries’ charts on iTunes, one can see at a glance the current popular apps that have been featured worldwide (on the Appstore on a desktop PC or Mac, scroll down, and click the small round flag on the bottom right to change language). But there are plenty of hand-picked local apps too, which is very encouraging. The Australian Appstore has its own category called ‘Locally developed apps’ – how quaint!

So should you translate your app description into other languages? This can be time consuming to administrate, so it is a gamble. If your app is featured, it may increase the chance that the countries that you have localised to will select you, and then your sales there might increase. It will also help you to be found through local search as your keywords will be in that country’s language.

Since my design style is partly influenced by Japanese characters, I thought I would be popular in Asia. Wrong! I have been featured in China and Korea and completely bombed there, so I will not be localising for the S.E Asian countries again in a hurry.

This summer, I also worked as an animator on a great looking preschool iPad app called PlayHaus, in which kids can build their own house out of toy blocks. I thought the app would appeal to UK tastes, but wrong again – surprisingly the app did better in China, where it was featured – climbing to no.2 in the Education chart!

It appears that local appstore marketing teams can now select and feature the apps they like, rather than apps simply filtering down from a small selection made by the USA team. I welcome this progress, and hope that it gives indie developers an audience if they didn’t get the big prime-time Appstore features.

This is precisely what is happening to me as I write this article. My latest app ‘Frosby Picnic Camp’ was featured in the best apps for under fives in Italy on iPad, where it managed to get to no. 3 in the education chart. This weekend I was dropped into a few other small markets, and suddenly appeared at number 1 in Hungary – above Mickey Mouse! However, that number 1 spot only amounted to 3 sales in Hungary (what?), so we will have to wait a while for those smaller countries to catch up and buy a few more iPads…

Being in any top ten is a buzz, and it truly is a surreal feeling to think one of my apps has travelled from my home office to appearing above 3 Disney apps in a random country with no previous knowledge of my brand!

The Android appstores – a few differences

App developers will have a very different experience across the various appstores, and getting discovered is no less of a challenge on each of them. Here are my ratings for my personal sales, from best to worst: Apple, Nook, Amazon, Google Play.

Fortunately, because I use Adobe Air with Flash to make my Frosby Apps, I can port my iOS file to the three Android stores in no more than a day, with a bit of additional code, including the admin and uploading.

So what are the differences? The bottom line is – an app developer needs to build up their reputation on each store individually, since what is popular on one may not at all be popular on another. My first app, Vlad’s Vampire Bats, went unnoticed on iOS, due to the huge selection of interactive books, but has been my most popular on Amazon, while my Frosby Learning Games, which was New and Noteworthy on Apple – by far my most successful app – was simply ignored by customers on Google Play and Amazon.

Apple’s store is the most developed – delivering the most advanced shopping experience, but it is now extremely saturated, and standards are high. For a newcomer it is very hard indeed, and increasingly so. As I’ve been in the app market for two years, I have built up some presence now, and have some visibility on the iOS store and cross promotion between my six apps. They do require regular updating though, so one needs a consistent effort to go the distance.

Google Play has personally been the worst performing appstore – whether it’s the near zero visibility or the fact that free apps dominate, I spend very little time dealing with it. I had slight hope that their new Google Play Educational appstore would improve things, but two months after ticking the box for inclusion, I received a rejection email. It turns out that Google do not include preschool or toddler apps: ‘Any app submitted for inclusion in our Play for Education store will be reviewed for US K-12 school educational value.’ So that counts me out for good then. Thanks!

The Google Play educational app store

Nook is a little known family of tablet devices here in the UK, so this store, used mainly by US customers has been surprisingly good. Perhaps due to the smaller selection of apps, customers more willing to spend, or its on-device store portal, they have come up with the goods! Nook also contacts you (very novel!) from time to time to allow you the opportunity for seasonal app promotions. Furthermore, on Nook and Amazon you can actually apply for promotion through their developer portals, and quite often they do actually help you out J.

Sharing out the promotion

A system of contacting Apple for considered app promotion on common or niche categories would be useful, rather than having to move to California to schmooze them. Developers need to know where to focus their energy.

Good news – Apple has recently been advertising jobs for their local educational app departments, in order to find and promote the best apps for children. Some nice person – please go for it and I’ll buy you a drink!

What app developers really need is an Appstore that encourages parents to see the value in paying for apps, and for more developers to get a chance to be seen and to prove themselves, even if it’s short lived. The Kids Section is a great evolution of the Appstore – keep up the good work Apple!

Useful Links

More of my app articles Frosby.net/blog

Keep up to date with the kids app market, follow The Guardian Apps Blog

Moms with Apps community

Teaching game industry skills to kids Excite-ed 

Track the app market with App Annie