Breaking the US

Good question...
my app: My Wallet has been doing really well in Europe etc.

From what I can tell it's pretty much luck of the draw and word of mouth.

I did see improved sales after giving it away for free for a couple of days.
I saw 150,000+ downloads, off the back of that I had increased downloads @ Tier2 pricing.

It depends how willing you are to give your hardwork away for free though I guess!

 

Ads on a paid app is what's killing you.

 

Probably, Which is why I removed them

 

Excellent move!
I just downloaded it...

 

Awesome!
Which brings me onto the next most important way of "breaking the US"
Get people to leave Good feedback on the App store and send "negative" feedback direct to the developer

I plan on building in a "Show me love/Having Problems" button in the next update...
Get good feedback going to the App Store and other traffic going to me.

I have suffered (I'm sure) from people being too quick to criticise and leaving poor ratings rather than delving into the app and figuring stuff out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure in my app there are loads of routines that seems obvious to me but is not always obvious to end users.

quote from a canadian user:

"Don't get it!!!!!!!
Absolute waste of a buck! Extremely frustrating to say the least. I tried to load in my reward cards, taking the pics were easy it was the cut and paste thing that wasn't there. Not to mention if you wanted to delete just one card....good luck you have to delete EVERYTHING and start again..... I hate getting sucked in but what the hey it's only a dollar, my advise is if you have the need WASTE a buck, please send it to me it would be much better spent, at least I would say Thank you!"

Bit harsh as you can delete, it's a table view so has the standard functionality as any iOS table view, swipe the row and you get prompted with a delete button.

As my app is fully "Skinned" it was probably not obvious that you could do this - I bet this one scathing review cost me more than one sale!

I don't blame the user as everything should be intuitive. Saying that not everybody is up to speed on the basics of IOS and this short uninformed casual user was rightfully pissed off that he THOUGH he had to do something he didn't!
I am thinking some "tutorial" pages would not go amiss!

I am very much developing iOS apps in my spare time and don't have a team of people looking for bugs etc.
Like all development work it is hard to anticipate some scenarios, More than half my code (as it should be) is error trapping etc and it is nigh on impossible to test your own code objectively!

In Short Feedback is by far the best way to "Rank up", Saying that I am satisfying customers and as bi-product buying the kids treats off the back of sales!

That is ultimately why I do this, a bit of "pocket money" and personal interest,its a popular misconception that you will make millions by putting out apps

EDIT: I am quite drunk, sisters 30th Birthday party...Just got back....
Forgive typos/general incoherence!

Buy my app, it like totally rocks!
hehehe