Exclusive Interview With PicPlayPost Development Team, Flambe Studios

JC – Great to chat with you guys again, can you explain to our readers how your app was originally thought of and what were your thoughts behind the marketplace, specifically?

FS – Sure Joanne, PicPlayPost arrives at an opportune time as there is a need for a framing app that allows consumers to build beautiful rich digital frames by combining video (up to :30), pictures and music. You can customize your music of choice with the audio mix feature and the optimize UI is designed for a great experience on smaller devices (iPhone, iPod and iPad).

JC – and the inspiration…?

FS – The inspiration for PicPlayPost derives from our first app called Clefit (for iPad only). This is a great platform used to design interactive portfolios, presentations, sales kits, ebooks, etc and we wanted to make it available on smaller mobile devices. As is, Clefit wouldn’t be a great experience on the iPhone or iPod so we decided to break this app down to the fundamental feature, the act of adding pictures and video (or “building”) on a mobile device. Our hope is that consumers will develop a habit of “building” on their mobile device and trade up to Clefit for a much greater building experience.

JC – Can you explain the the design and how you came up with the colors and themes.

FS – When selecting colors for the user interface our team always shoots for subtle choices so that the main focus is highlighted on the actual design work. We not only spent countless hours on comparing the colors & themes on a desktop but also adjust/tweaks once displayed on the actual devices because the color palettes between desktop and iDevice are different. This is a very manual intensive effort that we are hoping our users would appreciate.

We are constantly seeking new ways to include innovative designs, new color pallets and themes so any suggestions can be sent to team@flambestudios.com.

JC – Who do you see as the main target market for this app in terms of age, genre and expenditure?

FS – The main target consumer for PicPlayPost is anyone who enjoys sharing video and pictures on a variety of social media platforms. It takes a few seconds to build and with the assortment of customizable features, consumers will have a lot of fun building their frames. PicplayPost comes with a variety of upload options:

✓ Post video and picture frame directly onto Facebook
✓ Post picture frame directly onto Twitter (#PicPlayPost)
✓ Save video and picture frame to your photo album and upload it to other social media platforms (TwitVid, Viddy, Youtube)
✓ Export picture frame to Instagram (Instagram does not support video)
✓ Email and MMS

We’ve also created a board on Pinterest to share what others have build:

http://pinterest.com/picplaypost

JC – How long did it take from the original planning to the production process of this app?

FS – The framework for PicPlayPost was already developed within our first app Clefit and our 2-man programming team spent a few weeks tweaking it for PicPlayPost and optimizing the UI for the iPhone and iPod.

JC – What about the all important sales, how do you predict sales to be, is there a good solid market for this style of app?

FS – We feel there is a strong market for photography apps and given the popularity of other framing apps, PicPlayPost will make a big splash. Once users learn about the key differentiating features of PicPlayPost (inclusion of video, audio mixing, optimize UI for smaller devices) we believe they will tell their friends about it.

JC – Every project seems to have obstacles at some stage, what’s the hardest obstacle you have had to overcome regarding this app development?

FS – One of the biggest obstacles is designing a UI that is intuitive and easy to operate on the small screen. We feel we’ve done a good job at tackling this hurdle.

JC – Would you consider developing apps for third parties?

FS – Yes, we are certainly opened to any opportunities; anyone interested can send inquiries to team@flambestudios.com.

JC – What have you learnt from the App Store?

FS – We’ve learned a lot from this process but the top three that comes to mind are as follows:

1) It is not easy to create & market a successful app as most people believe.
2) The quality of your app matters.
3) You must provide an unique value to the user; otherwise your app wont be noticed given the wide selection of apps in the store.

JC – Have Apple supported you well with your App development?

FS – Yes, their software SDK is very comprehensive and the developer’s forum provides excellent knowledge & support. Also, Apple has been very accommodating to our request to expedite reviews allowing us to push out critical updates.

JC – What next, are you developing another app, would you go for the same genre again, if not which?    

FS – We do not have any new development plans in our roadmap. Rather, we are focused on improving the user experience with PicPlayPost and Clefit. Fans are constantly sending us recommendations and we look at every suggestion as an opportunity to develop new features to enhance the user experience. For any suggestions or tips, please send all emails to team@flambestudios.com.

JC – Have you considered developing apps on other platforms such as Android? If so, what has the experience been like?

FS – We have certainly discussed offering our apps on other platforms and is something that will be part of our long term goals.

JC – What do you think about TheAppWhisperer.com? Have we helped you? Would you recommend us? Have we been supportive?

FS – Joanne and the TheAppWhisperer.com have been wonderful to work with and have always brought great opportunities to us that have greatly improved the visibility and sale of our apps. I would certainly recommend this service to other developers. I’d also recommend for the App Whisperer to make content available on Flipboard to provide greater visibility to Joanne’s wonderful reviews and comments.

JC – Thank you so much, we are delighted that we have increased your sales and opportunities. Regarding Flipboard we are in talks with the developers to add us onto it specifically but you can just click on the icon on the top right in Flipboard and manually add us – it’s definitely worth it.

The other service which is good is Pulse, it differs from Flipboard as it literally shows what you have added to your website, whereas the Flipboard content is based on your tweets.

We’ll let you know as soon as Flipboard officially adds us, it shouldn’t be much longer now.