PicTranslator – A Winning iPhone Translation App for the Winter Olympics

Seattle, WA January 8, 2010 – The latest release of PicTranslator, an iPhone app that turns the iPhone camera into a global translator, will make negotiating the 2010 Winter Olympics a little easier for athletes, families, and fans with the addition of new languages.

PicTranslator turns the iPhone camera into a point-and-shoot translation tool. Foreign navigational signs, menus, maps, etc., can be translated with the push of a button – no phrasebook lookups or typing of foreign text required to understand and read printed text.

Travelers simply take a picture of the printed text to be translated with their iPhone and within seconds the translated text appears on their iPhone translated into one of 51 languages the user has selected. PicTranslator currently supports text translation from Czech, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Pronunciation of the original text is available for French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish languages.

The original version of PicTranslator released in late October, 2009, used state-of-art OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to translate text from 16 languages into English. The current PicTranslator version now offers translation into 51 languages. The additional languages will benefit Olympic athletes, visitors and all international travelers that are unfamiliar with English.

Enhancing PicTranslator to support translation into a variety of languages in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics was a high priority

“Enhancing PicTranslator to support translation into a variety of languages in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics was a high priority for the Fotozio development team,” said Justin Wilcox, CEO of Fotozio. “We’re very excited to be able to provide not only Olympic attendees, but all international travelers with the ability to translate text into their native languages.”

PicTranslator can be purchased through U.S. and international iTunes App Stores. The PicTranslator Video shows the app in action. A complete list of all translation languages can be found on the PicTranslator website – www.pictranslator.com on in the app description in the iTunes App store.

Fotozio is focused on developing high quality mobile applications that address real world challenges.

Safe Travels and Happy Translations!

Interesting (Biased?) Survey Citing Android Developer Discontent

First, the findings:

• 57% of developers said they are not satisfied with their profits on Android.
• 90% of developers reported individual app downloads of 10,000 or under on Android.
• 52% of Android developers’ apps were downloaded fewer than 5,000 times.
• Developers are concerned that Google Checkout contributes to their low download volumes.  43% feel that they would sell more apps if Android used a carrier billing or another simpler billing system.
• 82% of those surveyed feel that the design of the Android Marketplace makes it difficult for apps to be noticed.
• 68% of those surveyed are somewhat or not likely to put further work into their apps, compared to when they first released their app.

Now, I’ve read enough of www.FiveThirtyEight.com to know when polling numbers are fishy, and let me tell you, something smells ripe.  Here’s what I’m talking about:

1. Tiny sample size. Only 30 respondents to a survey, so the “margin of error” is probably wacky high (probably why they didn’t include it).
2. Also not mentioned in the survey, how they found these people or how they were surveyed. Banner ads claiming you’ll win an iPod by filling out the survey? Spam campaign? We’ve all filled out surveys where we just randomly clicked radio buttons…no telling how credible any of responses are.
3. Push polling? Ask a question like, “Does the Design of the Marketplace Make Your App go Unnoticed?” and of course you’re going to get a pile of people answering yes. It’s kinda like asking, “Do you wish it was easier to market your business?” Discoverability could be the most important problem for mobile developers to solve, but asking slanted questions isn’t going to provide much new info. Much better to ask, “How satisfied are you with Android users’ ability to discover your app through Marketplace?”
4. No comparison with developing on iPhone. If you’re considering whether or not to jump into mobile development, perhaps “57% of developers are not satisfied with their profits on Android” is interesting. But much more interesting would be to compare those satisfaction numbers with developing on the iPhone.Making money on mobile apps is hard, no matter what platform you’re writing for, we know that. What we don’t know is whether it’s better to write for Android versus iPhone. We’ve got theories of course, but this survey would be a lot more useful if we could do a little more Apples to Apples comparison.

Alright, so complaints aside, this is nominally interesting data that confirms our suspicions and if its authors compiled it with no ulterior motives, I appreciate them going to the trouble. Still, there’s enough that’s sketchy about this survey that I’d take it with a grain of salt and wouldn’t think twice about disregarding it if/when better data comes out.

Know any Designers?

We’re looking to bring a designer onto the Fotozio team to head up UX and graphic design.  Someone who can contribute to the long-term success of our mobile applications and whose compensation, like ours, is highly correlated to it.

Our track record is relatively short, but successful:

• Recently released PicTranslator for the iPhone
• Top #10 Travel app in the US within 24 hours
• Featured by Apple as “New & Noteworthy”
• Currently the #1 Travel app in 10 countries
• Established relationships with large travel companies

Our ideal designer…

• Owns an iPhone
• Has a design portfolio for us to look over
• Is in it to win it (be able to create mouth-watering, commercial-worthy experiences)
• Has worked on mobile apps before (nice to have)
• Has HTML & Flash experience (nice to have)

We’ve got some big ideas and some exciting plans to execute on them.  If you are, or you know someone, who is interested in working with a company that knows how to make a splash, please let me know.

Thanks!

Justin

iPhone vs Android vs RIM vs Web OS

Trying to decide which platform(s) to write your mobile app for?  Let me help you: iPhone.

Now, if you’ve got some extra time on your hands, you might build an Android version and hope at some point a better marketplace comes along and the rumored new Google-branded phone takes off.  Otherwise, stick to the platform almost half the US is using and has at least some discoverability mechanisms (Top category lists, New & Noteworthy, etc.).  As for RIM, Symbian, and Web OS…don’t bother.

Here are some numbers:

AdMob got significantly (17% vs 14%) more requests from Android users than they did Blackberry users in the US in September. [See Page 8]

As for worldwide:

• iPhone is up to 43% (up from 33% in Feb and 40% in Sept)
• Rim is down to 8% (from 10% in Feb)
• Symbian is down to 29% (from 43% in Feb)
• Android is up to 10% (from 2% in Feb)
• Web OS is up to 5% (from 0% in Feb)

Summation: iPhone is kicking ass, Android has some momentum but is a long way away.  Taking into account iPhone’s domination and the number of Androids coming online, I wouldn’t put money on any other pony.

PicTranslator Launch Party

Celebrating success, whether large or small, is a corner stone of the Fotozio mindset.  On November 13^th we celebrated the launch of our first iPhone app, PicTranslator, at the Art Church, in Ballard, WA.  Surrounded by beautiful art work, we networked, danced, and drank with friends, colleagues and other Seattle-area startupers.

A highlight of the party was the translation puzzle.  Our guests were invited to test their travel trivia skills with one slight twist; they first needed to translate the questions which were in various foreign languages.  Guests with PicTranslator proved to be the most popular contacts since they were able to easily and quickly translate all the questions.

Several companies generously donated wonderful prizes for our puzzle contest:

Amazon Web Services – www.aws.amazon.com
Printing Control – www.printingcontrol.com
Eric Robison Photography – www.EricRobisonPhotography.com
Dibspace – www.dibspace.com
Market Multipliers – www.marketpultipliers.com

Thanks so much to everyone who came out, especially Bart Claeys, who took some great photos:

Aaron and his brother Adam got some nice photos too.  Anyone else?

We want to thank all our family members, friends and colleagues that helped in getting PicTranslator off the ground.  We look forward to many more opportunities to celebrate as we continue on this journey.

Mobile Apps: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

Chuck Groom, one of the originators of the Seattle Tech Startup group, asked me to share our experiences building, launching, and marketing our iPhone app, PicTranslator, at the STS meeting this week.  I tried to phrase the discussion in terms of, “What would I tell my best friend if he wanted to jump into mobile app development?”

This is a CamStudio screen capture so it’s not perfect, but most of the good stuff is there.

Btw, this blog is going to get very sporadic action.  If you want to keep in touch, consider following @Justin_Wilcox or @Fotozio.

Disagree with my take?  Have your own experiences to share?  Comment it up!

New PicTranslator Pricing

After a week in the iTunes App Store, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from terrific users and we’ve learned a lot about the iPhone app world. As a result, we’ve decided to change our pricing strategy.

The reasoning behind the change is straight forward. We had hoped providing the application free for the first language would enable a wide range of people to try it while still encouraging people to purchase additional or all supported languages. Unfortunately, conversion rates weren’t what we had hoped and with our server, licensing, and other costs, it would have been difficult to continue improving PicTranslator.

With those realities in mind, we’ve decided to do two things:

First, make PicTranslator available for $0.99. Downloads will still include support for translating one of the 16 available languages and will include pronunciation if you choose French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish.

Second, we’ll actually lower the cost of additional language purchases within the application to $0.99 and lower the price for purchasing all languages within the application to $1.99.

At the end of the day, this new pricing model will mean users can get support for translating and pronouncing all available languages for the same price as before, but now they’ll do so in a way that ensures we can continue supporting, developing, and innovating on PicTranslator.  It also means existing users can add additional languages for less $ than before.

Please let us know what you think about these changes. The feedback we’ve gotten thus far has been tremendous!

Thanks,

Justin Wilcox
PicTranslator co-Creator