TheMobileYogi users speak!

Here are 25 app reviews of the various mobile apps we've produced at TheMobileYogi across iOS, Android and Windows phone – across studio, paid and free versions and across the Eastern and Western hemispheres. We are so grateful for our users’ support and feedback. – TMY

Fantastic yoga fun

Excellent app for on the go yogis. It's simple and fast, no nonsense approach fits my style. Here's the pose, here's some pointers, now do it. I can make it as hard as I like.

It would be nice to see it optimized for the pad, and maybe get more rotation friendly, too. Keep up the good work!

· by Wild Beth United States

Enjoyed the free version...

So I figured it's time to buy! The poses are really clear and I like the sequences. Always room for improvement so I'm looking forward to the upgrades. Thanks.

by Wild Beth United States

Thanks for upgrading and the kind words “Wild Beth” – TMY

   ticks

finaly a good app ye s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s as s s

by Lourdes Rousseau United States

Awesome Yoga App
I really enjoy "Find a Pose" and "Pose of the Day"! It's so easy to get to Chagrin Yoga's class schedule.
· by dpoes United States

Great app
Awesome for finding a yoga class that fits into your schedule. Great studio and teachers as well.
· by Kelly Lynn United States

We agree - a terrific studio with fantastic teachers! - TMY

  Awesome app!
Love the "pose of the day" along with the detailed description of the proper alignment/techniques! Thanks for this very useful app!
by mcp888 United States

   Chagrin Yoga
Superb app!! Everything I need is here. 5 for sure!!
by Yogageek United States


   Daily dose of Dawn
Sweet motivation for maintaining a daily practice.
by Madrid36 United States


  Chagrin Yoga fan!!
The IPhone app is superb! I love "Is there a pose for that?" and the instructions for "pose of the day"! I also love how the class schedule is available! Fantastic!!:)
· by MoniBoop23 United States


  your portable yoga class
this is way better than 2 yoga apps i paid for...    the price of "free" apps is often pretty high as many intrude your privacy or flood you with adds. not this one. a free cell phone app can probably not substitut a real class if you have no idea of yoga. yoga is a philosophy...people who are looking for a pilates workout kit might consider a different application (; I like it and i think the explanations are easy to follow. Clean simple app that does what it says better than some of the paid yoga apps.
· by wolke.s United States

Thank you for noticing the work we put into our content - TMY

  Peace

I pray a lot about what i should do to keep my body in shape.yoga-pedi has work the best for me and now I can take it with me .
by Linda Barnett United States

  Perfect travel companion
A Pose for That is a great tool when traveling or on the run. It even comes in handy on the subway. Definitely an excellent way to learn more about yoga.
by Nina Adriana United States


 Excellent
This is by far the best yoga app. Whether you are new to yoga or an instructor, you are sure to gain much from it. I am thrilled to have found it!
· by mads1063 United States

 A pose for that
Amazing and surprisingly addicting
· by Obfusc8 United States

 Great for yoga lovers
It's app is great for people who are new to yoga or long time practitioners that wish to refine their skills. This app provides clear pictures, descriptions, and instructions of yoga poses ranging from beginner to advanced. I would highly recommend this app to anyone interested in yoga.
· by Oursisthefury United States

  It's cool application
Kindly and polite instruction, I could begin in comfort. Thx
· by Chappi-n Japan

Arigato Gozaimasu – TMY

  Simply amazing!!
It is the application every yogi should have handy all the time, everywhere.
· by Free Flow Yoga United States

 Yoga in my Pocket
What a wonderful resource! Love both the written and audio directions for pose of the day!
· by hannahbeth00 United States

 Terrific reference app with daily audio lesson streamed to phone
This app offers a long list of poses with supporting images, instruction and an audio lesson streamed daily to the phone - a terrific free resource!
· by Davey128 United States

  Life changing!
This just became apart of my daily routine. I'm finding peace in my iPhone.
· by Nina United States

  nice!
easy to use and follow along... videos really help
love the english and sanskrit options as well
intuitive interface, easily access anywhere
reccomend!
· by Michael L. United States

 Yo
this is so relaxing especially for moms who just want to heel away from their kids for a little bit
· by dhdhrie United States

  Fun but challenging
if your just starting yoga and you arn't that strong I recommend not doing anything past some intermediate. But this is calming. the only con would be it doesn't tell you when 2 stop. but other wise its a really good app
· by bubblyrawr lovr United States

  It's like a smartphone encyclopedia
This app offers dozens and dozens of poses including photos, instruction, recommended flows and even some sample videos. Great reference app - i use it all the time.
· by "Agog for Yoga" United States

COPPAesthetics: form follows function yet again

(CLICK TO ENLARGE INFOGRAPH)

Earlier in December 2012, The Federal Trade Commission adopted final amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). As you might imagine, any regulation that mixes child safety (nothing is more important right?), the multi-billion dollar Internet economy (nothing is more important than jobs right?), and increased regulation (you fill-in the blank here) is bound to be controversial. The new rule(s) take effect on July 1, 2013 and cover a lot of ground. The COPPA amendments expand:

• The type of entity that will be regulated by COPPA to include third party service providers like advertising networks but explicitly excludes “platforms” like Google Play or the App Store, 
• The criteria for the kind of service or app covered to include those that are likely to attract under age 13 users (versus specifically targeting under age 13 users), and 
• The types of information that will require parental consent (and how/when that consent must be given).

On a separate track, I have long been calling out how the design intent (functional requirements) behind the various analytics technologies out there lead to profound (material) differences in architecture and feature sets (form). For a more technical treatment of this topic, see Application Analytics: what every developer should know.

Debuggers, profilers, web/mobile analytics, and last (but not least ;) application analytics are distinct from one another – and this latest update to COPPA serves as one more stark reminder as to why these distinctions really matter. 

Information that is exempt from COPPA obligations  include data that is used exclusively to “Support internal operations” including “maintaining or analyzing the functioning of app or service.” So, right away we can assume that debuggers and system monitoring software are still in the clear – but these tools do nothing to improve usability, measure adoption, identify user preferences, and – in most cases – cannot even reach out onto consumer devices like mobile phones and tablets.

What’s an app/service provider (what COPPA calls an “operator”) to do?

Today, app/service providers (let’s call them “Owners” for now) have had two options for analytics inside their apps and online services; 

• “Mobile/web analytics” provided by third parties such as advertising networks (Google) or platforms (let’s call them marketplace providers) such as Apple’s App Store, and 
• Application analytics provided by third parties such as PreEmptive Solutions. 

Functionally, these two technologies are quite different and are complimentary (see the article listed above) – and another stark difference between these two categories is the preferred business model of their respective vendors.

• Web/mobile analytics technology and services are offered at no charge (or minimal) with the hook that the analytics provider owns (and can process and monetize) the runtime data generated through their service – it is the data that pays for the service. This is why advertising networks are likely to find themselves identified as “operators” in the eyes of the FTC and, therefore, potentially subject to COPPA regulations. 
• Application analytics providers license their software and services for a fee and do not harvest client data. App Owners “own their data” just as absolutely as they own their app or online service. This is why application analytics providers, all other things being equal, are unlikely to find themselves under any kind of scrutiny form the FTC. 

...who moved my analytics?

All of this has potentially serious implications for both app/online service providers AND advertising networks. 

Advertising network service providers are likely to simply ban (drop) app owners that may send them COPPA-governed data to avoid risk – and we see this happening already; checkout Flurry’s privacy policy here where they write (in part) 

“Our Customers may not use the Flurry Services in connection with any application labeled or described as a "Kids" or "Children" application and may not use the Flurry Services a) in connection with any application, advertisement or service directed towards children or b) to collect any personal information from children.” 

Application analytics service providers find themselves in a very different position. I need to stress that “application analytics” and “mobile analytics” are not equivalent – the latter will not promote an app or rank an app against competitors. 

Yet, to the extent that measuring user experience, preferences and behavior leads to improved adoption and sales and to the extent that reducing mean-time-to-repair improves operations and increases satisfaction and application value – application analytics will, by design, continue to improve application quality and value in a safe and secure manner - even under increasing regulatory oversight and scrutiny.

We are entering the darkest of Dark Ages. Happy New Year!

I recently found myself in a conversation with a Chicago taxi driver – we veered onto computers and questions and concerns around privacy and on to other technology-fueled social and ethical issues – an excellent ride (almost as good as a NYC taxi ;). At the end of our short ride, we came to a surprising conclusion; that there was no way for humanity to keep pace with the flood of advances flowing from computer science, biology, physics, etc. We were not talking about the actual underlying technical complexities – only the social, ethical and moral consequences, obligations and risks stemming from all of the above.

 

The gap between our visionaries and the rest of us is already far greater than existed in 10^th Century and it’s only getting wider.   Now, the other distinguishing mark of the original Dark Ages was the drought of written records/history – very little is known about this “dark time” because of the lack of primary documentation. …but, as Charles Goldfarb outlined in a keynote (probably over 20 years ago), the rise of the digital record means that photos, videos, and every other form of record can be manipulated beyond detection – our modern age is “post history” – if pre-history is defined as before there were written records – our current ability to rewrite the recent past absolutely and without detection means we are now in a “post-history” phase.

As we welcome in 2013 – we are taking one more step deeper into a Dark Age like nothing we have ever experienced before and there is no telling if/when/how we will dig our way out (at least until we achieve “technical singularity"). So - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Who cares about application analytics? Lots of people for lots of reasons…

The results are coming in from our most recent survey on the current state of application lifecycle management and the use of application analytics.

Most everyone agrees that analytics are powerful - it's why they're powerful that gets interesting. 77% of development and their management identified “insight into production application usage” as influential, important or essential to their work, and 71% identified “near real-time notification of unhandled, caught, and/or thrown exceptions” in the same way (other choices were “moderately important" and "no importance"). 

…but where specifically do application analytics have the greatest impact?

Usage, behavior and patterns

Figure 1: Where does insight into production application usage matter? (click to expand)

Developers need to know where and how to prioritize the work that’s right in front of them and nothing makes supporting users more straightforward than having direct insight into what they’ve been doing in production.  

While third in the cumulative vote count, Product planning was ranked 1^st in the “essential” categorization. If you don’t know what’s happening around you, there’s no way you can confidentially plan for the future.

Unhandled, thrown and caught exceptions

Figure 2: Where does insight into production incidents (all manner of exception) matter? (click to expand)

Not surprisingly, everyone can agree that insight into exceptions and failures in production provide critical insight into how future iterations of an application should be tested. The fact that 22% of respondents did NOT see exception analytics as being at least influential in customer support is somewhat surprising and will be the subject of future analysis – however, one potential explanation may lie in the obstacles development organizations face (or perceive) in actually implementing true feedback-driven customer support and development processes.

What’s getting in the way?

When comparing usage versus exception monitoring, respondents are mostly consistent in their ranking of obstacles – in fact, the consistency is striking when you consider the divergence in ranking of use cases across these two categories (usage versus exception monitoring). 

Figure 3: What are the obstacles preventing development organizations from implementing effective application analytics solutions today? (click to expand)

While specific numbers vary somewhat, development, product owners and management focus first on security and privacy concerns (see my last post) – followed closely by performance and stability – let’s call that Quality with a capital “q” and “Lack of Best Practices,” which is understandable as application analytics is only now emerging alongside new platforms, tools and methodologies.

PreEmptive Solutions and Application Analytics

What the respondents’ agreement in “obstacles” also indicates is that it should be possible for a single technology solution combined with appropriate processes and patterns designed to address these obstacles to meet the user and organizational requirements across all of these use cases and scenarios.  …and, coincidentally that is exactly what PreEmptive Analytics has been built to accomplish.

For more information on PreEmptive Analytics, visit www.preemptive.com/pa

For an article I wrote for MSDN and the launch of Visual Studio 2012, checkout Application Analytics, what every developer should know.

Security and privacy concerns identified as most common obstacle to implementing application analytics

This is the first installment of a series posts on the state of application analytics and modern application development patterns and practices.

In a recent survey that includes responses from 100’s of development organizations, two thirds identified application analytics as either essential or important in one or more of the following categories: Product planning, Development prioritization, Test plan definition, Customer support, and/or Development ROI calculation.

Among this group where application analytics has the greatest impact, the following were identified as the most serious obstacles to implementation. (click to enlarge graphic)

Obstacles preventing the use of application analytics in my organization 

Half of all respondents identified security and privacy - a 20% higher response rate than the next two closest obstacles e.g. lack of expertise and general quality concerns). 

The emphasis on security and privacy is even more pronounced inside larger development teams. Nearly 3 out of every 4 development organizations with greater than 50 people identified privacy and security as an impediment – 50% more likely than development teams of between 5 and 15.  

Correlating perceived obstacles to implementing analytics with development organization size

In fact, an organization’s size appears to have a significant influence on virtually every perceived obstacle; larger organizations appear to be more concerned with performance, quality and connectivity while smaller organizations struggle with awareness of analytics solutions, development best practices, and the required integration of their development and operations processes.  

One might make the generalization that, due to the complexities that come with size, larger organizations have had to move to more tightly integrated platforms and practices – putting them in a better position to implement application analytics (and so they focus on potential risks stemming from an implementation) whereas smaller teams may not have as an entrenched “feedback-driven” integrated approach to development. As such, they are more likely to struggle with how to move forward (keep in mind that all respondents identified application analytics as either essential or important).

Privacy and Security and PreEmptive Analytics

Regardless of development team size, privacy and security is the number one perceived obstacle – and PreEmptive Analytics is unique in its approach to this critical requirement. PreEmptive Analytics includes the following:

• Development teams own their own data. PreEmptive asks for no rights to aggregate, inspect or resell your data.
• A two-level opt-in switch is included ensuring user opt-in to transmit runtime data from both regular usage AND application exceptions. The logic itself can be injected post-build for .Net and Java and can always be defined by the development organization.
• All data is, by default, encrypted on the wire.
• Device ID's (if they are collected at all) are hashed before they are transmitted.
• Tamper-detection and defense can be used to detect and defend against any attempt to alter or redirect runtime data transmission.
• Obfuscation can be used to obscure inspection by third parties of what is being collected and transmitted.
• Unique keys identify both the organization and the application source for data.

For more information on how PreEmptive Analytics addresses the number one obstacle for implementing application analytics (as ranked by those that need it the most), visit www.preemptive.com/pa

Today’s DevOps: Pushmi-pullyu or kick#@s crew?

Most of us know Dr. Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu – that special beast with two heads that go in opposite directions whenever it tries to move.  That this creature could only exist in a fantasy world free from Darwinian forces is obvious – doomed to failure because, while its blood may circulate, the pushmi-pullyu is literally of two minds whose “selfish interests” are forever at odds.

In the 2-person scull, rowing is executed in precise synchrony achieved through coordination and continuous feedback. Failure to stay in synch will list the boat to one side, slow forward progress, impede steering, frustrate rowers and serve as the root cause of numerous injuries.

Of course, competitive rowers invest in the best platform too (their racing boat or "shell"). Competitive shells are designed to reduce all manner of friction. A shell’s rigging is built to meet the distinct needs of each rower; accommodating unique requirements that stem from a rower’s relative position inside the boat (which should NEVER be confused with a conflict of interests between the two rowers).  

In fact, the underlying design principles presume that rowers share a common goal (win a race), have entered into a contract (to coordinate and synchronize), and are committed to working within an integrated platform (their shell).  …and the best rigging is one that finds a way to meet each rower’s unique requirements as measured by the achievement of their common goal.

The hallmarks of a successful DevOps organization (aka “the kick#@s crew”)

What’s it take to build a kick#@s crew and avoid breeding your own doomed pushmi-pullyu?

·        Agree on common goals (Dev ROI?)

·        Adopt processes designed to coordinate and synchronize DevOps activities through continuous feedback (Agile?)

·       Invest in an integrated DevOps platform built to reduce friction and able to meet the unique requirements of both development and operations.

·        Always be mindful that, if these unique requirements are not met (like in our sculling example), you will suffer slowed progress, impeded agility, frustrated stakeholders and all manner of inefficiency and loss.

These principles sit at the heart of PreEmptive Analytics and have helped ensure our success across industries, platforms and runtime environments.

I first blogged on the importance of understanding role based “special interests” relating to development and operations feedback almost two years ago to the day: Application analytics: a new game brings new rules  (10/12/2010)

For a more contemporary discussion of these topics, check out my article inside the MSDN Visual Studio Library: Application Analytics: what every developer should know

For more information on PreEmptive Analytics, visit www.preemptive.com/pa

STROKE!

Chagrin Falls High School publishes mobile apps – and the fun has only just begun

I’m pleased to report that a project I had been nursing for most of this year has reached a milestone. At the beginning of this last semester, I kicked off a track inside our local high school (Chagrin Falls High School) to get teams of students collaborating on building mobile apps – not just programming but developing all of the skills required for a successful app launch.

Today, the first apps went live and they include:

CFDC Calculator and

CFDC Flashlight

Both apps are simple to begin with – BUT remember, these are the work product of a new and educational program where high school students work in small teams focusing on developing programming, product management and marketing skills.

These apps also generate usage analytics (nothing personally identifiable) and include a feedback page. Students will review the analytics and user feedback to improve future versions – so please download these apps, give them a spin, and provide feedback. Do it for the kids!

Of course, I didn’t run this program alone – I worked with The Chagrin Falls Dads’ Club and the Chagrin Falls High School administration with support from Microsoft (who provided mobile phones, development software and some technical support) and PreEmptive Solutions (who provided monitoring software to help measure app usage). 

The objective of the program is to organize students into teams where they would not only build a mobile app, but publish that app in a global marketplace and monitor its adoption and usage “in the wild.”

The goal of the program is to teach students the importance of the “total lifecycle” of an app from idea to creation to publication to adoption to continuous improvement. Obviously, today’s high school students are truly an “app generation” and it always kills me that the myriad of career choices beyond development are never highlighted – and given that this is an exploding multi-billion dollar market and I’m based here in Ohio – I wanted to make sure our local students knew what was available to them right now. What should be built? For whom? How is my app doing and what can I do better? Chagrin’s students will have a head start in knowing how to answer these questions in a global marketplace.

The process included organizing the early volunteers into teams and working with them to develop ideas that they could bring to market. Microsoft provided phones and software and had a technical resource drop in for some general instruction as well. PreEmptive Solutions provided the analytic software so that students could measure how their apps were doing.

Great work... Welcome to the North Coast.

A/B Testing: to grow your business, know your people

In early June 2012, the Yoga-pedia user-base surpassed the 60,000 user mark and, in spite of the app’s apparent popularity, I had to admit that I was not being particularly effective in monetizing this growing community. The Mobile Yogi’s business model has always been about white-labeling the fee-based “A Pose for That” for yoga studios, retailers and other wellness-centered businesses – Yoga-pedia was conceived simply to accelerate adoption of A Pose for That (see Increasing App sales with Analytics: Free apps versus trials) and, while Yoga-pedia does generate some ad revenue; the ads themselves were really intended to be little more than an irritant and, therefore, another reason to upgrade (the paid app is ad-free of course). …but I had a growing sense that this community was most likely an under-utilized (and therefore undervalued) asset; but how to turn this hunch into revenue?

I needed to find something that I could market other than an app upgrade.

First, I took stock of what I already knew about my users. I realized that the analytics that I had been collecting up until this time had certainly helped to improve user experience and software quality, I really had very little insight into my users’ interests and desires beyond their interactions with my app’s specific features. 

In fact, all I knew for sure about my users was:

a) That my users all have an interest in yoga (they use my app) and

b) When they were in my app, they are actually thinking about yoga at that moment in time.

– But how to parlay on my limited insight into something actionable? 

It was time to make the leap into A/B testing.  A/B testing is about randomly showing a user different versions of a page – the (A) version or the (B) version – and tracking the changes in behavior based on which version they saw. The (A) version is the existing design; and the (B) version is the “challenger” with one element changed.

The element I chose to vary was the “contextual ads” being served up, in this case, by Microsoft’s adcenter.  The B “challenger” was a set of 3 different faux ads promoting yoga clothing, yoga training, and yoga retreats as follows:

I randomized the displays by generating a random number between 1 and 4 as follows:

public static int MyAdOrServeAd ()

        {

            int MyAdOrServeAd = 0;

            Random randomObj = new Random();

            MyAdOrServeAd = 0;

            MyAdOrServeAd = randomObj.Next(4);

            return MyAdOrServeAd;

        }

And then set System.Windows.Visibility for each of the four controls (AdCenter and my three test topics above) to .Visible or .Collapsed accordingly, e.g.

if (RandomAd == 3)

            {

                adControl3.Visibility = System.Windows.Visibility.Visible;

                My_AdRetreat.Visibility = System.Windows.Visibility.Collapsed; …

The result is the following A/B behavior:

And of course, I used Dotfuscator to inject analytics to track:

• ·         Which “ad” was displayed in which page and
• ·         What action (if any) users take with each flavor of ad.

I added the method, WhatAdWhen, that takes 3 string parameters, the page being shown, the ad being displayed, and the event, e.g. New Ad, Ad Engaged (clicked), or Ad Error (only applicable to AdCenter served ads).  The method does nothing, but I grab the parameters and send it to the Runtime Intelligence Service using Dotfuscator to inject the instrumentation.

The method is:

private void WhatAdWhen(string page, string ad_type, string event_type)

        {

            return;

        }

The call looks like: WhatAdWhen("Main", "Clothing", "New Ad");

And then attach the following extended attribute with Dotfuscator to track each call

 

The * is all I needed to include to have Dotfuscator send all three values to the Runtime Intelligence Service… So what did I see after a few days in production?

Perhaps not surprisingly, yoga-focused promotions outperform contextual ads by almost 10X – given my current volumes, I expect to generate over 3,000 highly qualified clicks per month. 

Now when I last checked, Google estimates that it would charge $150 per month for 175 clicks on “yoga clothing.” Put another way, Google would charge roughly $3,000 per month for the leads I can generate for my yoga business clients today (focusing only on US-based users – not global). Now that’s the seed of a business – build well-defined, highly sought-after communities (like yoga consumers) and then find ways to connect these communities to businesses that value them most. …and this compliments perfectly the original plan of delivering white-labeled yoga apps… with this evidence, we have already recruited some small yoga businesses to actually reduce their Google ad spending and divert those funds to pay for both white labeled yoga apps and the promotion of their businesses to my growing cadre of mobile yogis.

If you don’t measure, you can’t improve – and with in-app A/B testing, you can measure more than just software adoption – you can glimpse inside the mind and motivations of your users – and that is the key to any successful venture.