Frequently Asked Questions

General

Your app provides a powerful connection between you and your clients. You can have your message, specials, photos and more in their pocket at all times.

  • Get your message out and reach customers.
  • Promote your business.
  • Keep your customers informed.

For less than the price of a print ad, a yellow pages placement, or 100 visitors to your Web site from most online advertising networks you can have an App available to tens of millions of users.

No, in fact it is quite easy for anyone to do it. No programming skills are required. If you can type, copy, and paste, you have all the skills required!

Some of our apps were created in five minutes, others took a few hours. The average time is probably an hour or two.

"I have created two iPhone apps using uBuildApp and I couldn't be happier. I am not a computer savvy person, but I was able to create the apps in only 30 minutes. Also, the support I receive when I have any questions is quick and my questions are answered thoroughly. If I have any more ideas for an app I will definitely use uBuildApp again and would recommend it to anybody." - Michael Cappello, Bed and Breakfast Mapper, Appraisers

Typically you can create your app in a day or sos. We will perform a cursory review and then submit it to Apple. Apple reviews apps anywhere from a few days to about 2 weeks. If/when Apple accepts the app it will be available immediately. We know the waiting period for Apple to review is difficult, and if we hear any status we will let you know immediately.

Your app can take advantage of built in hardware such as GPS (for directions and maps), and the camera (for posting pictures). In addition, the app is optimized for speed, ease of use, and a positive user experience.

With an App, your App is always available on the phone. It's much easier and faster for your audience to get to your content when they want it.

You can customize the format and content you want them to see. With a mobile Web site they can get distracted by links out of your site, features may not work, animation might not be shown, and more. With an App you have complete control over their experience when they are interacting with you.

Our expert developers can configure and perfect your app. For a total price of only $750 you get a by-phone consultation, icon creation, and one great looking app! This fee includes the $329 fee to configure and release your application to Apple.

Most apps are ready within a couple of days. Contact us and get started today.

Your App can be used to communicate with your customers, inform people, direct them to your business, let them keep up with the latest news, contact you, and more.

You can type your information and format it directly in our custom edit form, or you can copy and paste from other sources. Text documents and Web pages copy very well.

Welcome: Create a simple page welcoming users. Use a photo, format the page with backgrounds, set the font and colors. Whatever you want to make the page your own.

About: Tell your customers about you. Use your picture or your logo. Customize the page to look great.

Blog: Direct your app to your blog and it will always have the latest posts.

Calendar: Link it to your public calendar so they can see your speaking engagements, meeting times, or even the schedule of your favorite sports team.

Chat: A simple chat board that lets all users post and comment on whatever topics come up. You can create chat rooms for different subjects to keep conversations on topic, or let your users choose the direction of the chat.

Clock: Basic analog clock that you can style and add backgrounds and text to.

Contact: Set up a contact form that lets people click to call or click on your email address and send you and email from their phone.

eBay: Are you an eBay seller? Show your items here. Clubs can show auctions that match their interests.

Facebook: Add your Fan page to your app and let your app help you increase your fan base as well as participation with your page. People can read, post, and comment on Fan page posts.

Flickr: Link to your Flickr account and show one or more of your photo sets. This is a great way to show off your merchandise or let your customers see what your shop looks like. Show off a house or maybe shots from the last club meeting.

HTML: For advanced users. Enter raw HTML code to show virtually anything.

Local News: Enter your ZIP code and have a local news feed.

Map: Enter your address so your customers can see where your business is on a Google map. Real estate agents can link to their featured home for sale.

Menu: For advanced users. You can use the Menu button to host sub-menu buttons. You can use this to group content by subject or by type. Some developers like to group chat rooms, news feeds, videos, etc.

Page: Enter text or copy and paste from any source. Format the contents to look the way you want.

Picasa: Show one or more of your albums from Picasa. This is a great way to show off your merchandise or let your customers see what your shop looks like. Show off a house or maybe shots from the last club meeting.

Podcast: Just add your podcast source feed and the app will allow everyone to listen to your podcasts directly from the app. Includes background playing of iOS4 devices.

RSS: Shows the summary from an RSS feed. This works when you want to show a blog or a news feed but don't want to show a long page with multiple articles. Any RSS feed can be used here. News sites and blogs always have a feed, but if you look for the RSS symbol () you might find that most sites have a feed.

Twitter: Let your followers keep up with your latest Twitter posts. This is a great way to get people who don't even know what Twitter is to follow your posts, because they don't have to subscribe to see them in your app.

Web: Want to link to a Web site or page? Use this to put it into your app. Browsers will not escape your app while they check out the Web pages.

YouTube: Show one video, or link to an entire channel and get the latest videos. This is great for a real estate site to showcase their properties, as well as to have your video podcasts in your app.

All apps cost $329 to release into the iTunes Marketplace. That is it. No monthly fees. Add as much content as you want to your app for the flat fee of $329. Want it in both iOS and Google Play stores, it's just another $270.

If you have your own developer license and prefer to have us submit the app to Apple for you, or have us deliver the binary file of the application to you, the total fee will be $429 for Apple release. Want it in both stores under your own account? The total cost would be $699.

The first year maintenance (unlimited updates to your buttons) is included. After that it will be $99 per year if you want to maintain your app on our service. This includes all apps - both those under our own license as well as those released under your own account.

Your app will remain available and usable by your users if you do not pay the maintenance fee after the year, but you will not be able to update it any more.

Yes.

You can set fees in the app configuration. Apple takes 30% of all money collected for app sales, and we retain 20% for processing. If your app costs $1.99 you will receive about $1.00 for every app sold.

You are allowed one change (set new price) per year. This allows you to make your app cheaper (or free) for a special occasion such as a trade show, holiday, or just to make a promotional splash.

If you release the App under your own Apple account, you can manage the App yourself (you will not owe uBuildApp any fees)

Sort of. You need to have a developer account with Apple first. Apple charges $99 to apply for the account, and it takes a few days to be set up. If you want to charge for your app, there is additional information required and the process can take a week or more. Once you have your developer account, you will need to give us full access. We have to upload the app to your account for you.

We need login information to access your account and you would need to start the process on the iTunesConnect site. The fee for us to upload the app to your account is an additional $100 added to the normal configuration fees we charge.

Yes. For $150 we will register you with Apple, set up the account, and submit the application under your name. This does not include the $99 fee Apple charges for the developer accounts. Because Apple uses the payment as part of their identity verification process, the application will be sped up when you pay Apple directly.

You will own the account and the application, and have the ability to log into the account to monitor status and downloads. If you want to charge for your app, please contact us as the process of connecting with your bank account is more complex.

There is a great article from ClickZ on this topic. Here is a summary. Click the link below for the full article.

The top ranking apps in the Apple iOS App Store get most of the traffic. It now takes more than 50,000 U.S. daily installs to get into the Top 25 Free Apps ranking in the App Store. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a valuable endeavor - and now there is App Store Optimization (ASO), which will prove to be just as valuable. Here are tactics to get your app to the top of the charts:

  • Advertising - Burst Campaigns
  • SEO
  • PR
  • Cross-Promotion
  • Luck and Trade Shows

Top the iOS App Store Rankings by Getting All Your Ducks in a Row

Apple reviews each and every submitted app, and there are many reasons they reject apps. 100% of all the apps created through uBuildApp been approved, most on the first try. When Apple rejects an app we go back to the author and make a few suggestions for them to modify their app. Every one of these apps has been accepted on the second try.

A hint for developing an app: make is appealing to the widest range of audience.

Maintenance

There are no monthly fees, but if you want to continue to update your app after the first year there is a $99 yearly maintenance fee. Your app will continue to function, and will remain in the AppStore/Google Store even if you do not choose to continue with maintenance.

If you want to make an update or change your app after the first year, you will have to purchase the yearly maintenance.

The maintenance fee also helps maintain the app compatibility with future IOS/Android operating system releases.

You can add, edit, or remove features even after the app is released. In fact, it is encouraged in order to keep the App fresh for your users.

You can make as many changes as you like, as often as you like.

As often as you want. Many app features are updated via the content itself (Blogs, feeds, websites) so there is no need to ever update the app.

You can even add features after the app is released, rearrange features, or remove them.

Immediately. However it will only effect an app the "2nd" time it is launched. A user launches the app, and in the background your changes are detected. The next time they launch the app they will see new content.