ShutterBee app - we want feedback, please!

[Puffincat]

Hi MacRumorers
I want to hear your honest and not biased opinion about our app ShutterBee.

iTunes link
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shutterbee/id669729281

The app is designed to capture and share travel pics with your followers. It is very simple: you snap a picture (or take it from the gallery) and make a post (you also can share a post to 4 social networks), the app automatically ads place and temperature (if you wish). It also has autocheck-ins, so you don't have to open the app to check-in in the new country.

The app was honestly reviewed on apppicker and on 148 apps. The reviews are not bad, but we see very low retention rate and very few people create even one post in the app.

We don't receive any negative feedback from AppStore or from emails we send to inactive subs.

So we ask you as the community of professionals to help us solve the mystery what is wrong with the app and what we can do to fix it.

Thanks to you all in advance! We really appreciate your help!!

 

[lht1999]

If you built an app like this 5 years ago, users would rush to you because there weren't as many good apps. Nowadays if you release a quality app (especially social networking app), nobody would notice. Even if they do their attention span is short because there are so many new apps every day. Unless you spend huge amount of money on marketing, you have to design the app so that at least some people really really need to have it.

 

[Puffincat]

Hi @lht1999!
Thank you for sharing your opinion. So you think that there is no niche in social networking apps?
I can't agree with you here. Instagram appeared in the niche with already huge FB and became very popular without any marketing expenses. And I doubt that someone really-really needed it...
Probably the trick is to hook user somehow. The question is how. Maybe good app UI or design?

 

[lht1999]

Instagram launched over 4 years ago. If you had this app at that time, it could be a hit too. I played your app a bit. It's very well designed. Both your designer and developer did a very good job. Photo sharing space is mostly dead. Your app has to have snapchat kind of uniqueness to take off. But I also believe there are niches to fill in, and I am looking for those. Here is the lesson that I learned: don't launch a good app and hope for the best. It used to work, but not anymore. Unless you are extremely lucky of course. If you are then it's much easier to buy a lottery ticket. Instead of only thinking "does this feature help my users", think "does this feature also help pulling in more users and/or keeping them here". It's the best if you have some kind of trick to grab users at very low cost, then design the whole thing around that trick.

Some feedback about your app:
1. The follow button frame is a bit small. I had to tap on the text to make it work.
2. When I load photos from albums, it uses my current location. If you read timestamp and GPS location from photo, then a new user doesn't have to wait for the next trip to starting filling in the timeline.

 

[Puffincat]

Hi @lht1999

It's the best if you have some kind of trick to grab users at very low cost, then design the whole thing around that trick.

Yes, that's what I was thinking... Well we try our best to find it and make the app better!

P.S.
I like your app, design and UI are very good. Hope it becomes popular and we will receive a lot of traffic from you ))