On Feb 21st earlier this year, shortly after receiving my Vision Pro and testing out my app on it, I released Linkeeper 2.0 to the visionOS App Store. Almost immediately after the launch, I started getting emails from users on Apple Vision Pro about how they’re enjoying using the app and love its native look and feel on the platform, as well as some emails about feature suggestions. It started off with an email or two at first but the number started to grow exponentially; being busy with schoolwork, I still didn’t think of it much at this point. I wanted to check App Store Connect for how the app was doing, but I was at school and unfortunately got logged out of my Developer Account and needed to wait to get the phone from my teacher. Around Wednesday of the following week when I finally was able to log into App Store Connect, I couldn’t believe my eyes: I had over 200K impressions and over 1,500 installs from Apple Vision Pro. At this point, I assumed I got featured on some website or perhaps one of the Apple Vision Pro App repositories featured me since I had applied to them for it.
On February 29th, when I came back home from school, I put on Vision Pro to install an app I had seen on Twitter that past week. I remember the exact place in my room I was sitting in, I pinched my fingers, the App Store transitioned into my room. I saw Linkeeper as the third app on the home page, one app away from TikTok. Can you believe it?! NEXT TO TIKTOK? Sorry for screaming- I really am no TikTok fan, but come on- sitting next to one of the biggest social media platforms, on an Apple App Store, is no joke. Quite frankly, the excitement of seeing my app on the visionOS home page made me forget what I opened the App Store for in the first place. Here’s one of the screenshots I took at that instant.
The thing is, I haven’t even told you about the best part. Later, I also discovered that Apple had written a sweet little caption for Linkeeper, and it read like this:
Save that link: Linkeeper is our new favorite way to save web links. With a drag and drop, adding URLs to the app is just plain fun.
This was honestly amazing to find out about. On that note you should probably give Linkeeper a try, if Apple says it’s their new favorite way to store bookmarks, even over their own Safari. 😉
My best guess after seeing “App Store Browse” as a source for downloads was the fact that people might be looking for a bookmarks app and that Linkeeper was ranked higher being the first and only spatial bookmarks app at the time on the visionOS App Store. It’s funny how it never occurred to me that my app could have been featured on the App Store even though there were clear signs (emails and App Store Connect Analytics). I never really expected it to be featured, nor did I ask Apple to feature it; it was all surprisingly organic. Turns out it got featured as soon as I published it, right on February 21st, but I never got the chance to check App Store Analytics in time for me to understand all of this was taking place. I also recently found out as I was browsing on Twitter that it was in fact placed as the first app on the home page at some point in time, and it was also under “Hot Apps This Week” for that week, which explains the peak in impressions and instals.
Linkeeper has been featured on multiple places throughout the App Store since then. Recently in May, it got a big spot on the Vision Pro Home Screen along with a few other utility apps. I once again felt equally ecstatic after seeing an app icon of my own presented at such a large scale as the first thing on the visionOS home page. Ever since, this banner moved lower down the App Store page, but continues to be shown even as of today.
Today, Apple Vision Pro launches in some European countries, Canada and Australia, following the launch of it in some Asian countries late last month. It’s incredibly exciting to share that Linkeeper continues to be featured under the Best Utility Apps in 8 out of the 10 countries that Vision Pro is available in, namely: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It is not featured in Japan or China, potentially due to the lack of localisation, however I do plan on filling that gap in very soon.
I am incredibly happy with what I have achieved, but I am more proud of the fact that I was able to build a product that people liked using, and about the fact that I was able to successfully adapt my app for a completely new 3D platform that I had never worked with before. I wasn’t able to get the app published on day one since I was waiting for myself to actually test it out first on a real device, and while I did miss out on that really sweet email from Susan Prescott, I feel like Linkeeper wouldn’t have been featured if it weren’t for me holding off onto it for three weeks. It was a very unintentionally strategic move, which worked out for the better.
If you’re a developer and haven’t already started building for Vision Pro yet, I urge you to start now. It’s a great platform with so much to explore, so many new frameworks and so many new ways to interact with existing content. Due to the smaller number of apps available on the Vision Pro App Store currently, you stand a better than usual chance to get featured on the app store, but don’t make that your goal, that will probably only set you up for disappointment, because "better than usual" still doesn’t mean "guaranteed". Make your goal building the best possible app you can for this platform, make something you’re proud of; trust the process and the rest will fall into place eventually.
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