The first year, this app was #1 French AppStore and made more than €1.5M: What a success!
End of 2012 is very weird here. We prepared a very nice brand new version v1.9.8 with tons of features and improvement plus a gorgeous new xmas brand new theme, but alas, you won't have it!
We struggle with Apple in order to make them validate our app, but they bloc it for some reasons. And frankly, we won't pass through this year. See you next year anyway, with a solution.
Happy new stand 2013!
I am happy to introduce the new v1.9.6 version which gives access to our users to more than 150 italian magazines.
In addition, lekiosk is also given a new italian theme for you to enjoy!
Welcome back to our new 100% cloud supported infrastructure!
Since we rethought almost everything to migrate our platform to Microsoft Azure, it's time to address international market, stating today with the UK.
Of course, I also did dramatically rethought our app to make it multi region capable.
Both UK specifics contents and theme are now available to any user out there.
The app is now capable t support multi languages and exposes specific offer to the UK people: 10 magazines per month for only £9.99.
You know what? We have launched the iPhone version, and guess… we've got 17 times the traffic we had last xmas!
The results? Boom!
Many nights running people at the datacenter with screwers, quickly trying to install new servers while at the other hand, I was forced to keep iPhone users off the service.
Enough is enough: classical datacenter is a dead end. I need cloud computing now!
Platform team started to convert all the platform to active Cloud comuting. I chose Microsoft Azure as a natural provider as we run .Net software all over the platform.
See you in a few weeks…
Since the begging, our main and only target was the iPad. Though we're doing well on the tablet, the addressable market is way smaller than the iPhone market. There's no reasons why we shouldn't address the smartphones.
We need one app and support both iPad and iPhone.
It's no question to simply scale down the app views, including the 3D newsstand view. Your fingers are not going to make it to tap accurately the magazines. Nor your eyes are going to aim at them comfortably.
Yes. A bit mind twisting!
The requirements: The 3D must stand. The mags must be big enough to taped and watched comfortably. And we must show as many as magazines as we can.
Ok. The solution: we keep the 3D Model, but derives a special version for the iPhone that sports only one row of mags. And to display more than the screen can contains, we make it scrolling, within the shelter of the newsstand.
Oh, by the way. We now support portrait mode for both iPhone and iPad (iPad version below).
Since the launch, less than one year ago, the iOS iPad app quickly jump to the #1 grossing app in the Apple App store. As the app continues its market penetration as a very quick pace, we wanted to wish our users our greatest wishes for the new year and released the 1.9 version xmas special edition.
Since the launch, less than one year ago, the iOS iPad app quickly jump to the #1 grossing.
Being #1 grossing app stands for: no others iPad apps in the AppStore makes more money than this one, including games or any blockbuster brand!
Hundreds of thousands customers already downloaded our app thanks to the engaging 3D approach I originally used.
Wow effect just goes straight to the heart of people, as expected, and user experience simplicity makes readers happy.
I tell you bro: innovation pays!
3D makes things exciting for the user as it introduces fun in a serious app. Though gamification is an essential part of my action, it's clear though that we need a more traditional way to propose the user for exploring our ever growing stock of publications.
Since version 1.8 dated August 2011, I introduced a brand new 2D view of the newsstand, as part of the experience.
2D brings effectiveness where 3D brought engagement. Does this means I dropped gamification in the process? No.
HTML5 along with WebKit capabilities, offered me a way to propose a mixture of 2D and 3D as you can see below:
The top of the view is still a full-fledge 3D view, propelled to the screen by the GPU directly, giving the user the direct access to a given category, while, below, features a more classical mosaic which displays all the magazines available for the given category.
Hope you enjoy.
Designing and developing our iPad application, rethinking and imagining what future users might need. In response to this question, we created a product strategy establishing our industry as B2C, leaving behind B2B or B2B2C focuses. I wanted the user to be our strategy’s focal point, so we created an agreeable, engrossing world where the user is relaxed and ready to read.
Our stepping-stone strategy results offer many pleasant surprises.
I wanted to create an interesting world where the reader is engaged and finds immediate gratification. This virtual world and the entire application had to avoid complexity or sophistication: simplicity was the key!
The kiosk itself is organised into 9 different sections: the desk plus 8 thematised sections.
Page turning, that simple right to left movement that we all do, became the application’s signature gesture and was used for the majority of interactions, especially to access categories: we “turn” the kiosk to go to another category:
With so many titles available — and we are constantly updating our selection with new titles — we decided to offer several to guarantee user satisfaction. One way to find and select titles is to navigate directly from the kiosk or from the category and sub-category pop-ups.
The second is to do a full text search: LeKiosque probably has the Internet’s largest text database. We indexed all the articles available in the French press and we subscribe to foreign titles. All this so the user can search directly from an iPad.
Purchasing on LeKiosque is mega-simple: a quick “tap” and you’ve bought an issue or a subscription! And we’re the only news application to use the Apple in-app purchase.
Several types of appealing promotions, like credit packages where you can buy reduced rate magazines, are available if you wish.
This is the user’s space. It’s a comfortable area where the user feels good. We chose wood for its warmth and because it’s a reassuring and comfortable material. Then we made it modern with brushed aluminum.
This is where the user can store magazines. The user can also find the new editions of their subscription publications here — unread titles are highlighted with a red dot indicating the number of issues not yet read.
We paid particular attention to studying reading from an ergonomic point of view. You’ll find 3D page turning effects that you’ll enjoy. Regular readers want efficiency, and they can get it instantaneously by changing pages on the iPad without moving their hands.
You can read in two-page side-by-side mode so you can enjoy the magazine layout. Or you can appreciate the comfort of one-page reading, whether it’s in portrait mode where zoomless reading is made easy for magazines like “Le Point”, or in landscape mode where vertical page scrolling lets you take advantage of the iPad’s width. A total of 3 zoom levels are available in addition to a special mode specifically designed for the newspaper’s larger format.
As soon as you “tap” to purchase, you can start reading immediately: there’s no need to wait for the magazine to download because we offer streaming that works just like it does for videos, you can enjoy reading immediately!
In addition to making reading available immediately thanks to our unique magazine streaming application, you can also read offline.
When you buy magazines, they’re automatically streamed and stored onto your iPad. As soon as material is on your iPad, you can read offline: you’ll see small green pins in your library indicating what’s has been successfully downloaded (the grey pins indicate partial downloads).
LeKiosque is ecologically-friendly to other iPad applications: you can decide to discard any magazine whenever you want from your library. And you can decide to re-download older issues, it’s all up to you!
The first year, this app was #1 French AppStore and made more than €1.5M: What a success!