Maybe it’s the sense of competition, maybe it’s just having more numbers to look at, but either way people love ranks.

We realized we were already pushing the ranks code and infrastructure we had to its limits. It was time to start from the ground up and rebuild it, and that’s what we did.

We’re really excited to take the next step and provide top-400 hourly rank data to all of our members, along with data for all of the top grossing categories.

So, starting today you get:

1. Much, much faster reports overall
2. Even deeper tracking – Top 400
3. Reporting on top grossing categories for all categories and subcategories
4. Ability to filter ranks by device (iPhone or iPad), as well as type of category (Free/Paid or Top Grossing)

With this new infrastructure we can (and will) push ranks even further to give you access to more data and even better analysis. We don’t want to spoil the surprise so we won’t go into details :)

Check it out!

Over the last few months Apple has introduced new data to iTunes Connect reports. We’ve started tracking this new information and have added it to data tables in all reports.

New information includes:

App Returns
The number of purchases that were refunded by Apple due to user request. A return means money was taken away from your account.

Promo Codes Used
The number of downloads that came from a promo code you handed out. Unfortunately there is no way to know which actual code was used…

Gifts Redeemed
The number of times your app was downloaded by a user that received it as a gift. Gifting apps results in two transactions in iTunes Connect reports, one for the actual purchase (not download), and for the actual download (no payment). Gift redeems show the number of downloads.

With this new data, we’ve changed the formula we use to calculate the total sales. The old formula was pretty straight forward, just downloads. The new formula, which takes into account all new inputs mentioned above is as follows:

Total Downloads = New Downloads + Promo Downloads – Returns

Gifts redeemed are not added as they do not reflect the actual purchase but only its download counterpart. The actual purchase was counted as a standard download when it happened.

The iPad is coming tomorrow and we have full support for it today.

Earlier today we’ve started to track the following top iPad lists:

• Top 100 Overall (free + paid)
• Top Grossing
• Top 100 Games (free + paid)

As of midnight 4/4 we’re also tracking all ipad app categories. And as of 4/5 we’re also tracking all games sub-categories!



Good luck iPad developers.

Last week developers who upgraded their iPhone developer from a personal to a company account saw an unfamiliar “Vendor Selection” screen right after logging into iTunes Connect. This new obstacle caused sync-now and auto-import to fail because they could not navigate around it.

We’ve just released an update that solves the issue so both sync-no and auto-import can navigate around this obstacle and import daily and weekly reports just like before.

iTunes 9 brought with it Top 200 lists for all category which was a welcome addition by all means. Their sudden dissappearance three days later was a mystery and to some a tragedy.

However…

Several days ago we were tipped by one of our members about a feed coming directly from Apple that shows top 200 ranks. We didnt believe it at first but it all checked out. So while Apple disabled top 200 through iTunes they left a feed up for the world to use, and we did!

We’ve just rolled out the top 200 update and have been tracking top 200 since 5pm EST

Unlike other similar services, we do not manipulate data in any way to get these results (manipulation = inaccuracy), we use the feed exactly as Apple serves it.

* Keep in mind that iTunes still shows only the top 100 apps so anything below is for informative purposes only (and could be a sign of things to come)

(Thanks for the tip Iliya)

Have you notice the makeover we gave the Profit by Region report? We’ve moved a few things around and even changed the chart so you’ll get a better view of payment data. Under the covers its still the same report.

A short update for this Tuesday evening.

We’ve been busy working on version 1.1 for quite some time and are happy to announce its finally here. Here’s what’s new:

1. Hourly rank updates from all App Stores worldwide – Starting today, appFigures is tracking ranks from all 77 app stores across the globe, hourly! That means you’ll now have access to all possible ranks in a single report.

To save you some precious time, the report now remembers your previous selections.

2. Tracking of ranks in “Top Grossing” category – iTunes 9.0 recently added this entirely new category. Top Grossing is now tracked in all the app stores every hour.

3. Top 200 rank updates – iTunes 9.0 also added top 200 ranking for all categories and so we did too.

Please note – Apple seems to have halted top 200 reporting and reverted back to top 100 only. Since we’ve designed the new rank report to take top 200 we’ll be ready when they’ll turn top 200 on again and will retrieve it automatically.

Minor modifications and additions:

• Review fetching times are now much faster.
• Sync times have improved as well.
• More flexible default date range selection. You can now quickly select the number of days, weeks, or months to use.
• The ‘By Date’ report now remembers your last used settings.
• Set the default country for reviews from the Defaults page.
• Improved community.
• General optimizations improve report loading times.

As always, your feedback is welcome. Comment, tweet, or contact us directly and tell us what you think.

Not a member yet? What were you thinking? Open an appFigures account and get hourly top 200 from all app stores and a whole bunch of other cool stuff – completely free for 14 days.

The way email reports are being sent out to multiple recipients has changed. Up until now email reports to multiple recipients were sent to all recipients at once, meaning that each recipient could see all other recipients for that particular report. That has been changed. Email reports are now being sent to each recipient individually.

This update will take effect starting with tomorrow’s batch so dont be alarmed if you dont see all the recipients you’ve set up in the “to” field of the email, they will all get the report as they did before.

We’ve been quiet for some time because we’ve been working on two new features that make appFigures even easier to use and share. You’ll also notice we shuffled some tabs between the Account and Settings pages. The same functionality is still there, now its just laid out in a way that make the Account page what it really is, the account management area while keeping the Settings page for managing user-specific settings.

Read the rest of this entry »

You may have known this already but now we’re announcing it offcialy!

Ranks in the app store change quite often during the day (and sporadically as some may say – but thats a whole different topic). And since we love putting relevant data in front of you we decided to start updating ranks every hour. That’s right, we said every hour!

Starting August 5th, all countries that were tracked before are being tracked, all categories, both free and paid – Hourly.

Hourly data is accessible from the same report as before, simply select a single day in the date pickers and voula! You can track hourly data for all countries together, or just a single country – just like before. And if you want the daily trend for a longer range just pick the dates you want and the report will chart daily data.

We also added a minor UI feature that lets you show/hide specific trend arrows from the data table. They can clutter the table sometime.

FYI – This is part one of a two-part upgrade to the ranking section. The next addition is still a big secret but is coming soon (think automation, convenience, inbox…)