Now that I can build anything, and can measure the effectiveness of product improvement as well as marketing activities, it became time to enter the dark and murky world of thinking more clearly about who is the target market, what they have to gain from the product. One of my most favorite insights on this is from good friend Roberto Monaco:
Up until recent changes, the app was positioned as a collection of quotations for people who might be interested in that sort of thing. I'm one of them, but who are the others? Tough to say, right? The audience is so broad as to not really exist. What word would you use to find them? (Crickets!). I'm reminded of the Pink Floyd hit "Is anybody out there?"
After lengthy chats with GPT, we came up with the following improvements to the app store listing, which would be the very first place to start with any repositioning. As you can see, it's still murky, even though it's the best GPT can do with its previous murky target market.
I put these notes together to memorialize the failure.
The great benefit of this exercise was to learn the ins and outs of the App Store, but it was only a trial run, a true learning experience for what was to come next.
Notes of a failed experiment in positioning in the App Store:
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The app has been substantially improved over the last several months, with greatly improved features and ease of use.
I feel it's finally ready for the "Go to Market" phase.
The very first step is to pay attention to how ToBeWise™ is listed in the App Store. Your feedback is most welcome.
Optimizing app store listing:
1. Change the app's subtitle
from "The Right Words at the Right Time", which is passive. Moving to Think Clearly. Decide Wisely. which is Active and includes the user benefit.
2. For the 'what's new' section on the app store: Faster file loading - almost instantaneous on warm starts. Spectacular new features for sharing to Facebook, Instagram, X, text Messages, and email. About 150 new insights added to the database. We respond to user feedback!
This app is getting really very close to what we envisioned 10 years ago3. In the app Description area
"The wisdom of the ages is humanity’s most valuable asset.
Now it’s yours.
Discover timeless insights from history’s greatest minds, in their own words.
Think clearly.
Decide confidently.
Act with purpose.
Discover thousands of carefully curated insights across more than 200 topics in life and business. Search by subject or author, save favorites, create private collections, schedule reminders, explore related resources, and share the insights that matter (to text messages, facebook, Instagram, X, email, etc).
ToBeWise™ — The right words at the right time."
4. Replace the current Keywords entry with "wisdom,decision making,leadership,startup,
What was there: "wisdom,inspiration,
5. Promotional Text
Transform yourself.
Think Clearly. Decide Wisely.
This is the system. Guaranteed.
Part Two: Measuring what matters
| Metric | What Apple counts | What it means for ToBeWise™ |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Each time ToBeWise™ is visible for more than one second on the App Store’s Today, Apps, Games, or Search tabs. Product-page views are also included. The same person can generate several impressions. | Exposure. It does not mean the person opened your listing or seriously considered downloading. |
| App Units | A first-time acquisition: someone taps Get or Buy for the first time. Updates, redownloads, and downloads to another device using the same Apple Account are not new app units. It is counted at the acquisition transaction, not when the app is opened. | For a free app, this is your closest Apple measure of new downloaders, but it is not exactly the same as completed installations or active users. |
| Proceeds | Your estimated net revenue from paid app sales and in-app purchases after applicable taxes and Apple’s commission. | Since ToBeWise™ is free and apparently has no paid in-app purchase, zero is expected, regardless of downloads. |
| Sessions — opt-in only | Each occasion when the app is used for at least two seconds. If it goes into the background and is later used again, Apple counts another session. One person can create many sessions. | Usage frequency, but only among users who allow Apple to share analytics. It is not total usage and is not a count of people. |
| Crashes — opt-in only | Every crash event reported from opted-in devices. Multiple crashes by one user each count separately. It is not the number of users who experienced a crash. | A stability warning signal. Zero is encouraging, but it does not prove that no crashes occurred because non-opted-in devices are absent. |
Important distinctions
App Units are not the same as installations. Apple’s separate Installations metric counts completed installs and can include redownloads, additional devices on the same account, and Family Sharing—but installation data is also based on analytics opt-in users.
Sessions and crashes are samples, not complete totals. Apple does not simply multiply them to estimate all users. Low-volume usage data may also be withheld because of privacy thresholds.
For Phase 1, I would read the report this way:
Impressions = seen
App Units = acquired
Sessions = used
Crashes = failed during use
Proceeds = earned
The most useful immediate ratio is App Units ÷ Impressions, but Apple’s better formal conversion metric uses downloads divided by unique-device impressions, because total impressions can include repeated exposure to the same person.
About "Opt-in" metrics:
The user opts in at the iPhone system level, not inside ToBeWise™.
Go to:
Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements
There are two relevant switches:
- Share iPhone & Watch Analytics — permits diagnostic and usage information to be sent to Apple.
- Share With App Developers — permits Apple to share relevant app-usage statistics and crash information with developers such as you. If the first switch is off, developer sharing is automatically off.
So when Apple labels Sessions or Crashes as “opt-in only,” it means those totals include only ToBeWise™ users whose devices have analytics sharing with app developers enabled.
Apple says the information provided to developers is aggregated or otherwise structured so it does not personally identify the user.
This is entirely separate from Apple’s Allow Apps to Request to Track setting and separate from any analytics you have built directly into ToBeWise™.
For the first time, as of about July 4, 2026, we now have our own built-in analytics, separate from what Apple provides. We can measure the results of any marketing activities. Now all we need to do is take action on the actual marketing priorities, which have just started with the improvements to the app store listing, as above.
Feedback much appreciated.
M
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