Looking forward to 2012

Last week I reviewed 2011. Now it is time to plan 2012. Below are my plans for improving in the coming year.

More Objective-C: Refining Existing iOS Applications

Last year I released three iPhone applications and I plan to continue the momentum. But instead of releasing a ton of new applications my goal is to refine and improve the apps I already have. I’m sure I’ll come up with new ideas for apps, but none are planned right now.

• OneVoice
  The first thing on the agenda is to allow multiple languages in OneVoice. I receive an email almost every week from someone requesting another language (Brazilian Portuguese is the most requested), so early this year I plan to meet that need.After language support is added the focus will move to marketing and sales. It is a fantastic product that needs a wider audience. I would like to produce a really good introduction video to explain the concepts that make OneVoice so great.

• Fluent
  Currently Fluent is a simple flash cards and memorization system. I use it often, but it needs a few more features before it is truly a great experience. Hopefully Fluent will help me (and many other people) improve my language skills. The features I plan to add will make it a must-have memorization system. Just wait.

• Commit
  I’ll continue working on bug fixes, but don’t have plans for any major new features. Though plenty of ideas have been suggested, I prefer to keep it simple and not add too many features.

Continue Writing

Writing each week on this blog has been a huge success. I plan to continue the weekly posts throughout this year. At first it was a challenge to meet just one post per week. Now I am overflowing with ideas and don’t have a shortage of posts to write.

So in addition to this blog I am working on finding some more avenues to showcase and improve my writing. This could be a book, online guides, or just guest posts. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Stabilize & Increase My Income

This time last year I didn’t have any passive income (money not directly connected to my time). Now I receive over $2000 every month from app sales. Though this is really good and a huge improvement, sales have still been up and down more than I would like. Especially since I now depend on this for the majority of my income.

September had fantastic sales ($5,000) while December was much lower (under $2,000). With more marketing and a larger collection of apps my hope is this will both increase and become more consistent.

Travel

Since last year didn’t have as much travel as I would have liked, I hope to make up for it this year. Though it all depends on how Oliver does on his first trip to Hawaii in a couple weeks. If that goes well then trips to Europe and other great destinations will soon follow. I just hope Oliver does well with flights.

Focus

I just tried to check Facebook out of habit, but couldn’t since I am writing this post on a flight to Las Vegas and don’t have Wi-Fi. My short attention span and lack of focus is probably my biggest obstacle to overcome. I haven’t yet decided how I will tackle this problem, but I must if I am going to achieve the levels of productivity required to meet this year’s goals.