Chapter 7
Kickstarter for iPhone
In This Chapter
Downloading the app
Using Kickstarter on your iPhone
We’re living in an on-the-go world. Mobile technology is everywhere, and devices like laptops, smartphones, and tablets are not only supplementing but, in some cases, replacing the home computer.
Kickstarter has entered the mobile game with its new Kickstarter app for iPhone.
This new app allows users to manage their account even faster than before. Through the app, campaign owners can:
Find out about new pledges as they happen
Stay better connected with their backer groups
Send photo and video updates right from their iPhones
Search and back countless other Kickstarter projects
The iPhone app is best used to manage, update, and monitor your campaign remotely. Using a laptop or desktop computer is still ideal for setting up a campaign (as I explain in Chapter 5), because these tools enable you to navigate the Kickstarter dashboard and upload media more easily than you can on the app.
As of publication, Kickstarter hasn’t sponsored an app for Android, but it might in the near future. If you’re an Android user, I recommend checking the Kickstarter site frequently for news and updates. You can also find third-party Kickstarter apps for Android phones. iPad users can use the Kickstarter iPhone app, too, or simply go to the Kickstarter website in the iPad’s Safari browser.
Downloading the App
The first step is to download the free Kickstarter app to your iPhone. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Launch the App Store icon and search for Kickstarter.
The app appears on your screen as available for download, as shown in Figure 7-1.
Figure 7-1: Kickstarter app available for download.
2. Tap the Free button and then tap the Install button, shown in Figure 7-2.
3. If prompted, enter your AppleID and password to verify the download.
After the app has downloaded, you can tap the Open button in the App Store to open the app immediately. Also, the Kickstarter app icon appears on your Home screen.
Whenever you want to open the Kickstarter app, simply tap its icon on your Home screen, and the main screen appears, as shown in Figure 7-3.
Figure 7-2: Beginning the download process.
Figure 7-3: Main page of the Kickstarter app.
Logging In and Out
To really use the app, you need to first log into your Kickstarter account. If you don’t want to stay signed in on your iPhone, you can log out when you’re done using the app. Here’s how it works:
Log In: From the main app page, tap Log In in the lower right (refer to Figure 7-3). You then see your existing Kickstarter account, which will look very similar to the screen shown in Figure 7-4.
Log Out: Tap the Profile icon or the Dashboard icon. From either screen, tap Settings and scroll to the bottom of the Settings screen, where you see a large Log Out button. Tap it and the app asks you to confirm that you want to log out.
Figure 7-4: Your main Kickstarter app page after you log in.
If you stay logged into the Kickstarter app and your phone is lost or stolen, the app could give anyone access to your Kickstarter account (as well as any other unsecured apps on your iPhone). You wouldn’t want to compromise your campaign by giving a stranger the ability to contact your backers as you. (Neither would you want the toddler in your life to contact all your backers accidentally as he or she fiddles with your phone.) Do what you can to keep all the accounts connected to your phone secure and be sure to change all your passwords in the unfortunate event that your phone is lost or stolen. And remember that logging out of the app is a good preventive step to protect access to your campaign.
Touring the Kickstarter App Interface
When you first log in to the app, notice that the default option at the top of the app page is Staff Picks, meaning the staff-picked projects of the day will appear on the main page. Along the bottom are three additional icons: Discover, Activity, and Profile. If you’ve started setting up your campaign on the Kickstarter website (as I explain in Chapter 5), you also see a Dashboard icon.
By default, the Discover icon is selected, meaning that you’re in the part of the app that’s designed for discovering Kickstarter projects. The following sections walk you through each area.
Discovering projects
The Discovery area of the app has several areas that enable you to explore Kickstarter projects, just as you’d find on the Kickstarter website. Tap the little green arrow at the top to access the following items, which appear on the screen shown in Figure 7-5:
Staff Picks: You can swipe through a list of staff project picks.
Popular: Scroll through a list of popular projects in this area.
Starred: If you find a project you like, you can give it a star by tapping the project and then tapping the star icon that appears at the lower left.
Search: To search for a project by name, use this search tool. If you have a live Kickstarter campaign, check out how it looks in the app by searching for your campaign by name.
Categories: Below the four tiles at the top, you see a list of Kickstarter project categories. Tap a category to browse projects within that category.
Figure 7-5: A full list of Kickstarter categories.
Checking other projects’ activities
The Kickstarter app for iPhone also allows you to follow a friend or back a project. On the main page of the app, you will see a small icon that looks like a lightning bolt labeled Activity. This is separate from the activity of your own Kickstarter campaign that you see in your dashboard.
Tap the Activity icon and you see a list — either of projects you’ve already backed or of friends’ projects you’ve starred to indicate that you’d like to follow the campaigns’ progress.
Tap the name of the project you’d like to look at and you can see the current funds raised towards the project’s goal, number of backers, and days left. If the campaign’s creator has posted updates, those are visible here as well.
If you’ve already backed a project, you will see all the available updates. If you have not backed a project and are simply following its progress, you will see only the updates the campaign owner has labeled as Visible to Everyone.
Peeking into your profile
When you tap the icon that says Profile, you will see options for both Messages and Settings.
The Messages function of your profile acts basically like a private e-mail box; these are not public like a Facebook or Twitter posting. You can send and receive messages to individual backers of your project or campaign owners of projects you’re interested in. This location is where you will also get messages from the owners of campaigns you’ve already backed.
These messages are different from the Updates you receive from a backer. If you’ve backed a campaign and the campaign’s owner posts an update for all backers to see, you’ll see it as an alert in your Activity page.
Under the Settings icon, you can select how you choose to be updated on various aspects of your Kickstarter account. You will see three different parts of your account: Projects You Back, Creator Notifications, and Social Notifications, as shown in Figure 7-6.
Figure 7-6: Selecting how you receive updates.
Next to each category, you see an icon for an envelope and a mobile device. This allows you to decide whether you would like to be e-mailed about activity and have updates viewable in the mobile app.
The Social Notifications icon allows you to get an alert if one of your friends on Facebook has launched a Kickstarter project; you can then view the project and decide if you would like to back it.
Managing Your Campaign from the Kickstarter App
From this point, you can use the app to view and reply to messages, change your settings, see your account activity, and post updates to your ongoing Kickstarter project. The following sections explain how.
Viewing and replying to messages
When you tap your Dashboard icon, you will see an envelope-looking icon next to the word Messages. There will also be a number just to the right, showing how many unread messages you have. Here’s how you view and reply to your messages:
1. From the Dashboard, tap Messages.
The app by default takes you to your inbox, where you can scroll through the previews of any incoming messages (much like a preview pane on your e-mail account).
2. To open a message, simply tap it once.
The full message pops up onscreen.
3. To reply to this message, tap the icon that looks like a backward-facing arrow in the top-right corner of your screen, as shown in Figure 7-7.
4. Type the reply to your sender using the keypad; then, to send your message, tap the arrow at the top-right corner of the green box that looks like a paper airplane.
You are returned to the original message and you see the reply below it.
5. Tap the return-arrow icon at the top-left of the screen to get back to the main part of the Messages functionality.
Figure 7-7: Replying to a Kickstarter message.
You can also review any sent messages by simply tapping the small green down-facing arrow just to the right of where it says Inbox. You will see an option to review your sent messages by tapping the paper-airplane icon here.
Seeing your account activity
The Dashboard provides a quick overview of everything going on with your account; you can use the Activity button on your Dashboard to see everything that has happened with your account — including your updates, new backer pledges, and pledge increases from backers — all in a chronological format. The very first item you see when you click Activity is the most recent thing that has happened with your account. This could be a project update you’ve done for your backers after a successful campaign, a project update for a campaign in progress, the most recent pledge you’ve received, and so on.
If you’re a Facebook user, it’s helpful to think of this section as working like the Facebook Timeline model: All the things that have happened in your campaign appear here, in chronological order from newest to oldest.
Posting project updates for your backers
The Kickstarter app is a powerful tool for posting updates about your project. For example, the app can be extremely helpful if you want to do a fast update from the field, such as during a film shoot or product test.
Here’s how to post an update with the Kickstarter app:
1. Tap the icon to launch your Dashboard.
You see a large green button right in the middle of the screen that says Post Update.
2. Tap Post Update to see the screen shown in Figure 7-8.
Figure 7-8: Posting an update directly from the Kickstarter app.
3. Using the iPhone keypad, type a title for your update and then type the body of the message you want to send to backers.
4. To attach media (such as photos or videos), tap the Attachments button.
You see the screen shown in Figure 7-9.
Figure 7-9: Choosing attachments from your media sources.
5. Tap either option, depending on what you’d like to do:
• Tap Take a New Photo/Video if you want to take new photo or video in real time.
• Tap Choose from Camera Roll if you want to upload existing media from your camera roll.
6. Choose whether to make the update public or for backers only.
The lower-left corner of this screen shows an open-lock icon that says Public. Leave this alone if you want everyone to be able to see your update. If you want your update only viewable by backers, tap that icon: The icon switches to a closed lock and says Backers Only. You can make the choice — if it’s an update that might be of interest to someone considering your project, make it public; if it’s something specific or private that you want to share only with people who have already committed to fund your campaign, change the icon to Backers Only.
7. Tap the Preview green button on the top of this screen to get a look at how your update will appear onscreen.
If something seems off or you notice a typo, click Edit on the top left and go back to correct the post and tap Preview again.
8. When you’re satisfied with the update, tap the green Publish button at the top-right of the screen to make your update live on your Kickstarter page.