The Art of the App Store: The Business of Apple Development

PROVIDING THE TOOLS FOR USERS TO CONNECT

This section goes into detail about how to drive virality and social engagement from within and outside of your app. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is with Facebook Connect and a few lines of code. Note also that Twitter functionality is currently in the midst of a large overhaul in the way Apple handles it in iOS 5, which is examined in more detail next.

Implementing Facebook Connect and Twitter

Facebook Connect allows you to draw from the hundreds of millions of other Facebook users to connect and compete with your friends. It doesn't have the same type of functionality as a dedicated networking platform such as OpenFeint with forums and achievements and the like, but it is a must-have for adding another viral channel to your promotion campaign.

The best way to implement Facebook functionality is using the Facebook Connect API (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/mobile/). This is essentially the injection of C code into your existing Xcode project that utilizes the Facebook API to access user profiles and share information back on Facebook.

For Twitter, in iOS 5, Apple now integrates directly and natively with the device, allowing any app to be able to tweet events or achievements. With this sort of functionality, it will be important to consider adding Twitter as another share mechanism, just as Facebook traditionally has been.

Let's look at a couple of examples of the ways Facebook Connect has been utilized in games ...