Tennis app serves up statistics

Lutz resident John Straumann was playing tennis several months ago and was trying to keep statistics on how his shots were going during a match.

It wasn’t going well.

“One of the biggest things was trying to track unforced errors versus winners, and I was trying to do it in my head. It was impossible,” said Straumann, who was then living in Washington. “I started thinking, well, this new Apple Watch is coming out. I wonder if I could do something so I could track the stuff myself.”

Like many people, Straumann thought he had come up with a pretty good idea for a mobile device application. But unlike the vast majority of those people, he actually designed the app, tested it and brought it to market.

ScoreIt! Tennis is now available in Apple’s iTunes App Store.

Straumann graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in computer science and engineering, and works in software sales, so it might sound like designing an app would be easy for Straumann.

After all, he’d been doing it for years.

There was just one problem: All his experience was with the Microsoft Windows platform. Apple’s operating system is different, and he didn’t own an Apple computer or an iPhone. He didn’t even own the watch that was supposed to be the platform for his new app.

So, he invested about $5,000 in the current technology and taught himself the ins and outs of Apple hardware and software.

He spent a couple of hours in the evenings after work and got up early on Saturday mornings to write and test the app before his family woke up.

During the same time frame, the family also was moving from Washington to Lutz.

It may sound like a lot of sacrifice and effort but, for Straumann, it was a form of challenging fun.

“It was almost more interesting to me because it was new. It was learning something new, taking on a new project, a new technology,” he said.

In less than two months, he had an app ready to go.

Wearing an Apple Watch, a tennis player can record his or her statistics during a match. With a couple of swipes after each point, players can record what type of shots they hit and how they fared. If there’s an unforced error, the player can log it was a forehand, backhand or serve return, for example. For winners, slices, drop shots, lobs and other types of shots can be recorded instantly and analyzed later.

Designing an app is one thing, but making it useful is another. And Straumann wanted to make sure it would work as well on the court as it did on his computer.

“The biggest things were ease of input and connectivity,” he said.

Because the watch has to be in constant communication with a companion iPhone for the app to work, he had to make sure the connection would be strong from various distances on a tennis court. And he didn’t want recording each shot to interfere with the natural flow of a game. Once a player learns how to use the app, recording statistics should take about a second, he said.

Once he had a useful app, he obtained a developer program membership and sent it to Apple for their testing and review. If they approve it, it’s ready to go. But if there’s a problem, Straumann said they don’t offer much insight into what’s wrong.

He had to wait a couple of weeks to get the verdict.

Apple responded with the green light. So it was ready for market, right?

Not quite. It turns out that Straumann was a harsher critic than Apple itself.

“I wasn’t happy with what I had done, so I rejected it myself and then submitted it again,” he said. After a couple more tweaks, and a little more back and forth, both sides were happy, and he felt good about what he had produced.

The app has only been out for a matter of weeks, but Straumann is happy with the response he’s seen so far. At $1.99 (with no ads), Apple gets about 25 percent of the tennis app revenue, allowing Straumann to see a little monetary compensation for his efforts as well.

And the ScoreIt! app family has already grown. A golf app for the Apple Watch is designed to help players keep score on their watches and input data based on the particular course they’re playing. An update to the tennis app also lets players use it to keep score if they’d prefer to do that instead. Another feature allows a parent or coach to track tennis stats via a non-watch device while the player is on the court.

The new app business is a family affair for the Straumanns. The website introduces daughters Alex (marketing and social media) and Avery (gameplay consultant), as well as wife Patti (graphics) as important team partners.

And while he considers designing apps for Apple devices to be a fun project (he’s now a fan of their products), Straumann said the tennis app has real-world uses for people looking to improve their game.

By analyzing the statistics, trends will develop that show what areas are strengths for a player and what areas need more work in practice, he said.

“I think if they really use it, they can look at things they can improve,” he said.

For more information, visit ScoreIt-app.com, or look up ScoreIt! Tennis in Apple’s App Store.

Published July 15, 2015