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I recently spoke for the second time at AUC's /dev/world/2016 conference. This year I spoke on User Notifications (a.k.a Push Notifications). This talk covers a conceptual overview of push, technical dive into setting up push and troubleshooting and finishes off with some (albeit rushed) Best Practices.
If you have any best practices for push, I'd love to hear them! Tweet me - @samjarman and I'll put them in an upcoming blog post.
Thanks for watching!
Sam
The year is 2009 and the App Store is open for business. Brands, companies and individuals scramble to beat each other for the most downloads.
Fast forward to 2011 and the gold rush is starting to subside. Utility and value reign king.
Fast forward to 2016 and interactions with apps as we know it are changing, with more and more happening outside of ours app. The interactions are changing, therefore the measurements must too.
There’s a new wave of analytics coming for mobile. The first wave, as you may have guessed was downloads. Downloads, downloads, downloads. A lot of success and measures of quality were done on this.
We then moved into focusing on engagement. With the assumption that downloads could be bought, and the observation that many apps were never opened beyond the first or even after download, we moved to measuring monthly active users. This was the second wave. MAU or DAU quickly became the statistic that drove metrics and still does today. For example, MAU gives a better indication of server load than downloads do.
But now the third wave is approaching. This is the measurement of out of app interactions. The traditional model of interaction is open app, do task, close app. However, now, there are other ways to interact with your app. These include, but aren’t limited to:
We’re all encouraged to think about how we can add value to users through these “extensions” of our apps. However, sometimes this may decrease in app engagement. We need a way of measuring if our attempts to add value is working.
Measuring these are essential to determine app success. However, it’s easy to get bogged down in the data.
“Computers promise a fountain of information, but deliver a glut of data” — Jeff Johnson
We need tools to give us insights and suggest actions to improve our apps. For example, are our users using Siri search right? Do our users use our Today widget on iOS? Are we being used in the car as much as we think we are?
A new wave of app use is coming. The interactions are changing, therefore the measurements must too. This will be the third wave of mobile analytics, and like the waves before it, it’ll be an essential in crafting a valuable user experience.
Apple's Worldwide Development Conference (WWDC) is an annual conference where over 5,000 software developers gather to learn about the new tools and technologies being made available to them to create great apps. This week the conference is happening and today Apple held its main keynote, with some notable new features for it's multiple platforms (Watch, TV, Desktop, Phone).
There are some notable features I'd like to draw the attention to for brands to take advantage of. Brands who adopt new features quickly will always be the winners on Mobile and Web. Always.
iOS 10, due to be released in Fall (Northern Hemisphere), brings with it enhanced notifications. These notifications are able to go further than the standard buttons and text entry, to presenting a complete customizable area. In this area, anything can be shown such as a preview of a map, some text, maybe a video, or something else unique to your app. Imagine being an ecommerce site and being able to present a personalized deal with a image, price and a buy now call to action, without the user even having to open your app!
In addition to VISA or Mastercard checkout, your developers can now add the ability for your users to pay with Apple Pay. This allows users to make purchases both on their Mac and iPhone. This low-friction checkout experience will have a large reduction in Cart abandonment and increase sales. Users just tap their fingerprint and they've paid. Secure, quick and painless.
That's right, after years of asking, there is limited support for developers to support searching with Siri. Siri can book you a ride in Lyft or send you some money on Square. A user could ask "What Jeans are 'in' this season" and be presented with items from your app.
Some iOS versions have been slow adopted due to the value proposition to the end user. However, iOS 10 brings with it some epic enhancements to the iMessages app centering around emoji use and more expressive ways to converse. While not hugely beneficial to brands, the changes do mean that we can expect to see a big adoption in iOS 10, especially amoung teenages and mid-late 20s demographics. Emoji alone is a major reason why users updated from iOS 9.0 to 9.1, as they were seeking the middle finger and taco emoji.
In conclusion, Apple's innovation continues to provide value for brands, and those who react quickly and beat their competition to market will hold the attention of potential customers. There's more information on the dead simple to use Apple Website, take a look!
Thanks for reading. Thoughts? Comments? Feel free to say "Hi" to me on Twitter, I'm @samjarman.
Copyright and credit for all images used are to Apple Inc.