Ride the Coattails of the iOS10 and Android Nougat Launches

Apple and Google both roll out significant operating system updates about once a year.  iOS 10 and Android 7.0 Nougat are major releases with numerous improvements aimed at making the user experience even better.  Timing your app’s release or update to coincide with iOS 10 and Android 7.0 Nougat launch can be advantageous to app publishers.

Growth Opportunity for App Publishers

Apps that take advantage of new technologies get special attention on the app stores and get promoted in various sections.  New OS releases are a great growth opportunity for app publishers to take advantage of new features to distinguish your app from the other apps on the app store.  Every iOS or Android launch has created a stir in the app market. Updating your app to use new features by launch date of is a smart idea to get featured and promoted.

Differentiate Your Apps

When Apple and Google update mobile operating systems, users look forward to experiencing the new features. Apps that take advantage of new platform features, continue to work as expected without crashes or slow performance, differentiate themselves from other apps and are more likely to be rated higher by users.

Get Featured on App Store and Google Play

“Featured apps” section app stores features handpicked apps. Making it to the featured apps section is free marketing that can change any app’s fortune!  Apps that take advantage of new platform features are again most likely to be featured, which drastically increases the chances of getting downloaded by a majority of the users visiting the app store.

Leverage Media Writing About iOS 10 and Android Nougat

Different web and media platforms look for apps that work well with the newly released mobile operating systems, and love including them as part of the story when writing about the OS update. If your app gets mentioned or profiled on high-traffic web and media site, the coverage will translate to more downloads.

Timing is Everything

Increasing App usage by keeping app users engaged and retained is the ultimate goal of any app publisher.  Timing updates help an app create awareness amongst users.  Successful publishers update apps every 7 to 28 days, as frequent updates help an app get more mindshare compared to other apps on the device.

Major app updates, if timed with OS upgrades can be a huge benefit to app publishers and app publishers should take advantage of the marketing dollars and buzz created around OS updates.

What’s New with iOS 10 and Android Nougat?

Both iOS 10 and Android 7.0 Nougat are major releases packed with features that improve user experiences and make extensive use of deep learning and artificial intelligence to make our experiences better. We wrote about the messaging platform, bots, and iMessage Apps, and voice as an interface earlier in blog post:  WWDC 2016 & Mary Meeker’s Internet trends.

iOS 10

In iOS 10, the Messages app now is a platform with third party iMessage Apps or installable bots acting as extensions.  Maps app offers traffic in route and integrates with third-party apps via Map extensions.  As part of on-device intelligence, Photos brings deep learning directly on the device for facial recognition, and Messages app makes suggestions like sharing of current location in response to “where are you?” locally, without sending data to Apple.  When user data is sent to Apple, Differential Privacy – a privacy-preserving datamining technique –  protects the end users by selectively adding noise.  Apple Pay is available for the web and the Phone app has automatic transcription of voicemail.  Apps by apps can be removed and also independently updated from the App Store.  All HomeKit compatible accessories can be controlled from the new Apple Home app.  Siri and artificial intelligence throughout iOS 10, will work with third party apps.  iOS 10 has a lot more to offer to app developers and that is where it really shines.

Android 7.0 Nougat

Android 7.0 Nougat offers improvements in UI, accessibility, notifications, multi-window support and picture-in-picture video support.  Daydream VR is intended to improve the VR experience on Android phones, and make VR apps and VR video content more discoverable and accessible to more people.  Duo is Google’s video calling app similar to Apple’s Facetime.  The OS also has improvements to performance, battery consumption and disk space requirements.  Similar to iOS Metal, Android Nougat has adopted Vulkan support, to improve quality of gaming, VR, and other graphically intensive apps.   Allo is Google’s new messaging app which incorporates machine-learning, suggestions and security technologies.