In-Depth Look: Aviate for Android
note: I sometimes like to think deeply about a company or product and write about it. These posts tend to be longer then usual.
I wanted to look into three different questions with this post:
1. How can Aviate be a better product?
2. How do you get Aviate in front of more users?
3. Why is it important for Yahoo to do #1 and #2?
I will start with the third question to set the stakes for why #1 and #2 are so crucial.
Why is Aviate Important?
Mobile Minutes are growing
An increasing number of people in the world will have their first, and potentially only internet-connected experience on a mobile device of some kind. Because of how costly traditional broadband infrastructure is to build, many developing nations are skipping right to smartphone and mobile devices as their primary means of computerization. Link
Even in developed countries users are spending an increasingly number of minutes on their mobile devices when compared to traditional desktops. Link
This means the world is going increasingly mobile, and so just as the desktop was the most important platform of the 80’s and 90’s, the web in the 2000’s, mobile will be the place to be for the foreseeable future (with perhaps VR replacing it after that?).
The web is going native
We are also seeing that more of the display of content that’s traditionally only on the web is finding it’s way into native mobile apps. This shift is already happening with apps like the new Apple News, essentially making a mobile app the front-end for news content (all of those stories will not be read in a web browser like Safari, but in a mobile app). Even Facebook is bringing down news content to the native space with its Instant Articles (http://instantarticles.fb.com). The trend is towards mobile apps powered by web services, rather than webpages powered by web services. Essentially instead of web pages we’re going to have more apps.
The mobile world has no rules
The web is great because nobody owns it, while mobile platforms are the opposite. Unlike the web, with the W3C consortium, there is no governing body dictating to mobile platforms what they can or cannot do, nor what it means to be a good citizen. Apple can come up with whatever app policy it wants, and can allow or disallow whatever it wants. Because nobody is enforcing any “fair-play” rules, not owning the platform puts businesses in a very vulnerable place.
I personally don’t believe that Apple much likes the open web. They’ve always believed that the best experiences are to be found in a native app, and their hope has always been that content owners create iOS apps, rather than have users access their information via a mobile browser. To that end with recently enabling ad-blocking functionality to be built in mobile Safari, Apple can create a situation where content providers who relied on traditional ad networks (likely served up by Google and others), will find their ads blocked on iPhones. They’ll then need to create an iOS native experience and advertise using iAds, which Apple controls and takes a cut from. Simply put, online content platforms are increasingly at the mercy of mobile platforms.
The home screen is the new browser
In this new landscape, the mobile phone’s home-screen is becoming the new browser of the next 10 years. It’s the new window into online services and content. If you can control the home screen, you can shape the user’s window into all of the services and data that is online.
Aviate should be the funnel through which all of Yahoo’s services can flow to mobile. It is the perfect platform to push Yahoo’s services, especially the transactional services, to the forefront of the user’s experience. Verticals like search, news, finance, sports, etc. for a user have low or zero cost of switching. Just like the Yahoo.com homepage is one of the most important assets to funnel users through to other Yahoo services, Aviate is one of Yahoo’s most important ways of getting mobile users to its services. Aviate becomes the UI wrapper enabling Yahoo’s services to create amazing experiences for their users with the right content and functionality, at the right time.
Controlling the home screen, and by extension being a gateway to the rest of the world, is the most important spot to be in a world that’s increasingly going mobile.
The home screen is becoming increasingly powerful
It used to be that the role of the home screen was to just display your apps, but that is quickly changing. Making the home screen increasingly powerful is the direction everybody is going (Google Now, Siri Proactive, Microsoft Cortana, etc.). Companies are trying to make it so you need to leave your home screen as little as possible because they bring everything to you. Google/Apple/Microsoft all have their platforms for doing this, Yahoo does not. Can it create one though?
You either own the platform, or are indispensable to it.
Facebook owns no mobile platform, but is absolutely critical to the success of any of them. Imagine if a new mobile platform were to be released today that didn’t have a Facebook experience, nobody would buy it. So Facebook has positioned itself to be needed on all mobile platforms.
Microsoft, realizing that its own mobile platform has not taken off, is increasingly producing all of its software on Android and iOS. Things like the new Outlook.com email client (formerly Accompli) is getting praise (http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/29/7937841/best-gmail-app-iphone-outlook), they just released Sway, their new presentation app on iOS, and in Feb they bought Sunrise, which is a well reputed Calendar app for iOS and Android (http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7979367/microsoft-buys-sunrise-calendar-app). Microsoft is saying that their strategy is mobile first, cloud first. They want to have the best services (and be indispensable) on all the mobile platforms (office, email, online storage, etc.), and also have the best cloud services as the backend for mobile developers.
Yahoo is in a tough spot because they aren’t indispensible on any mobile device (I don’t have a single Yahoo service on my iPhone right now), and also have not made major investments in cloud infrastructure that have resonated with developers (ala Google App Engine, AWS, Azure, etc.), and don’t own any mobile platform. As user minutes move to mobile, it’s not clear that they’ll be going to Yahoo.com on their browsers anymore. Their search is built in already (Google default on iOS and Android), and for news and many other things they’ll just look for apps. This makes Yahoo vulnerable.
Power of Defaults
Another interesting and very important fact is that user’s overwhelmingly don’t change the defaults that come on their phone. This is why Apple Maps, despite being in almost every way inferior to Google Maps, is still by far the most used Maps app on the iPhone. At WWDC Craig Federighi mentioned that Apple Maps is used 3.5 times more often than the next most popular mapping app on iOS. It’s the same thing with Notes on iOS, a mediocre notes application when compared to Everyone or OneNote, yet at WWDC it was mentioned that it’s regularly used by half of iPhone users. This means that if you’re not set as a default, it’s a huge uphill battle to get users to download and engage with your application or service.
There was an article in TechCrunch recently that said that 85% of mobile user’s time is spent in native apps. That is huge, that speaks to the importance of being native on the phone and having a great native experience. It also said that 84% of user’s time was spent in just 5 apps. So even though they have many apps on their phones, there are very few that they are actively using. This means that even if Yahoo is present on the phone in the form of apps, it is still fighting an uphill battle to get into that very limited app usage category.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-on-smartphones-in-apps-but-only-5-apps-see-heavy-use/
Conclusion
The web is increasingly moving to native display of content. Because there is no governing body for native apps, this puts any company that relies on these platforms in a vulnerable position as they lose their ability to define their own experiences. Yahoo is in a particularly difficult position because it is neither indispensable on any platform (like Facebook or Twitter), nor does it own any part of the platform (like Apple, Microsoft, or Google). Aviate represents a key strategic asset for Yahoo, as it allows it “take-over” an Android device, and funnel best-in-class Yahoo services straight to the user in a customized and optimized experience. If Yahoo can control a user’s home screen, it can be the window through which that user experiences connect services. I believe Aviate to be one of Yahoo’s most important assets moving forward. Getting more users on Aviate, and making the platform better so those users stay and have a very satisfying experience, is Yahoo’s best bet to be positioned as a key player in the future.
How do you make Aviate better?
Messaging
I’ve been thinking about Aviate’s messaging and I feel some dissonance with it. The main message on the Aviate homepage as well as Google Play store highlight simplicity as a core feature, and secondly how “smart” Aviate is, or can make your phone. I remember this came up from our discussion years ago when you were just starting Aviate about how you believed users wanted a more simple phone.
I’m not sure that making the phone simpler is really what is compelling about Aviate. It’s not about simplifying your phone, it’s about making it much, much smarter. It’s about having a device that is predicting what you’ll want to be doing, and even suggesting things you didn’t even know you wanted to be doing. Google Now is looking to break down the walls of Apps to be smarter, Aviate is trying to do the same thing. It’s like the Operating System isn’t just a platform, it’s alive and it’s getting to know me better and better and doing things for me to make my life easier. Ultimately I don’t care about apps, I care about functionality. For now apps are silo’d in what they can offer me and what I want is everything to be integrated for me.
Because apps are so silo’d, I have to act like a conductor, making every musician (app) perform to get what I need out of my device. Aviate is offering to be that conductor so I can relax and just enjoy the music. I don’t want you to make my phone simple, I want you to make it magical.
Here are some messaging ideas for a compelling story for Aviate:
For the professional:
“You work hard enough, Aviate makes your phone work for you. “
“The smartest personal assistant, it the palm of your hand.”
General:
“You hold in your hand one of the most powerful computers in the world, isn’t it time it felt that way?”
“You hold in your hand one of the most powerful computers in the world, Aviate helps make it feel that way.”
“You paid good money for your phone, isn’t it time it paid you back?”
“Aviate is like that friend who can finish your sentences for you.”
“Aviate transforms your device to bring you the right information and functionality, exactly when you need it.”
“Aviate transforms your phone into a beautiful and intelligent device.”
First Run Experience
I was a bit surprised to see that I wasn’t offered to sign into my Yahoo account after I downloaded Aviate. Imagine doing so and then having Aviate know what Yahoo services you’re using and bringing down those experiences on the phone. I download Aviate, sign-in, and all of a sudden I’m seeing my fantasy sports information, my flickr photos, my news, etc.
If Aviate took the route of creating best-in-class experiences for Yahoo services, the upsell on the main Yahoo site would be easier. So if you’re on the fantasy football page you could have an ad that says the best fantasy football mobile experience is with Aviate. Same for Flickr, Auto, news, etc. You can probably know which users have android devices based on how they’re accessing the page (there are lots of other data sources too such as what device they synced their Yahoo mail from, etc.).
Missing Killer Feature
There are several features that I saw mentioned in the copy, such as organized apps, or the cards that appear when you swipe right, or how your most used apps appear at the bottom. None of these really felt like a “killer” feature. What’s the killer feature of Aviate? Who is a group of people or type of person that Aviate is just nailing it for?
For instance are there profiles such as photographer, professional worker, parent, small business owner, etc. that Aviate is really gearing itself towards?
In a sense the approach Aviate takes now feels too broad and too algorithmic. What is the user profile that is really being thought about when you guys are creating new Aviate features? Who is the persona you are just killing yourselves to nail it for? It feels a bit general right now, which means that it doesn’t feel like it really nails anything.
I’m wondering if going deep on particular user profiles, or verticals, would really make Aviate appealing, even the obvious choice, for a particular type of user. Let’s look at a few potential profiles:
The Professional Profile
This person is an office worker who gets up 5 days a week and heads into the office. Some things this user would be interested in could be:
• Emails
• Calendar/Meetings
• Contacts
• Reminders to stretch or walking/stand
• Tracking steps to know how much they are moving around the office
Commuter Profile
This is anybody doing a commute (father taking kids to school, mother on her way into work, etc.)
• Music
• Radio
• Traffic
• Calls
• Reading text message aloud and using voice to reply to them (so if you know I’m driving, optimize for voice)
The Photographer Profile
With Instagram photographers have become like rock stars. Flickr, and by extension Yahoo, is very important to photographers. Aviate + Android should be the platform that photographer prefer because it makes their workflow so much easier.
• Taking an picture opens up the photographers workflow (VSCO for instance)
• Automatically backs up photos to Flickr
• Displays photos from people they follow automatically (without having to open up Instagram perhaps)
Okay this isn’t an Aviate feature per say, but Yahoo really needs to create their own camera application for Android. They have so much cred with photographers thanks to Flickr, which are the new rockstars and with Google’s new Camera 2 API that more and more phones will implement, the Yahoo camera needs to just be the best thing out there, and it automatically backs up to to Flickr and uploads to Facebook, Instagram, etc. Just be the best for photographers out there. Aviate comes pre-installed with Yahoo’s camera application.
The Traveller Profile
I’m going on a trip, either domestic or overseas, Aviate makes my phone the most valuable tool I can bring with me. By telling it my trip details (flights, trains, destinations), it can help me with:
• Offline maps of cities and location
• Flight schedules
• Transit schedules
• Translation apps
• Local weather
Relational Profile
We are all in relationships. Whether they are family, friends, or romantic, relationships are a key part of our lives. How does Aviate reflect this on the phone?
- Communication (Texting, What’s App, Facebook/Twitter, Skype, etc.)
- Frequently contacted (tell Aviate who your family or close ones are)
- Date Night Planner (suggest restaurants and then events/concerts going on around you)
- Reminders of important dates (birthdays and anniversaries)
- Optimized photo sharing experience — daily I’m sharing photos with my family, Liz, and several close friends
Home Profile
This just being at home and relaxing for the evening. You can imagine that being single or having kids would alter this profile.
- Netflix movie recommendations
- Online TV — are there any new episodes available of shows that I am watching (Hulu, FX, etc.)
- Time of first meeting the next day
- Grocery List since I add to it when I’m at home (this should automatically be available when the user walks into a grocery store)
Here are some other interesting scenarios that Aviate could help me with.
Interesting Scenarios
Imagine walking into a grocery store and having it show me some possible things to cook for dinner. When I select one it creates a grocery list for me. Or the grocery list I’ve been creating at home automatically pops up so I can run down the list?
Holidays
Offering to send flowers or Ink cards or other app downloads or services on special holidays or birthdays. Or when it’s getting near Christmas perhaps start offering great deals on gifts.
Random Facts or This Day in History
Make me smarter — these are both interesting to learn, but also make my phone seem smarter as well, like, oh wow, my phone knows so much.
Sports
I don’t play sports or follow them (except for CrossFit!), but I know that Yahoo has a huge Fantasy Football pretense. That is something that could be a great feature for sports fans, to have that fantasy information updating in real time during a game, so they can quickly see how their team or roster or whatever is doing.
Weekends
Suggesting things for me to do on the weekend. Is there a zeitgeist of things going on in an area you can turn me on to? For instance Saturday morning farmers markets, or cool hikes in the area? Plan my weekend for me.
News
Include news that is local to me? The morning news (which was displaying in the afternoon for me) is all National news. What about the local news here in Missoula?
Location Awareness
Make Aviate the most location-sensitive app that there is. Imagine:
• You walk into a store and the coupons for that store are immediately available to you
• You walk into a restaurant and you’re told about any special deals (like if checking in on Yelp gets your a discount) or if there is a Groupon
What are some other things that are location based that would be incredible? What about popular hikes?
Even just doing something like the restaurant or store coupons would be a killer feature as it saves people money.
Presentation or Design Idea
The difficulty about using time of day to predict activity is that people are more and more bringing their work home with them, or working from home. What if the user interface were full-screen cards where each one was like a Work card, a Relational Card, a Home Card, etc. And the user could easily move between them (and you could change the default one depending on where they were), and the user could customize it as well. Then they could add new Cards to their home screen as things changed. For instance if they are about to go on a trip, they can add the Traveller card which has a bunch of useful stuff. Then they can dismiss it when they are done traveling.
Privacy
The more I tell Aviate the better I want it to be. Privacy is the new hot feature. How is my privacy respected? How is this communicated to the user?
How do you get Aviate in front of more users?
It’s currently too hard to get.
The current way to get Aviate on a user’s phone is to hope that they download it, then they have to understand to set it as the default, then enable Aviate to have access to notifications, etc. I can’t really imagine Liz having to go through this, or most people who just want to buy a phone and have it work. While there are other Android launchers that have more success than Aviate (Nova, Google Now, Hola, Smart Launcher, etc.), I would guess that across all the millions of downloads they have all enjoyed, there is a much smaller subset of users that are actually using a custom launcher. My hunch would be that folks that are savy enough to try a new launcher, likely tried a lot of them before settling on one. In either case, the total number of users that are smart enough and motivated enough to change their launcher feels small to me, especially when compared to the total number of Android users. Having to take all of those steps to get Aviate seems like a big limiter on the total user potential.
Own the device
I am noticing a shift happening with all of the major carriers, which is to follow more closely the European model of smartphone purchasing. This means eliminating carrier subsidies (and by extension annual contracts) and making customer pay the full price for their phones. AT&T is still offering payment options as part of its Next program, but this just means customers will pay monthly for the full price of the phone.
Once this shift happens and the “true” cost of smartphones is presented to customers ($684.99 for Galaxy S6 and $649.99 for iPhone 6) there will be an uptick in the number of off-contract and off-brand phones that are sold, particularly Android phones. There is already an emerging market for cheap (by-comparison) phones that are increasingly powerful and good quality. Examples include the One by OnePlus (now $249), Zenphone 2 by Asus ($300), and the Moto G by Motorola ($174.99). Customers are also increasingly comfortable ordering phones and devices online, so the retail in-store experience will continue to be diminished. In a few more years ordering your phone off-contract and online will be commonplace.
If coupled with the idea that users will tend to stick with whatever defaults their phones have, and the fact that there is still a MASSIVE market out there that hasn’t yet purchased their first smartphone (think China, India, etc.), this represents an incredible opportunity. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who could be creating their first email account (Yahoo Mail), uploading their first photo (Flickr), checking their first bit of online news (Yahoo News), checking weather for the first time (Yahoo Weather), making their first purchase (Yahoo Shopping), etc.
I believe that there exists a great opportunity for Yahoo to enter the mobile space by offering a “powered by Yahoo” phone that’s an Android device built by a third party (say OnePlus), but is totally Yahoo branded and has Aviate pre-installed. The user logs into their Yahoo credentials, or creates new credentials if they don’t have some, and immediately gets access to all of the great Yahoo services. Think Nexus device but for Yahoo. All your services front and center and super optimized.
A company like OnePlus is likely operating on very slim margins for their devices, since they sell for cheap yet still use high quality parts. They are currently only making money when they sell the phone, so just on that single transaction. I wonder if they would be open to an arrangement whereby they could continue to earn money from their phone users by partnering with Yahoo and getting a share of any profits generated by users on these phones using Yahoo services (ads served in mail, news, fantasy sports, etc.). Imagine offering this same partnership to all Android makers. The big boys might not go for it, but there is an increasingly large number of smaller players out there.
If you create an experience with Aviate that leads to high engagement with Yahoo services (because they are featured at the right time and in the right way on the phone), you wouldn’t need a tremendous number of users the return to be large. If you could get to where you could say the best Android experience with a Yahoo branded phone, that’s an amazing place to be.
With Windows Phone Microsoft has been focused on producing cheaper Lumia phones for emerging markets, and is seeing gains in the UK and across many of these markets. Small gains, but gains nonetheless. Google has its Android platform, and Apple has iOS. Each of these companies are pursuing a similar strategy with their mobile platforms, which is to ensure that their services and ad networks are prominently featured to their users. The company with the largest engaged market share can push it’s services more, and capture more of the ad market.
To remain successful and relevant in the next 10–20 years, Yahoo needs to create a prominent mobile presence, and having silo’d apps on Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone won’t be enough. Facebook recognized this and try (and failed) with their Facebook Home effort. Facebook has the advantage now of having such high engagement from their users into their walled-garden of content. This makes every platform have to include Facebook, since they probably wouldn’t be able to sell their devices without them. Yahoo doesn’t enjoy such a luxury with any of their services. The key difference with Facebook’s attempt and Aviate, is that Aviate isn’t pushing one particular thing, it’s about all the services that you use and making those available to you in an intelligent way. Facebook Home just made using Facebook better, Aviate make your entire phone better.