ASOdesk “Fortnightly” Digest #2: 08/08/17
App Store implements PayPal, Google introduces machine learning for identifying harmful apps and allows gambling.
We promised the digest to be biweekly, but June was relatively calm, so not that much news for two weeks, guys.
We’ll start with some general materials worthy of note. Like, for instance, App Annie’s prediction of a huge growth of a global app market (up to $6,3 trillion by 2021). Good news, isn’t it?
Also check out the latest research on push notifications by Accentage. Did you know that the average opt-in rate for notifications on iOS is 43% while the average reaction rate to pushes is just 4,5%? Android users are automatically “opt-in” and their reaction rate is up to 12,2%. For more details and info by industries follow the link to the full report.
Want to make your customer engagement better and boost the app rating? Here are some useful tips you can borrow (even if you are a big company, not an indie one to whom the author is addressing), like credit contributed users in release notes, for example, customers who pointed out the bugs.
Finally, Smashing Magazine has published a great case study on how much traffic app indexing for Google can drive to your app and is it worth the effort.
What’s New With App Store
Last month App Store has been busy cleaning out the clone and spam apps of which we had warned you in our previous Digest. So the only grand news with iTunes is that they finally added PayPal to the payment options. Once customers link their PayPal account and choose it as a payment method, it’ll automatically be used on all future purchases.
We also found this helpful guide to A/B testing your App Store page. Hope it will be of use!
What’s New With Google Play
Bye-bye, Android Market. Let the past bury its dead, thought Google and buried its support of Android 2.1 Eclair and older devices. Since June, 30 users on these devices are no longer be able to access, or install other apps from, the Android Market.
Better hurry to optimize your Android app for Notifications Channel feature of the new Android O operating system. Otherwise pretty soon your users won’t be able to set general Notification Importance status of the app.
Users can now see the changelog content one click away and thus make up their minds whether to update or not. From now on try to be more creative with your changelog texts and come up with smth more than just “We are constantly improving our app”.
Google introduced its machine learning method of identifying potentially harmful apps in Google Play. It will calibrate apps into peer groups according to their functions. So we assume, now you’ll have to be careful when submitting an app and make sure that all the info it collects from users is related to its functions. For example, if you have a drawing app, most likely it doesn’t need to know user’s location. But if such data is collected the algorithm may consider it harmful. So choose wisely! :)
And the icing on the cake! Google is going to bring some amendments to Google Play terms and conditions and allow real-money gambling apps to the store.
That’s all as for today, guys. Subscribe to stay tuned using the form below and check out other digest issues:
