The invisible app takeover
By: Peter Williams
Tags: Messaging, Mobile, Startup, iOS, Android

The invisible app takeover

Does your next app need a user interface?

Photo by Alex Wong

There’s no arguing that smartphones have become ubiquitous; recent figures show the number of monthly active smart devices at a staggering one billion. This has driven astronomical growth of the app market, with companies wanting people to use their apps as a mechanism to enhance relationships. App opportunities are not without challenges; as the number of apps proliferate, so does the battle for attention and engagement.

A critical difference between smartphones apps and websites offsets this battle for screen space and attention; loaded with sensors collecting environmental data, smartphones are always with or in proximity to their owners and are capable of triggering events on their behalf, without explicit user intervention.

Challenges for app developers

Getting an app to market is easy but getting users to regularly engage with it is difficult. An increase in both the volume and range of apps has made competition for app time fierce, despite the fact that most apps are rarely used and a quarter of installed apps are used just once. The result is an increasing disparity between time spent on apps and the number of app offerings available. For apps like Facebook and Google Maps that have already woven themselves into the fabric daily life, the challenge is to remain relevant through constant delivery of value to their users. For new apps trying to gain footing and build a user base, the road is far more arduous, with significant barriers to success.

One in four apps are used only once after installation.

The average smartphone user has over 95 apps installed but 85% of time spent on smartphones but only 5 apps see heavy use. At the end of 30 days, just 3.3% of apps still had active users. There’s simply too much noise.

This increasing app competition will lead developers to find innovative ways to create and market apps that can circumvent the fight for screen space entirely. Some are finding a solution in designing apps that are simple, quick and don’t bombard users with too much information. Others recognize that content in a mobile browser is not just merely desktop content formatted for a tiny viewport, but rather that smartphones connect to the Internet as well as to an array of sensors with triggers that can automatically act on our behalf.

A glimpse of the future

Photo by Riley McCullough

What will these new apps look like? As smartphones quickly become more sophisticated, sometimes in unpredictable ways, it’s difficult to make long term predictions. By looking at the current range of apps, however, one can see hints of the evolutionary process underway. Consider the following apps and their capabilities:

Google Now for travel reminders and local recommendations

Foursquare/Swarm and its location messaging experience

Tile and tracking connected objects

Health apps like Pedometer that measure physical activity

Apple’s Home and connected home devices like Nest

The breadth of functionality represented is quite astounding, especially when compared to what apps could do only a few short years ago. As sensors become more sophisticated and smartphones are able to package more sensors into their form factors, a device’s ability to become more aware of the surroundings is drastically increased. This contextual and environmental awareness that apps are beginning to tap into will spawn a new generation of apps with location services that know even more about its owner and her surroundings. In turn, the benefit users get from the proactive insight and value that these apps provide will increase exponentially over time.

A mobile leap forward

Today’s app renaissance and the shift to more intelligent, contextually-aware software actually represents the third strata of user interaction since the iPhone popularized the mobile app back in 2007.

Initially, apps tried to mimic their desktop software counterparts, offering everything in a smaller, mobile package. Apps became bloated with too many features, too little functionality, and user interface issues ensued. A shift was then made towards highly specialized apps to accomplish specific tasks or subsets of a brand’s full offering. For example, the Facebook Messenger app only includes the messaging components of Facebook; Swarm distills Foursquare into an app that helps track location and arrange meetings with friends.

As apps move toward a new mode of utility, user benefits are also evolving. The new generation of apps are contextually aware and more service-like in nature: they are always on and alert, but only interact with the user when appropriate. These “invisible” apps will spur the transformation of mobile devices from communication tools to intelligent assistants, making smartphones truly “smart.” Resulting improvements in these interactions will boost the quality and length of engagement between apps and their users.

Invisible triggers

Photo by Amos Bar-Zeev

This new method of interaction is only possible due to a range of smartphone services that constantly run in the background and that are capable of triggering events like push notices, contextual changes and server side notices. Invisible triggers include:

Date and time

Location

Proximity: relative to a nearby object or person

Movement

Connectivity status: networks, headphones, ancillary devices

Cloud based events

By listening for status changes, background services orchestrate events on behalf of users without explicit intervention. For example, when I place a click & collect order for groceries and later enter proximity of the collection store during the designated pickup window with my connected smartphone, attendants are automatically notified of my prescience and collect my parcels so that I don’t need to wait in line or flag down someone to get my order. There’s no need to pull out my smartphone or swipe through a series of on-screen buttons.

Implications

A few implications about the rise of invisible apps are worth noting. An invisible app, by definition, is resident or running but hidden. A great deal of trust is therefore required between app vendors and users; issues such as privacy, tracking capabilities, as well as an app’s ability to autonomously operate are all areas of concern.

Developers will need to consider:

Education: if it’s always running, what is it doing? always tacking me, or only when I request something? How do users quit or opt-out?

Permissions: when and under what circumstance will you capture user activity? If users become aware of background tracking, how will they react?

Battery impact: background services are always on, but that doesn’t mean that you can over task the device. With always running services, developers will be challenged to optimize services not just for effectiveness but for battery drain as well.

Integration: it’s not just online interactions, it’s things you do in the real world. The best experiences are often those that derive context from multiple systems of record.

Balance: helpful vs creepy. This will require more initial subtlety as consumers get used to experiences and decide what level of automation is appropriate.

Ultimately, invisible apps must strike a balance between being intrusive and being informative. Current initiatives from leading technology giants notably Apple’s continuing iOS developments and Google’s Nearby initiatives are paving the way towards a standards-based approach to designing the apps of tomorrow.

My company, Localz, is leading the charge into inviable app experiences. We’ve also made it our goal to ensure app experiences are relevant, rewarding and respectful. By leveraging smartphone background services with contextual rules and user education, we’re creating invisible, yet compelling, app experiences that stick.