WWDC brought a lot of great advancements both on the hardware and the software side for all of the Apple products this year. Apple announced the much rumoured iOS6 which brought us a new app, Passbook, which aggregates boarding passes, store cards, movie passes and more and also unveiled a new Map app no longer utilizing Google Maps but instead proprietary to Apple.
As experts in App Marketing and Discovery, what peaked our interest the most from this year’s developer conference was a key focus on improved app discovery tools which were being rolled out to developers to help their apps gain better traction in the marketplace.
Two major enhancements in particular brought app discovery to the forefront.
1. Facebook Integration
Last year we saw iOS5 bring Twitter integration to the iPhone. This year it was Facebook’s turn. Integrating Facebook at the operating system level will dramatically increase usage with Facebook as was proven with Twitter since iOS5 launch. According to Apple at WWDC, since October, users who adopted iOS 5 sent more than 10 billion tweets, they comprised more than 47 percent of all photos uploaded to the site, and Twitter’s adoption rate on iOS grew more than three times in the latest iOS update.
Outside of Facebook use on the device, Apple made a point of highlighting that the App Store will too be updated with Facebook integration. Users will be able to recommend, like and share apps directly from the App Store to their Facebook page and their friends feeds. This update will increase the virality of applications and will go a long way in spreading word on apps that are worthy to mention to your networks.
2. Smart App Banners
Probably the most important update related to app marketing and discovery was in Safari which will identify mobile sites that also have an app and show a Smart App Banner which will either send the user directly to the App Store to download the app or link directly into an app that is already downloaded. In this way, users who weren’t aware that their favorite mobile destination has an app will more prominently be sold on this product if available.