A talk at Mobile Conference Brussels talking about trends in apps, and what to do to battle the decline of app downloads and to increase app usability.

1. Our apps, they need a-changing!
Chris Heilmann, Mobile Convention, Brussels, 27/11/2014

2. Chris Heilmann
@codepo8

3. Mobile trends

4. iOS controls most of the high-end device market
!
Android almost every other area
!
Windows Phone gains developer interest, but not users
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

5. IDC: Smartphone OS Market Share, Q2 2014

6. IDC: Smartphone OS Market Share, Q2 2014

7. 255 million units shipped
Nearly 85% of the market share
IDC: Smartphone OS Market Share, Q2 2014

8. Android fragmentation
Android Fragmentation Visualized (August 2014)

9. 18,796
Distinct Android devices
(11,868 last year)

10. 43%
Samsung

11. 20.9% KitKat
43%
Samsung

14. Developer climate

15. Programming languages,
Mobile app developers
HTML5
42
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation
Other
27
C#
23
Objective-C
24
C/C++
26
Java (Android)
38

16. 47% of iOS developers, 42% of Android developers
!
use something other than the native language
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

17. Android iOS Windows Phone BlackBerry 10 Others
Platform priority
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation
13%
3%
10%
32%
42%

18. No of platform targets
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation
2.9
2.175
1.45
0.725
0
July 2013 July 2014

19. App revenue
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation
Haves
12%
Strugglers
19%
Poverty stricken
22%
Have nothings
47%
< $100
$10,000 …
$1000 … $10,000
$100 … $1000

20. Majority of app businesses not sustainable with current revenue
50% of iOS developers, 64% of Android developers
below the ‘app poverty line” of $500 per app per month
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

21. Games dominate app store revenues,
yet most games developers struggle
!
33% of developers make games
57% of those games make less than $500 per month
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

22. Target users
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation
70
52.5
35
17.5
0
Targets consumers Targets professionals Targets enterprise

23. Developers who target enterprises:
!
Twice as likely to be earning over $5k per app per month
Almost 3 times as likely to earn more than $25k per app per month.
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

24. Third party tools are a critical part of successful app businesses
!
The more tools a developer uses, the more money they make
Vision Mobile, Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation

25. Apps and the things
they do for us.

27. Men Women
Guardian - Women taking the lead when it comes to mobile
App types & usage
50
37.5
25
12.5
0
Health Entertainment Lifestyle Social networking Games

28. Business Insider/Flurry

29. Business Insider/Flurry

31. An ebbing rush of apps…
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2014/8/comScore-s-US-Mobile-App-Report-Available-for-
Download
http://qz.com/253618/most-smartphone-users-download-zero-apps-per-month/

33. IT ALL JUST WORKS!

34. https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2014/8/comScore-s-US-Mobile-App-Report-Available-for-
Download
Quartz - These are the 25
most popular mobile apps
in America

35. Facebook is by far the top app, with
115.4 million unique visitors in June.
With 160 million total US app users,
that’s 72% penetration.
http://qz.com/253527/these-are-the-25-most-popular-mobile-apps-in-america/
“

36. Google is the top mobile app
publisher. Its apps represent nos. 2, 3,
4, 6, 7, and 16. “
http://qz.com/253527/these-are-the-25-most-popular-mobile-apps-in-america/

37. There are no games in the top 25.
This is not a mistake: … (games are)
closer to 10 million unique visitors—
probably because games tend to spike
in popularity and then decline.
http://qz.com/253527/these-are-the-25-most-popular-mobile-apps-in-america/
“

38. In other words,
people are already busy
(or addicted)…
Like, follow, upvote,!
comment, connect,!
endorse, watch !
movie, fill survey,!
follow, ban, invite,!
try out, click, !
download, upload,!
verify…!

39. …and people are satisfied.

40. Platform offerings

41. Seamless data retention and syncing

42. Single location service aggregation

43. Automatic updates and notifications

44. Natural service integration

45. This comes at a cost…

46. Today's new iPad Air 2
experience consists of 23
or more steps and no less
than three iCloud services
(iCloud, iCloud Drive, &
iCloud Keychain).
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1937

47. In contrast, today's new
Android Nexus experience
consists of only 8 steps
but with a mandatory
234MB update (some
things don't change).
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1937

48. What’s next?

49. Wearables…

50. Android Wear

51. Apple wearables

52. Microsoft wearables

53. Samsung Galaxy Gear S

54. IOT, Smart*

55. There is no screen, only data and
messages going back and forth…

56. Emerging markets

57. World Wide Web(ish)…

58. IDC: Worldwide Smartphone Forecast by Region

59. http://www.android.com/one/

60. Google Plans to Spend ~$1 Billion on Android One in India

61. Future strategies

62. Let’s rethink our mobile strategy and
apply web goodness…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrcAPan028Y

63. The future won’t have flying cars and
limitless connectivity.

64. Online/offline is _so_ not a binary state…

65. Online/offline is _so_ not a binary state…

66. Build apps that deliver!
Do work offline
Do interact with the platform (payment, login)
Don’t ask for more than you need.
Do use the technology that delivers the best result
(native controls, web views for simple data maintenance)
Aim for atomic updates
Build a service, not an app for a certain platform or
form factor. Things move fast.

67. Let’s make things beautiful!
If you enable people world-wide
to get a good experience
and solve a problem they
have, I like it. The technology
you use is not the important
part. How much you lock them
in is. Don’t lock people in.
Christian Heilmann

68. Thank you!
Chris Heilmann
christianheilmann.com
@codepo8
chris.heilmann@gmail.com