Three months in, developers find that Apple’s “most personal device” has something of a learning curve.
LWYang / Via Flickr: lwy
When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, he touted it as three gadgets in one: "a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator."
Three years later, Jobs revealed the iPad, a new category intended to fill the space between the smartphone and desktop and designed for web browsing, photos, e-books, email, and games. "If there's going to be a third category of device, it's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone — otherwise it has no reason for being," he said.
But when Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced the Apple Watch in September, there were few such comparisons. Instead, Cook touted it simply as "the most personal device we've ever created" and "the best watch in the world," stressing that the device's significance was more abstract: an entirely new way of interacting with technology. "Because you wear it, we invented new ways to connect and communicate directly from your wrist," he said.
But as intriguing a device as it might be, the Apple Watch can also be something of a conundrum for developers. Some app makers say engagement rates among the device's early adopters are high — higher even than on the iPhone alone. Yet complaints about the Apple Watch's subpar third-party apps are fairly common, and for some developers it's been a struggle to distill large, multifaceted iOS apps into smaller companion apps that work well on Apple Watch and provide enough utility to make them compelling.
Lark / Via lark.com
A little more than three months after the Apple Watch's debut, Apple says there are some 8,500 watch apps in the App Store, up from 3,000 in April, when the watch became available for preorder.
And while it's still early, some developers say they've been pleasantly surprised by reactions to their Apple Watch apps. Lark, developer of a health and fitness tracking app, has found engagement rates on the Apple Watch to be fairly high.
Lark's artificial-intelligence bot "texts" users about their fitness and diet, based on data captured by an iPhone. "It's kind of a buddy that's nudging you at the right time, at the right moment," CEO Julia Hu told BuzzFeed News. "It's just like, 'Hey, that's the longest run you've done in the last two weeks.'" Hu said Lark traded more than 200 million texts with Apple Watch users over the past three months — and, according to the company's metrics, users of Lark's Apple Watch app launch it 73% more often than users of its iPhone-only sibling.
Yummly, which lets people search for recipes and compile ingredient shopping lists, has also seen high levels of engagement on Apple Watch. Chief Operating Officer Brian Witlin told BuzzFeed News the company charted a 250% spike in page views per average visit between June and July, though he declined to provide a baseline number for the increase.
Simplicity is key to Apple Watch app success, developers say. The Chipotle app's "burrito button" does exactly what it sounds like: place an order to pick up at the nearest Chipotle. "It works well for the platform. What's easier than pressing one button and sending an order to your go-to Chipotle?" said Jason Herrick, who oversaw development of the company's watch app. He declined to provide usage metrics.
No comments:
Post a Comment