Apple’s Going Big on Healthcare

June 28, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

Regular readers of our blog know that we’re fascinated by the way mobile devices and apps are shaping the future of healthcare. With powerful computers in everyone’s pocket, we should be expecting a slew of disruptive technology that may change how we administer care without physically stepping into a doctor’s office.
Lately, Apple has been making waves with their moves in this sector, and it’s gotten us very excited! Let’s take a look at how Apple is trying to bring healthcare into the mobile age.

The iPhone as Patient Profile

If you’ve ever been to a doctor’s office, you know how cumbersome it is to pull medical records. Physical manila folders, faxes, and computers that look to be running early DOS seem to be the norm. Luckily, Apple’s working on a way to streamline this process so all your information is stored digitally and always ready on your mobile device. According to CNBC:

…a secretive team within Apple’s growing health unit has been in talks with developers, hospitals and other industry groups about bringing clinical data, such as detailed lab results and allergy lists, to the iPhone, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the team. And from there, users could choose to share it with third parties, like hospitals and health developers.

Reportedly, Apple is in talks with all the right organizations to make this a reality including The Argonaut Project and The Carin Alliance, groups dedicated to promoting interoperability and health data-sharing.  It’s a great sign to see Apple collaborating with established experts in this arena and lends more credence that the tech giant is taking this matter seriously.

Putting Money Where their Mouth Is

It’s one thing to talk the talk, but you can’t budge a gorilla like American healthcare an inch without investing heavily into the right research and people. Apple’s been doing just that. In 2016 Apple acquired Gliimpse, which seems to be the foundation of Apple’s play into aggregating personal medical data. When it was purchased, the platform already connected to over 5,000 hospitals, labs, and pharmacies in order to facilitate data exchange for patients. With Apple’s resources, that number could skyrocket.
Also, it was reported earlier this month that Apple hired Dr. Sumbul Desai, former executive director of Stanford Medicine’s center for digital health. She comes with a stellar pedigree in developing new digital tools, and seems to be a fantastic addition to Apple’s move into mobile healthcare. She’ll have plenty of brains to help develop her ideas too, as a cursory glance at Apple’s careers page reveals:

Pro tip: if you’re still in school and looking for a future-proof job, try a double major in programming and medicine. And while rumors of Apple buying athenahealth seems to be baseless, it’s hard to ignore that Apple is heavily investing into healthcare even apart from continuing to develop HealthKit, ResearchKit, and CareKit.
Finally, is it a coincidence that Apple’s former CEO John Sculley is now the head of RXAdvance, a data-driven cloud service aiming to reduce the cost of healthcare? …Yes. But still, interesting!

Better 3rd Party Healthcare Apps

The more Apple pushes the iPhone to be a sort of “hub of healthcare” for individuals, the more other app developers will see the potential of accessing these patients with creative and potentially life-saving ideas. The Wall Street Journal just published a fantastic article on how apps can help manage chronic disease. One app the article highlights is by Omada Health made for individuals with prediabetes that helps them manage lifestyle habits to stave off actual diabetes.

The app can even connect to an Apple Watch to transmit activity automatically, which is a good example of innovative 3rd party health apps that take full advantage of all the tech available in Apple’s ecosystem.
And it can’t be said enough: we’re talking about real stakes here. Chronic diseases account for 7 out of 10 deaths and 86% of US healthcare costs, according to the WSJ article. Making any dent in these statistics mean lives saved as well as American wallets.

High Hurdles to Healthcare Happiness

All of this is promising, but as many in our government are apparently discovering, healthcare isn’t easy. Trust and security are two huge hurdles to overcome to get audience buy-in. Can Apple keep patient data secure? Credit card numbers are one thing, but keeping your health information on iCloud seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Say what you want about manila folders, but those are a lot harder to steal en masse.
Also, Apple might want to make the world a better place, but it’s still a business looking to profit. If people feel “locked in” to Apple’s ecosystem (App Store, iTunes, iCloud, etc) now, imagine if you can’t port over your health information to any device outside of iPhones or iPads. “Sure Google’s new Android phone looks great, but all my medical records are on my iPhone.” That’s a tricky point to consider.
Hopefully, in a few years these worries will have been thoroughly addressed. Until then, let’s stay optimistic about the future of mobile healthcare and hope Apple can fix a very broken system.
What do you think about Apple’s foray into healthcare?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Mobile App Development Trends to Look Out for in 2017

June 22, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

This is a guest post by Brooke Campbell from Entrance Consulting.
2016 turned out to be an extraordinary year in the mobile industry, and that trend won’t go away in 2017. Available Business Intelligence has led many companies to realize that investing in mobile is no longer an option but a necessity. Because of this, there has been an increase in the number of companies dealing with mobile. Nowadays, mobile has become more mainstream than ever, and many businesses rely on it to boost revenue and meet customer demands.

More than just for mobile

The number of mobile apps hitting the market is overwhelming and the rate is faster compared to the number of users adopting smartphones. There are more than 2.2 million apps in Google Play, and over 2 million in Apple’s App Store. These figures are expected to increase into the foreseeable future. Based on previous trends, Gartner predicts that in 2017 there will be over 268 billion app downloads which will generate close to $77 billion.

Today, app developers have gone beyond the mobile platform to other platforms. You can easily get apps for smart TVs, smart homes, IoT-enabled devices and many others. Because of this increased usage, the app industry holds a lot of promise and opportunities for both companies and users.

So, what does the future hold for the app industry? Experts predict that there are major mobile app development trends which we should expect to see through 2017. Some of these include:

Increasing popularity of android instant apps

Google has recently introduced Android instant apps, which are similar to progressive web apps. These apps, like their name suggests, deliver specific services; that is, they enable Android apps to run without downloading. Users are not required to download or install these apps in the devices, and this enables the users to access a wider range of apps devoid of the usual hassle.

For instance, anyone with the link to the app can open it instantly with a single tap. This allows the user to access a particular feature in the app without having to install the entire app on their mobile devices.
Mobile users should expect more of these apps, which many industry watchers say will revolutionize the entire app industry. These apps are, however, in a preview, and they have only a few advanced features missing. The apps are also in their early stages and can be accessed by Android users.

Increasing popularity of progressive web apps

Progressive web apps are used to run user interfaces in web browsers. There is increased attention towards these apps because of their ease of development and the almost instant satisfaction for the app’s user experience.
Researchers say that a mobile app loses 20% of its users for each step you make them take toward using it.
These apps have been gaining popularity because of the increased adoption by mobile users. The apps are developed with progressive enhancement as a core principle, thus making them easier  for practically every user regardless of the browser they choose to use.

Progressive web apps are primarily designed for mobile users who have unstable or poor data connections. The apps will significantly help users who visit websites using their mobile phones before even checking if the app is available in app stores. The progressive web application will capitalize on this, thus leading to improved user retention without the challenges involved in maintaining mobile apps.

Prioritizing security of mobile apps

Smartphone security is now more critical than ever because of the amount of personal information these devices hold. Surprisingly, a lot of smartphone users don’t take the security of their data very seriously, and this has become a great concern for app developers. Consequently, app developers have begun designing applications with inbuilt security features, which will have a very large impact in the mobile app industry.

iOS coding is now being moved to Apple’s own programming language, Swift, from the current Objective C. Other developers have also started to use this platform, as it provides a better user interface with stronger security features. With more developers adopting this new programming language, mobile users should start expecting more secure apps in the market.

The rise of beacons and location-based technology

There has been a continuous advancement of location-based beacon technology in the past two years. If expert predictions are anything to go by, this advancement will not slow down this year, especially in retail and healthcare industries. Predictions by Juniper Research show that location-based services will generate $43.3 billion by 2019.

Beacons allow retailers to link the gap between the in-store and online experience. Their primary role is to collect valuable in-store data, traditional in-store metrics like footfall and location-based push notifications. Beacons also promote personalization, a feature that perhaps explains why they have gained traction as the engagement tool to improve the overall customer satisfaction.

The rise of virtual reality and augmented reality

This is one of the most important trends to watch out for in 2017. Augmented reality is set to continue rising after the successful release of Pokémon GO in 2016. This game has dominated the App Store for a while, and it has proved that augmented reality has the capability to influence smartphone users in more meaningful ways. AR apps are considered to be promotional; however, more and more apps have started integrating AR into their utility.

Virtual reality and augmented reality, on the other hand, are expected to hit the $150 billion mark in revenue by 2020. Virtual technology has come a long way regarding its accessibility and performance. Many companies launched their VR headsets a year after the introduction of VR, and this pushed the technology to mainstream adoption.

In 2016, VR hardware faced stiff competition from companies like Facebook, HTC, Samsung and Sony amongst others. However, in the midst of all these manufacturers and the competition, the VR is finally ready to hit the market and has already attracted the attention of consumers and the media too. We should start to expect a huge focus now on experimental features after the successful release of the hardware by 2018.
Author Bio:
Brooke CampbellBrooke loves surfing through social media, so she made it a full time job and works as a social media manager at a Software Consulting firm. And loves all things Tech. When not working, she eats and sleeps, in that order.
 

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

104 Facts You Don’t Know About Mobile Marketing – websitebuilder.org

June 20, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

The good people over at websitebuilder.org published a nifty infographic full of mobile marketing facts and statistics that is definitely worth a read. Here’s a sample:
104 Facts You Don't Know About Mobile_ - https___websitebuilder.org_resourc
For the full infographic with a ton more information, click over to their post!
How is your mobile marketing going?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Development, Voice, Ad Growth: The Latest with Enterprise Mobile Apps

June 16, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

Two thorough report were recently released giving us deeper insight into how enterprises are utilizing mobile apps in 2017: Gartner’s 2017 Survey on Enterprise App Trends, and Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends Report. Let’s examine some of the more interesting revelations these reports had to offer.

1. More enterprises are creating mobile apps.

According to the 2016 Gartner survey, “39% of respondents said they had not built, customized or virtualized any mobile apps in the previous 12 months.” 2017 saw a welcome down-tick in this number to 27%. This means nearly 3/4ths of enterprises have built at least one custom mobile app and it shows that these big businesses are realizing how important a mobile strategy is in today’s market.
But there are pieces of bad news here too. First, the survey showed that IT spend on mobile apps was consistently lower than what was forecast. In a sense that’s good news: it doesn’t cost as much as you think to develop a mobile app these days, and enterprises are finding this to be true as they dive into mobile waters. However, Gartner goes on to say:

For the past few years, Gartner’s research has shown that while organizations have indicated that they will increase their mobile app development budget spend, the reality is that spending allocation has decreased.

Second, the average proportion of their overall software budget is 11%, so we’re not talking a lot here. Remember, for many enterprise companies, the mobile app is often the first point of entry. Decreasing spend to mobile development each year seems counter-intuitive to what should actually be happening, and that’s something to worry about.

2. Voice is replacing typing in online queries.


Meeker’s presentation pointed out that in 2016, 20% of mobile queries were made by voice. And in the last year, we’ve seen the rise of Amazon Echo, Google Home, and updated virtual assistants with 95% accuracy understanding human speech. This trend of voice replacing typing is only accelerating.
Enterprise companies are best poised to incorporate this trend into their mobile apps. This method of searching is what people prefer, and with the breadth of questions and queries an enterprise’s customer-base has every hour of every day, including voice search in apps would provide a better user experience.
In fact, diginomica imagines enterprises offering customizable hardware that takes advantage of this technology:

What if you could create an inexpensive system targeted to a particular task or business scenario, say a hands-free device that workers could use to execute some commands, update a Slack chat and trigger a Twilio SMS message?

Voice is faster than typing. This is an area of mobile tech ripe for innovative businesses to capitalize on, and definitely an interesting tech sector to watch.

3. Mobile ads are still a missed opportunity.


Another area highlighted by Meeker’s presentation that enterprises are best poised to capitalize on is mobile ad spending. As the slide above illustrates, users spend 28% of their media time on mobile devices, but mobile only receives 21% of the ad spend. There is a lot of opportunity here being left on the table.
TV viewership is down and fragmented. Ad blockers are ubiquitous on internet browsers on traditional devices. Mobile, meanwhile, is on the upswing. Yet businesses are still late at bringing effective advertising to where the eyeballs are going. Enterprises usually lead the charge in advertising, but here they seem to be resting on their heels.
71% of all internet consumption will be mobile in 2017 according to Zenith Media. This should serve as a wake-up call to businesses looking to reach the widest audience. Mobile apps and mobile ads should be where enterprises shift their marketing spend, and now’s the time to do it before the playing field gets too crowded.
What other insights from these two reports caught your eye?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Most to Least Interesting for Mobile: Apple’s WWDC 2017

June 7, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

Earlier this week, Apple held its annual World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) and there were some highlights and lowlights. Hey, they can’t all be winners. Since we’re all about mobile here, let’s rank the announcements that pertain to the mobile side of Apple’s business from the most to least interesting.

1. Redesigned App Store

For those in the app world, getting found on Apple’s App Store can make or break your business. This is why when Apple announced a drastic redesign of their App Store, it was immediately the most interesting part of their WWDC. We don’t think anything else announced compares to how this update can potentially affect millions of developers’ bottom lines.
Changes include making it easier to discover apps (we’ll see), a new “Today tab” that will feature different apps and the stories behind them, better insight into what apps have updated, and a more useful search with better search results (again, we’ll see). And it certainly looks a lot nicer.

It’s early to say these changes will make developers happy, but anything to reengage with the 500 million weekly visitors to the App Store is welcome. At the very least, new places where apps may get featured is a good thing, and there’s also a new “share story” feature that lets users share an app’s blurb with friends. That alone has the potential of helping apps go viral.
The App Store update is definitely something app marketers should look closely in to. Apple’s Newsroom has more.

2. ARKit

We just posted about how augmented reality is an emerging platform for mobile apps that’s quite exciting. With the announcement of ARKit, Apple is ready to jump into these waters and help developers leverage the power of their ubiquitous hardware with some great software.

Google’s doing AR (most notably their Tango project), Facebook is too (focusing on the power of the camera), and now Apple. They’re a little late to the party, but that’s classic Apple as they work behind closed doors to put out the best experience possible. And with rumors of AR glasses in the works, along with best-in-class cameras on their flagship smartphones, Apple is ready to give eager developers access to this new platform.
If Apple can spur on AR app development, it could catapult the fledgling industry. After all, Apple says they’ve got “the largest AR platform in the world,” and they’re not wrong. Now even the least savvy person with an iPhone has a potential AR device in their pocket. And that’s pretty exciting.

3. WatchOS 4

Any Apple Watch announcements are going to be mid-tier for us since, well, we don’t quite know what to make of the product. There’s wasn’t an Apple Watch 3 announcement, which is fine since the hardware doesn’t need iterating (well, besides battery life); but rather the software.

And the software feature that could have some excitement potential is Siri. From the beginning, having a wrist-mounted personal assistant was the neat promise of the Apple Watch. Now that Siri is coming to watchOS 4, that could become a reality. While you still won’t be able to chat with it (and honestly who’d want to be in public whispering into their watch) the new Siri watchface will use “machine learning” to pump relevant information to you when you need it.
Game changer? Not really. But depending on how intelligent the Siri watchface is, it could give new life to this oft forgotten mobile device.

4. Homepod Speaker

We all knew Apple’s competitor to Google Home and Amazon Echo was coming, and here it is… at $350. Yikes. An Echo Dot costs just $50, by comparison. Yes, Apple has always launched premium versions of hardware, but it’s still a little surprising. Usually when Apple puts out an expensive gadget, it redefines the space. The iPod, the iPhone, the Macbook Air. These all cost a lot more, but brought so much more to the table. The HomePod’s killer feature? Great sound.

If it’s a speaker first, then yes, sound is important. But a) great speakers already exist (you can get a Sonos system for multiple rooms starting at about $350); and b) these gadgets are supposed to be the hub of the home, not just smart speakers. We touted how integral these hubs may be for the future, but the way Apple has positioned the HomePod leaves us wanting. While we expected this to be the physical manifestation of HomeKit, Apple’s IoT play to control a smart-home, they’re selling it as a glorified speaker.
It’s possible that Apple is underselling the device to temper expectations, and to differentiate themselves from an increasingly crowded market. But the WWDC announcement just left us underwhelmed with what we expected to be a game-changing device.

5. iOS updates

From a mobile standpoint, only one iOS update Apple announced held any interest: multitasking on the iPad. And even that is stretching a bit, since Windows and Android has had this feature for a while. But since the iPad Pro (more on that later) is a popular mobile device for businesses, the addition of multitasking definitely makes it a more formidable foe against Window’s Surface tablets.

But aside from that, the new updates in iOS 11 were just yawn-inducing. A more useful Siri? Updated camera features? Apple Pay? Do Not Disturb While Driving? There’re all fine, but none of them had us sitting up in our chairs during the WWDC. At least as mobile app developers, none of this warranted any excitement. Moving on.

6. iPad Pro

We need to mention it, because it’s a mobile device, but the updated iPad Pro was probably the least interesting announcement. The 10.5 inch screen is larger than the previous 9.7 inches of the one introduced in March, and it’s probably more useful than the 12.9 inch screen that’s available. The display is better and brighter, of course, and they increased the storage. But it all feels like they are running out of ideas on how to improve the tablet.

If you were waiting on some killer feature that would bury Window’s Surface, there was nothing here. It’s still a formidable device for businesses, but it’s hard to say it’s any better than before. It feels like the iPad Pro was refreshed for refreshing sake, and that’s why it’s at the bottom of our interest list.
What interested you from Apple’s WWDC?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

4 Great Reasons to Update Your Mobile App

June 2, 2017
 
Ashley Rondeau

No one likes stale bread, beer, or apps. While the first two are easily fixed, refreshing your company’s mobile app can be a chore. It takes development time and resources, and if you’ve ever checked out some of the millions of apps in Google or Apple’s app stores, you’ve seen a lot of businesses take a “good enough” attitude.
If you aren’t already updating your app every two weeks, which is about the sweet spot to be aiming for, your company should reevaluate the frequency of supporting your app. Need some convincing? Here are 4 reasons to update your company’s app sooner than later.

1. One glitch, you’re out.

A recent survey by QualiTest showed just how unforgiving the average mobile user is: 88% will abandon apps because of bugs or glitches. In fact, the report goes on to say that 51% would “abandon an app completely if they experienced one or more bugs in a day.”

Factor this in with the stat that 24% of users will abandon an app after just one use anyway, regardless of it being glitchy or not, and it’s clear that it’s a “one strike, you’re out” situation. And if you think your bugs will fly under their radar, think again: the survey noted that 78% of users notice glitches and bugs in their apps.
You don’t update your app just for updating sake. Your team should be constantly testing the app and performing quality checks to weed out these errors. By sticking to a bi-monthly update schedule, you’ll be able to quickly resolve bugs that just might lose you a customer.

2. It’s time to go 64-bit.

Apple says “jump,” you know what to do; and here we go again. Current beta versions of iOS 10.3 are popping up errors such as this for 32-bit apps:

photo by Andrew Cunningham via arstechnica

Thus, it seems like iOS 11 might be dropping support for apps that aren’t 64-bit. Millions of dusty apps in Apple’s App Store may be facing obsolescence due to this change. Now is the time for your business to update your 32-bit app if you haven’t already.

And while this is a one-off issue, we’ll continue to see mandates from both Apple and Google that force updates just to stay listed on their stores. The businesses that already have a habit of updating their apps regularly will be able to take these changes in stride, while those that have let their apps languish will always be playing catch up. If your company needs to update to 64-bit, use this opportunity to set a regular update schedule for your app.

3. Security or bust.

Mobile app users are becoming more savvy by the day, and honestly they have a good reason to be. Privacy in today’s mobile-first age is a huge concern. Just recently, research showed that “more than 70% of smartphone apps are reporting personal data to third-party tracking companies.” It doesn’t matter to users that many of these app do this for legitimate reasons such as location-based information; users will read this “7 out of 10” headline and be nervous to use any app.

Convincing your customers that your business cares about their privacy and online security is not just practical, but good for your bottom line. A recent report by Apadmi showed that the biggest reason shoppers hesitate to use a retail app is due to security concerns, and this leads to lost sales. According to Nick Black, CEO of Apadmi:

It remains clear that until retailers can convince consumers that their information and data will be secure, mobile shopping apps will fail to reach their full potential.”

By updating your app regularly to comply with the newest security concerns, and highlighting these changes in the changelog (release notes) on your app store listing, you will earn user trust with each iteration.

4. Every update is a marketing bump.

Let’s take it right from the horse’s mouth:

Yes, Apple makes it very clear that regular updates are one of the best ways to market your app, not only to those who have already downloaded them (to reengage with them), but to stay competitive in the App Store, because updated apps generally get a bump in the rankings.
We love this quote from SavvyApps:

App updates can also help build a loyal following, provided that the updates include relevant bug fixes and features that users are requesting. Frequent updates show you’re committed to the app and that it’s still being maintained. Having a loyal following for your app will help it spread on and offline. The most loyal users may even suggest your app as an option when people ask about alternatives to apps they are using now. This type of commitment could never be earned just through marketing alone.

They’re absolutely right, and your company’s commitment to consistent updates will have a direct impact on the success of your app with your target audience.
How often do you update your app? Can you push a release every two weeks?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.