Hot Apple News!

Chaim Meyer 26 February 2018

There is never a dull moment with Apple; the tech mogul announced yet another change to its iOS 11 App Store, not too long after its official launch. This time, however, many questions arise and not fully answered. Apple expanded the screenshots section on the App Store, allowing up to 10 (!) screenshots per app, which is double the amount that was available before. Preview video limitation has remained unchanged, and is still at 3 videos of 30 seconds each.

Why is This Good?

Well, for starters, we are all for any changes in either of the app stores. Any innovation is a step forward, allowing for more creative, more growth and hopefully more installs. With such a limited space to begin with, it was often hard to be forced to focus on only 4-5 top features, knowing that choosing one is giving up on the other. Now, with what feels like unlimited space, you can easily promote all your app’s features.

Having Said That

True, as marketers we relish on any advertising space we are given. However, as only a fraction of users go past the first 2 screenshots, only a small percentage of users will actually get to see the last 5 screens.Therefore, It seems that the only initial outcome is more work for designers.

So What Should You Do?

As this is brand new, we are still testing the effect and possibilities of this update. Based on our experience though, we believe the following can benefit from a 10 screen app page:

Apps with lots of traffic to their app page – a fraction of a big number is still significant, so developers with high traffic app pages should consider utilizing the screenshots to their fullest extent.
Complex apps – if your app is packed with features, and 5 screens are just not enough space to detail, you might want to use the additional space to showcase what your app is about (though a preview video might just do the trick). This might be useful as we often see users in more complex categories (e.g. finance), scrolling for more information about the app before they make their decision whether to download it.

What’s clear is that Apple is not wasting any time. Until now Google Play was on the lead in the screenshot competition with space for 8 screenshots, now Apple has taken the lead. Will Google retaliate? And how? While Google Play is adding new features and new devices come to the market (e.g. iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9 announced yesterday), the battle between the App Store and Google Play is as hot as ever.

Chaim Meyer