“It is the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone.”
Apple’s Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer, made this statement about iOS 7 during the Worldwide Developers Conference a few months ago. This announcement superseded news regarding iTunes Radio, Mavericks, and the Mac Pro. iOS 7 isn’t a simple facelift from previous versions, it’s a critical juncture towards what lies ahead for the future of this operating system.
Today, the much-anticipated and questioned ecosystem upgrade is unveiled to the world. Users will immediately notice the more colorful aesthetic–almost Android-like–and an enhanced typeface for easier reading. Some of the new touch gestures include: swipe-left allows smooth toggle between various programs, double-tap of the home button shows off all open apps, and a nifty Control Center to change one’s settings. Also, the AirDrop feature enables users to share content with others by a one-click motion.
Bearing in mind such design and functionality changes, developers have had to prepare in advance for them. There has been under a one percent growth rate of apps within the App Store over these recent months, per GigaOM. This decline marks a three percent drop-off after two years consisting of a monthly four percent uptick. Developers have been better served to hold off updates and new submissions in order to accommodate the significant alterations of the iOS 7 infrastructure. Some of them are cognizant that without making the necessary enhancements, a lot of apps will quickly become virtually obsolete to the user and may need to exit from the App Store entirely.
Conversely, the sports mobile space will be affected by the iOS 7 launch just like every other sector that comprises the over 900,000 library of apps within the App Store. The top 200 apps of which produce $5.1 million in revenue each day. There’s currently 11 sports apps among the top 50 free ones, including the first and third spots with the new NFL Mobile and ESPN Fantasy Football, respectively. Overall, sports apps constitute 3.4 percent of the total combined marketplace between the App Store and Google Play as of March this year.
The potential for exponential growth within the sports sector is certainly there. Major sporting events have proven engagement levels at scale. According to a Arbitron Mobile’s study, Super Bowl usage of sports apps was close to 13 percent and then March Madness eclipsed that mark at over 18 percent with nearly 64 minutes per sessions for that month to boot. These respective sample sizes demonstrate that the surface is just being scratched. Innovation in the user experience front and maximizing the latest developments of iOS 7 will dictate successful sports app properties going forward.
“Ultimately, iOS 7 will reshuffle the deck–and so presents a great opportunity to gain or lose market share and branding value in the space,” wrote Tobias Dengel, Chief Executive Officer of WillowTree Apps, recently in a blog post.
WillowTree Apps is at the forefront of this seminal ecosystem evolution. They have developed marquee sports apps such as the NBA All-Star 2013 App and the Barclays Center, both first of their kind. SporTechie had the pleasure to discuss this topic with Mike Moore, WillowTree App’s General Manager of Media and Platform Development, and explore in-depth the potential threats and opportunities iOS 7 presents to the sports mobile space in an exclusive interview below.
SportTechie: What are the biggest challenges that sports apps face as the iOS 7 ecosystem enters the space, both from a design and functionality standpoint?
Mike Moore: Design Challenges: Sports apps are typically very data-dense and traditional sports media aesthetic is flashy/glossy (use of gradients). This is very different than iOS 7, which is the utilization of white space, flat design, etc. Sports will always be data-driven because sports fans like to dive into the data and statistics. Navigating sports content on iOS 5/6 is very-list driven, and very much like web navigation. A Philadelphia Phillies fan that is interested in how Chase Utley is hitting follows a set of lists or channels to get down to the player (baseball > national league > east division > Phillies > Chase Utley). This experience is detailed and organized, but can be a bit tedious from a navigation perspective. With iOS 7 app publishers can use transitions that will allow users to dive deeply (visually “zoom in and out”) to the data they want from various entry points in the app in an elegant and direct way.
Functionality Challenges:
• UI breakdowns that will appear as bugs to the end user.
• Almost all existing apps will look like they don’t fit, and over time, the app will look antiquated.
• Some apps will cease to function.
SportTechie: Which sports apps in the marketplace are best prepared to deal with this change, particularly from a macro-level standpoint? Why?
Moore: At a macro-level, we believe that app publishers/developers that have built apps with deliberate platform/native experiences are best placed to take advantage of the opportunities that iOS7 brings.
For example, publishers/developers that have committed to native iOS development will have better context and a shorter learning curve to take full advantage of what iOS 7 will bring.
Conversely, apps that have been built using cross-platform development tools in order scale or get to marketing quickly will not be in position to evolve quickly with updates like iOS 7. It will take time to learn the subtleties of iOS 7 (and indeed updates to Android and Mobile Web) and a longer ramp to develop. Apps that have been published using these tools may have enjoyed some efficiencies to date, but could quickly fall behind those developed natively.
SportTechie: Do you predict the user adoption rate among sports fans to iOS 7 to match the overall projected pace, or will the switch be different within this demographic?
Moore: Adoption of iOS 7 will be driven by two main forces: (i) sports publishers and their fans are traditionally early adopters of hardware and software, (ii) Apple will constructively prompt downloads. Within the Sports and News/Media verticals, WillowTree Apps clients experienced a very high adoption rate from iOS 5 to 6.
Additionally, the update from iOS 5 to iOS 6 was not ‘necessary’. Publishers of sports apps will be at the front of the line on iOS 7 and will be in a position to help fans consume content as easy and often as possible. Apple will creatively prompt users trying to download these new iOS7-designed apps to download and install in one go. In other words, the publishers/developers will create really compelling apps that fans will really want, and Apple will make the transition to iOS 7 easier and faster than ever.
SportTechie: On launch day, what are some other benefits besides publicity and sustained or potentially increase user session time that sports apps should look to take advantage of? What’s the most important opportunity out there for this vertical to be cognizant of and why?
Moore: As with any major change in software/products, there is definitely a first-mover advantage to be had for apps that embrace iOS 7. While sports fans tend to be early adopters of hardware and software, they also tend to be brand loyal. Fans tend to follow their teams on certain sites, sign up with same fantasy provider, etc.
Typically, web properties renew/relaunch on an annual (sometimes longer) timeline. Inertia can be a powerful thing. However, mobile development moves very quickly, platforms are updated and apps launch more frequently creating more opportunities to change. Apps that take full advantage of iOS 7 and create newer, faster, deeper experiences are in a position to potentially steal share from those who have not moved as quickly.
Specific Advantages:
Background Refreshing — Within iOS6, the function of closing an app takes awhile. In contrast, iOS 7 has created a concept called “back-grounding” — which is the ability to operate, multi-task, and function multiple requests in the background while the user can be performing other tasks on their device. Sports apps can utilize the speed and performance of “back-grounding” allows the app to update without user interaction; so when a user opens an app, there is no down-time, all scores, highlights, etc. have already been downloaded and ready for use.
App developers need to be cognizant however… just because it can, does not mean it should. Updating an entire app can quickly drain a user’s device. So, being smart about tasking and assigning priorities will be crucial. Asking the user to identify which metrics, scores, teams, etc. to enable smart updating/ efficient use of time for the app developer, which equates to a good user experience.
Gesture-Driven Navigation — iOS 7 facilitates “content first” experiences. By concentrating on the actual content and removing overt navigation prompts, publishers/developers can create deeper, more intuitive experiences.
For example, if an app has a graph feature that is showing where shots are being taken on a basketball court during a game, and a user wants to go deeper to see who has been shooting and with what level of success.
On iOS 6, the user would likely tap (prompted) on a portion of the graph and a new view would open to see the detail/data they are after.
On iOS 7, a user could simply “pinch” the area on the court they are interested in, and draw out a table with the data they are after, and release back to the original graphic. This change is more intuitive to the user and cuts down on views and transition, making best use of the space on screen.
SportTechie: What trendy iOS elements do you foresee will emerge exclusively to the sports app sector? Prior to iOS 7, what have been some overarching trends that have emerged solely from sports apps? Is there any specific quality, feature, or aesthetic that this vertical has missed out on in the past that they should consider incorporating now, especially if these characteristics have proven to be successful in the overall landscape externally?
Moore: Prior to iOS 7, sports apps have been some of the primary drivers of in-app video streaming. Whether it is on-demand highlight packages or live video, sports apps have driven the majority of innovation in mobile video streaming. Strangely enough, text and graphic executions in sports apps have been quite poor. Often times, text/graph views are simply web views and do not create crisp/high quality experiences.
One of the biggest effects of iOS 7 is that sports apps will be able to deliver magazine-quality presentation of text and graphic content WITH integrated video and rich media. The tools that accompany iOS 7 like Text Kit will give designers/developments what they need to create fully integrated multimedia views — crisp text/fonts, glossy images and thoughtful/contextually relevant video and rich media.
SportTechie: For stage No. 5, “Complex World”, how would you describe this evolution within sports apps since the inception of iOS. What are the best case studies to this point that have tackled these plethora of factors? What’s the biggest threat or opportunity looming as it pertains to this specific stage for the sports sector?
Moore: With previous version of iOS 1-6 we were holding users hands with functionality, not a lot of change through aesthetics; i.e. gradients on buttons to communicate to folks it’s a button. iOS 7 lets the content come to the foreground; the focus on data — which the fan gravitates to — with iOS 7 we can place the flashy part behind us and concentrate on just the sports data (edge to edge data) – not the fluff around it. (Talk about box scores on the NY Times — less than 20 percent is commentary, and commentary is small text.)
SportTechie: Have sports apps in general been receptive to allow users to multi-task based on their UI? Will more of them cater to this tendency as iOS emerges? Why should they and what are some examples that potentially could be taken advantage of?
Moore: The beauty of apps is that they allow sports fans to do one thing or a couple of things really well and really fast! That is why we have seen a proliferation of single-subject or single-function sports — apps that concentrate on single sports/leagues, provide scores, fantasy, etc. A short-cut to do one thing. Now the app, within iOS 7, presents a business challenge — do you stay within one silo and just produce scores, or do we need to consider consumer behavior and provide more than just one silo? We don’t believe that the change in OS will totally revolutionize the ways sports fans use apps.
SportTechie: Could you elaborate on Apple’s Deference philosophy? How do you foresee sports app leveraging their insatiable content to maximize to this new interface?
Moore: The Deference philosophy is effectively Apple’s suggestion that designers and developers should create experiences that are content-first. Focus on content, minimize the UI (navigation and tool bars will minimize and focus on producing the content in a way for consumers to consume).
iOS 7 was designed (and is the first OS) with the view that consumers understand touch screens.
In Apple’s words:
Deference. The UI helps users understand and interact with the content, but never competes with it.
Clarity. Text is legible at every size, icons are precise and lucid, adornments are subtle and appropriate, and a sharpened focus on functionality motivates the design.
Depth. Visual layers and realistic motion heighten users’ delight and understanding.
SportTechie: How do you project the sports sector to handle this change within the next year and beyond? How critical is it now for sports properties to be on mobile and why in light of iOS 7? What trends will emerge as a byproduct of this that should be taken into consideration now?
Moore: Sports have loyal, passionate and engaged fans. There are degrees of “fandom” and technology is a key driver and currency within the world of sports fans. Being a fan is a 24/7 proposition. Mobile apps have armed fans to be “super fans”. Perhaps the highest order of fan is the fantasy sports fan. In a world where player/team/game information is available 24/7, the fantasy sports fan needs to be connected wherever and whenever there is new information breaking. Fans that are not armed with mobile applications for news, scores, transactions and games are not only disadvantaged, they are in a lower league! App publishers/developers have the opportunity to create experiences that change the way fans engage the content they crave and other fans. We believe that making mobile the central part of a fan’s arsenal will help them become the super fans they long to be by giving them: content, communication, and commerce access wherever and whenever the game is ready.
SportTechie: Thank you for all your time and insights, Mike.