Year in, year out Apple has been improving its mobile operating system that every iPhone runs on - the iOS. This year its 15th version has just hit the market. In some years, Apple’s focus is on introducing new features, others on polishing some features, sometimes they don’t get a particular feature right from the first shot and they need to revisit it again next year - Apple’s engineers are human beings, like you and me.

In particular, amongst all these updates there are some that are of interest to mobile app marketers. Today we’ll cover such updates introduced with iOS 15 and we have Dave Bell, CEO of Gummicube, a leader in providing Big Data Analytics for the App Stores, which is used for App Store Optimization, Mobile Marketing and Market Analysis, here to tell all about it.

✔️Dave's been in the mobile marketing space since 1999, actually was among developers who created and published apps for featured phones, before the rise of Apple's iOS App Store for the iPhone.

✔️Gummicube is the oldest North America-based App Store Optimization company, more than 11 years on the market, built the tech to help app marketers to understand how the app stores work from an app marketing perspective.

✔️Apple's focus with iOS, as well as in general, is app users' data privacy and creating a more robust experience for app marketers.

✔️iOS 15 beta feature Private Relay, which is essentially Apple's VPN - another Apple's step in the direction of replacing iOS apps developed by a third party, when the stakes are high, like in the case of iOS app users privacy and data safety.

✔️Updates for the iOS's Spotlight

✔️A/B testing solution for iOS

✔️Custom Product Pages

✔️Searchable In-App Events

✔️SKAdNetwork enhancements

✔️App Clips updates

✔️Dave's iOS 15 favorite features

• Dave Bell's Linkedin profile

"Apple is moving in the direction when they are going to make it more convinient for their user to stay with Apple ecosystem.

Frankly, if you're looking at the amount of time people spend in mobile apps versus websites, I think the statistics is 88% of the time is being spent in the mobile app versus web.

But I think that actually the reality of In-App Events is going to be much more broad because of this in even in apps, you know, categories you wouldn't think of, like Productivity, Utilities simply because in-app events are re-engagement ASO."

• App industry marketplace

We are more than a year and a half into this pandemic and, aside from the multiple challenges it’s brought into our lives, there is this one - are you ready to volunteer to help others, providing your business’s services for free? Are you entirely focused on your own survival or you are willing to help people to relieve some of the challenges they’re going through?

In this episode, Nick, Managing Partner at Swenson He - award-winning digital development company, will tell us the story of how his company's commitment to help people in need hit by COVID-19 and more.

✔️Nick's story starts at MIT, where he was studying to become a bio-engineer and met his future co-founder and COO of Swenson HE Chao He, with whom he shared the same passion about new digital experiences. Nick has been fascinated with building the bridge between digital and the real world and understanding how to make this bridge useful for people based on their perception of it.

✔️Swenson HE is a software development company that works on both mobile and desktop software projects. Their portfolio ranges from Fortune 500 companies to small clients with unique needs.

✔️Luckily Nick's company team was already in the business of changing their operations to understand how they can work remotely prior to COVID-19 and hence the pandemic didn't hit hard his team.

✔️Watching how other businesses were impacted by the pandemic, Nick's team decided to figure out how they can help the most and make the biggest impact. That effort lead to launching several projects, one example was working with the Reach Project to build a platform for their latest initiative: feeding the “Invisible Aggies,” essential employees on the Texas A&M campus, who have been laid off due to Covid19.

✔️The most challenging part of any app development project - engagement, making sure people interact with the app and it brings them real value.

✔️Today innovation in app design is about figuring out how to develop apps that meet today's standards of Gen Ze.

✔️It's hard to pinpoint what today's cutting-edge tech will eventually stay or will be left in the dust over time.

✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS

✔️ What apps would Nick miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Email.

• Nick Swenson Linkedin profile

"Digital experiences are about this transitioning between the digial world and a real world and understanding how users interact with an interface and how they think, desicions they make. It's very much is in some cases is a psychology problem. 

If you aren't innnovating you already behind."

• App industry marketplace

One of the biggest differences in a life of a marketer, from let’s say, 10 years ago is that today a big chunk, of not entire, marketing campaign that she or he runs for a brand's product or service takes place on social media. But the reason why marketing on social media really works is people. Influencers Or Creators.

Now question is - how much do they charge? Well, the answer is classic - it depends. It depends on a particular social media platform and other factors. Today we’ve got Joe Sinkwitz, CEO at Intellinfluence marketing platform that helps brands partner with key influencers to achieve better results, to riddle this question for you.

Today’s Topics Include:

✔️Joe is a veteran of digital marketing, spending a quarter of a century in this area and Intellinfluence his latest creation.

✔️Intellifluence is the largest warm contact Influencer marketing network

✔️How the idea to issue the 2021 Influencer Compensation Report came about and what did it take

✔️How much does it take to launch a marketing campaign via Influencers on Instagram

✔️How much do Influencers charge for a marketing campaign on Twitter and who are the biggest Influencers on Twitter

✔️What would be a marketing budget to fun an Influencer marketing campaign via Influencers on YouTube

✔️What is a ballpark for a marketing campaign via Influencers on TikTok.

✔️What are the biggest takeaways from the report for brands

✔️Influencer versus Creator - what's the difference and what brands should know about each.

✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS

✔️ What apps would Joe miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. You would be surprised - good old making calls :-)

✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? The mix of AR with auto-translation makes traveling easier.

Links and Resources:

• Joe Sinkwitz Linkedin profile

Quotes from Joe Sinkwitz:

"The hard part was getting people to fill up the survey

So the data absolutely will be skewed towards micro-influencers internet network but it's really interesting just to see how they felt about everyone.

The coolest thing that came out 41% felt that brand is not pitching them the right amounts."

• App industry marketplace

Even if you aren’t a tech pundit, who has been following all stories about social media companies, inevitably you stumble upon a breaking story about Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok that talks about their negative impact on our society, on teenagers’ mental health and even on the democracy itself.

You may get an impression that there is no way how you can design a social network differently, so you won’t get such a flip side. But that’s not the case and Sacha, CEO of Yubo, will tell us how it’s actually possible to achieve.

Today’s Topics Include:

✔️Sacha is on a mission to improve how people interact online, hence his involvement into developing multiple social media apps prior to Yubo

✔️Yubo is a social media platform for Gen Z to interact with each other in small groups

✔️ It doesn't compete with big social media platforms like Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat. 

✔️ Yubo is the social media app that doesn't push its users to be hooked on such concepts as Likes, Comments and Followers.

✔️ The app applies 8 age-verification procedures to make sure it has on board legit age users only

✔️ The platform is ads free, it's freemium based with paid options & subscriptions to get more engagement

✔️ Yubo is used by Gen Z on their leisure time - after school, on weekends or holidays

✔️ Once COVID-19 hit both usage and engagement shot up

✔️ Yubo is available on both iOS and Android but the bulk of users on iOS

✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS

✔️ What apps would Nico miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Good old placing calls function :-)

✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? 

Links and Resources:

• Sacha Linkedin profile

Quotes from Sacha Lazimi:

"...with the same mission "To improve how people meet each other and connect online"

Yubo is just an iteration of what I've done with my co-founder and we always have the same mission.

Yubo is a social platform to socialize online all over the world and designed for Generation Z. It's a public space where you have a small group that interacting publicly through video, audio and chat."

• App industry marketplace

On the enormous landscape of mobile apps, there are two special categories that have been grabbing a lot of businesses attention - SAAS (stands for Software As a Service) and App Subscriptions.

Both generate tens of millions of dollars for such companies as Slack, HULU, Netflix, Spotify and others. While there are obvious differences between these two, like it's a lot easier to get loads of users for a SAAS app (because all these people are employees of a particular company) as opposed to doing your best to reach out people who will benefit from an App Subscription app, but there are similarities too.

In this episode we've got Nico Wittenborn from Adjacent to tell us about these similarities and lessons that can be applied from the world of SAAS apps to the App Subscriptions.

Today’s Topics Include:

✔️Nico's career's trajectory: from re-selling refurbished iPhones to investing into big SAAS apps

✔️What is an App Subscription

✔️App Subscription model advantages and limitations

✔️Enterprise SAAS vs. Consumer App Subscription model

✔️SAAS and App Subscription apps growth indicators

✔️What's coming up in the mobile space

✔️ Android or iOS? both iOS and Android

✔️ What apps would Nico miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Not much, he does leave it on purpose to limit the time he interacts with the phone

✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? Having better tools for the smartphone screen time moderation

Links and Resources:

• Nico's Linkedin profile

Quotes from Nico Wittenborn:

"Yeah, it did. It sounds like a bit of exaggeration but in retrospect the iPhone definitely changed my trajectory.

It's not really new that we pay for something on a recurrent basis that we use for a long time, it's just for software it seems to be the evolution - first we paid for a license once for a product on a CD and now we pay on a monthly basis

The interesting thing is that after one or two years, if the company is still stick around, they're flatting out in terms of their reach and retention and so there might be a big drop in the first year for a company with an app subscription but the second year they almost don't drop anymore"

• App industry marketplace