[img_assist|nid=26219|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=147|height=150]The majority of the changes made by Apple with the launch of iOS 7 will have a positive impact on app developers and advertisers. Apple’s iOS platform has proven to be a very lucrative vertical for mobile app developers. As reported from the Apple WWDC, Apple has paid out $10bn (£6.5bn) to iOS developers, on its way to securing 50bn app downloads within its App Store. You should expect these numbers to trend upwards with the addition of iOS 7.

The benefits for developers and advertisers can be broken down into two core pillars, user acquisition and user retention/engagement. Let’s first look at user acquisition. The biggest difference is the change in the App Store charts. They now have a very similar look to the Google Play charts, as users scroll down a vertical list of apps with the top five appearing “above the fold.”

This new design makes it more likely that users will scroll through more apps, increasing discoverability. This, in theory, would also make boost campaigns more effective. With boost campaigns, a large amount of marketing budget is allocated during a short timespan to “boost” an app to the top of the charts. Once an app is there, a number of organic installs occur due to the exposure of being listed in the top 10 or so.

Another significant change in the App Store that will have a positive effect on user acquisition is the new, location-dependent app discovery service. This will be particularly useful for travel and hotel apps that are used by users in various locations. This could prove useful for small and medium-sized businesses.

Automatic app updating
A number of new features should also increase user retention and engagement, thus boosting app “stickiness”. Another Android-inspired concept coming to iOS is automatic app updating. Not only will developers and advertisers be more prone to update their apps, since more users will be running the latest version, but this also means that dormant users will get the newest version of an app, which could help re-engagement. For instance, imagine a developer redesigns their app’s logo. The user could scroll through their apps, see the new logo, and then be tempted to open the app. Once in the app, they could discover they like the new updates and continue engaging with it.

This automatic updating will also be important for the IDFA transition. This comes on the heels of Apple implementing the ban on the unique identifier (UDID) at the start of May. That, in conjunction with the fact that Apple will eliminate the MAC Address as a tracking option once iOS 7 is released, makes it imperative for app developers and advertisers to adopt IDFA tracking. Without this, users cannot be tracked within an app, and therefore targeted properly.

The automatic updates could allow the IDFA transition to happen faster, since more users will be running the most up-to-date versions of apps featuring the new SDK. With better tracking, developers can not only effectively target and acquire quality users, but may reap monetization benefits through the influx of advertising that may occur. Advertisers could very well increase mobile ad spend, if they can better target the right users via the IDFA.

Multitasking
The next important addition is the multitasking feature. Now, double-tapping the home screen brings up not just tiny thumbnail icons of your open apps, but also a tall preview of what you’re looking at, increasing users engagement with apps. Now that users can more freely move from app to app, their time spent within an app may increase.

The last major change is that the pull-down Notifications menu is now accessible from the lock screen; three tabs show all of a user’s alerts. Such an accessible notifications panel could change the effectiveness of push notifications, which are a major form of communication between apps and their incumbent user base. An effective push notification is a primary tactic in getting users to re-engage with an app.
Overall, developers should find it easier to both acquire and retain users on iOS 7 and expect revenue figures and downloads to trend upwards.

Joseph Vito DeLuca is mobile marketing specialist at Trademob