What Does Apple's Announcement Mean for App Developers?

What Does Apple's Announcement Mean for App Developers?

By:
Erik Goins
Published on:
June 11, 2024

Yesterday (June 10), Apple held their annual keynote at WWDC24. The major announcements centered around AI. In short, AI is being integrated into most of Apple’s products: Mail, Notes, Calls, Calendar, iMessage, and Siri, which is receiving a complete overhaul.

The full keynote is available here, and Apple’s brief synopsis reads: “Introducing Apple Intelligence, AI for the rest of us. Exciting updates are coming with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, watchOS 11, and visionOS 2.”

What Does This Mean for You?

At Flywheel, we develop mobile apps for iOS, and Apple constitutes a significant portion of our user base and revenue. After every event, we ask ourselves: How does this impact us, our clients, and their users?

No Low-Hanging Fruit

Since OpenAI and ChatGPT launched, we’ve seen dozens of startups integrating OpenAI’s technology into new interfaces, tailoring it for specific use cases. Examples include:

- CopyAI, which helps you write content

- Fireflies, which summarizes calls

- MotionAI, which integrates with your calendar and manages scheduling

Apple’s announcement delivers a significant blow to these services. We don’t expect them to disappear, but the easy days are over. It’s no longer sufficient to offer an AI solution for a specific use case when Apple products come with AI installed and integrated. Products must be 10 times better or include unique features (e.g., enterprise requirements) to stand out and succeed.

The New Competitive Advantage

While Apple’s announcement challenges many AI startups, it also creates new strategic opportunities for others. As part of Siri’s makeover, Apple is introducing new ways to integrate and engage with users. We’ve identified three ways this impacts mobile apps:

1. App Intents: Siri can now take direct action within your application. Developers and app owners should ask themselves: What do my users want to do hands-free or through Siri? Actions like skipping a song, reading the next step in a set of instructions, or scheduling an event are all new possibilities.

2. Increased Discoverability: Apps that integrate with Siri become more discoverable in Spotlight, the Shortcuts app, Control Center, and more.

3. App Entities: Siri can understand information from your app and provide users with that information from anywhere in the system. Similar to App Intents, this offers a new and exciting way to engage with users. Some ideas we’ve had include:

   - “When’s my next workout?”

   - “How much gas does my car have?”

   - “What am I eating for lunch today?”

Now is the time for app developers to think: “What new features can I provide my users?”

Our main takeaway is that Siri integration offers a competitive advantage to engage users even when they’re outside your application. Consider what actions users would want to take with your app hands-free and what information they might want quickly or hands-free.

Some Siri integrations will be gimmicks—complex developments with little direct value and minimal usage. However, they’re still worth considering for marketing purposes. They can make your app stand out, and users often expect to use features they see in marketing (even if that doesn’t always happen).

Lastly, we don’t expect the majority of mobile applications to integrate with Apple Intelligence and Siri. The level of complexity and budget required is beyond the reach of basic application developers, which creates an advantage for those that can.

So, What’s Next?

Most of Apple’s announcements aren’t live or available yet. Their actual use and feature quality remain to be seen. Some will be overhyped, while others will lead to exciting new use cases and developments over time.

Now is the time to start planning. Identify the features you might want to release and gather user feedback to understand their interests. Then, incorporate these features into your release cycles as you normally would.

We expect the next few years will significantly impact application development and the features users adopt and expect. As with any exciting development, significant work lies ahead, and we’re eager to see what unfolds!

Additional Reading

- WWDC 2024 Keynote Video

- WWDC 2024 Keynote Synopsis

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