iOS 11: How to Prepare Your Mobile App

Earlier this week, we hosted a webinar to share what you need to know about iOS 11 and how you can make sure your app is prepare for it’s launch. If you missed it, don’t worry! We’ve got you covered with a recap below, along with a recording of the webinar.

The recap includes a quick overview of what’s new with iOS 11 and how Apptentive supports the changes.

What’s new with iOS 11

There are two key changes to be aware of with iOS 11. First, third-party ratings prompts are not permitted in apps built on iOS 11. Apple wants publishers to use the provided API for requesting reviews and will reject apps built for iOS 11 that are using custom review prompts.

Second, you will have a choice to reset your ratings between app versions. Similar to the Google Play Store, an app’s rating won’t reset with each new version (unlike today). Instead, it will reflect the overall rating. You will have the ability to reset the app’s rating at your discretion.

These changes are specific to iOS 11, and will come in addition to the changes iOS 10.3 brought with it. Need a refresher on iOS 10.3? Read our blog post, What In-App Ratings in iOS 10.3 Mean For App Store Ratings & Customer Feedback.

Now that you know what’s new with iOS 11, how can you prepare your app?

How Apptentive supports iOS 11

We’re excited about Apple’s commitment to improving the customer experience. iOS 11 adds onto the improvements iOS 10.3 made, and we’re happy to continue building capabilities that support Apple’s new requirements. Specifically, our targeting capabilities and reporting dashboard give our customers more control over how they can leverage Apple’s rating method.

Now that Apple limits rating prompts to three times per year, be cognizant of who, where, and how often you’re reaching out to customers.

First, consider who you’re sending ratings prompts to. If your customer is in the app, you want to make sure they’ve had sufficient time to use the app before you ask them to rate it. We always recommend focusing on the quality of interactions with customers. If someone has used the app once, and you ask them to rate the app, they probably don’t have enough experience to give you quality feedback.

Second, consider when you’re sending customers the Apple Rating Prompt. When you walk into Nordstrom, they don’t immediately ask if you’d like a fitting room. Instead, they wait until you have a couple of things in your hand first. While you might want to prompt someone who has made a purchase in the app, be considerate of when you’re sending the prompt. Instead of prompting them on the purchase confirmation screen, wait until they’ve hit the back button so that you don’t interrupt their experience.

Third, be cognizant of how often you’re prompting customers. This plays into Apple’s limitations on the number of prompts app publishers are allowed to send customers per year and their desire to make each interaction with customers a meaningful one. We recommend waiting at least 120 days after sending a customer Apple’s Rating Prompt before doing so again.

In addition to reporting how many customers you’ve shown the Apple Rating Prompt to, we also keep track of the number of times the Apple prompt was called but not shown.

When the prompt is called but not shown, it is because of one of three reasons; the customer could’ve reached their threshold of three views per year, they could’ve opted out of receiving ratings prompts all together (a feature Apple introduced in iOS 10.3), or the customer hasn’t updated to the iOS version that’s required to show the prompt.

Early results of Apple’s SKStoreReviewController API

Apple launched their new in-app rating prompt with the release of iOS 10.3. We have a number of customers who have already adopted the method and are seeing positive results. The median number of app ratings have increased by 20% since moving to apple rating prompt. The increase is likely due to the ease in which customers are able to leave reviews with the Apple Rating Prompt since they don’t have to leave the app and sign into the app store to leave a rating.

The increase in the volume of ratings with the SKStoreReviewController API is a result of a 10-15x increase in efficacy. In other words, our customers are prompting less people and receiving more reviews. This improvement is ideal, because it allows our customers to diversify the way they’re talking to their customers by adding more interaction types without overloading consumers.

Get started today

We’re excited for you to use the latest version of the Apptentive iOS SDK (find it here) to prepare your app for iOS 11’s launch.

We hope you make the most out of Apple’s new capabilities, and we look forward to helping more of you deliver #CustomerLove. If you have more questions about what iOS 11 means for your app, or how you can best prepare, don’t hesitate to ask! Reach out to us at info@apptentive.com or leave a comment below.