ASO news digest. June 2024

The ASO news digest is our desire to keep abreast of the updates that have occurred in the mobile application market over the past month. Any update or change in the rules of the major app stores can have an impact on ASO tactics and strategy. Here you can find the June 2024 update from the App Store and Google Play.

Review of ASO news from the App Store

1. The winners of the 2024 Apple Design Award are known:

The annual Apple Design Awards recognize innovation, ingenuity and technical achievement in app and game design. But it also became something more: an opportunity to stop and celebrate the achievements of the entire Apple developer community in all its forms.

Delight and Fun category

• Bears Gratitude is a journaling app from Australia
• NYT Games is a mobile game from the USA that combines puzzles, crosswords and something completely new.

Inclusion category:

• Oko  notifies pedestrians about the status of light signals using tactile and audio feedback.
• Crayola Adventures is an adventure that sets a new standard for inclusive and gender-neutral character creation options that include diverse skin tones, abilities, body types, pronouns, and more.

Innovation category:

• Procreate Dreams is the new standard for creating 2D animations on the iPad. Procreate Dreams is a beautifully designed tool that allows creatives to create animations using the rich and familiar PencilKit-enabled library of brushes, gestures, and behaviors from the original Procreate.
• Lost in Play is a game that feels like a graphic novel come to life. Every corner of his inventive world, from the eerie forest to the clifftop village, is filled with visual imagination and handcrafted charm.

All other categories can be found on the official Apple Awards resource.

2. Pricing and tax updates for apps, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.

The App Store makes it easy to sell digital goods and services around the world, supporting 44 currencies across 175 stores. And starting June 21, app prices and in-app purchases will be updated in a number of countries. More information about taxes and geography can be found here.

3. Upcoming Regional Age Rankings in Australia and South Korea

Apple is making the App Store safe for everyone, especially kids. In the coming months, we will need to indicate to App Store Connect whether our app contains loot boxes for purchase. Regional age ratings based on local laws will also automatically appear on product pages for apps in Australia and South Korea.

Australia

• Regional age rating 15+: games with loot boxes.
• Regional age rating 18+: games with frequent/intense manifestations of gambling simulation.

South Korea

• A regional age rating is displayed if the app is categorized as "Games" or "Entertainment" or contains frequent/intense simulations of gambling.

No other action is required. Regional age ratings are added to Apple's global ratings.

You can read more here.

4. App Store on Apple Vision Pro enters new markets

Apple Vision Pro will be launched on June 28 in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, and on July 12 in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the UK. Our apps and games will automatically be available on the App Store in these regions if they are selected in App Store Connect.

The main thing with WWDC 24

On June 10, Apple's annual conference was held, where major updates were presented that could affect our work on optimizing apps on the App Store. What to pay attention to:

1. Featuring on the App Store

Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect - the ability to highlight new content, such as an in-app event, improvements, or a new app launch (or pre-order). When submitting a nomination, please include the expected publication date, relevant countries or regions, and other useful information to provide additional context to the moderation team. How to get to Featured?

2. App promotion

Continuing with the featuring, the App Store provides the opportunity to promote key moments of our app, such as launch, new version or placement on the App Store, using marketing assets that can be created in App Store Connect. It is possible to choose from a variety of visual materials and share them on social networks to encourage users to download our application. If our app is tagged as "App of the Day", for example, we will receive a notification to select resources, share them and celebrate the occasion.

3. Deep links for custom pages.

Custom product pages on the App Store allow us to highlight different features or content of our app. When a user clicks on one of the custom pages, the deep link redirects them to the specified feature or content in our app.

In App Store Connect, you can assign a custom URL or Universal Link that is recognized by our app code.

Later this year, we'll be able to use these deep link pages in Apple Search Ads campaigns to provide a consistent experience from our ads to the content you want in our app.

In this way, we will smoothly transfer the user from his specific interest (due to which the user page was clicked) to the direct user experience inside the application.

4. Reduced requirements for screenshots

Screenshot requirements have been simplified to optimize workflow. iOS and iPadOS apps now require only one screenshot: iOS requires one iPhone screenshot, and iPadOS requires one iPad screenshot. Of course, we can additionally provide screenshots for iPhone and iPad displays of any size if desired, but this is not required.

5. Updating subscription offers.

We're committed to winning back lapsed subscribers and inviting them to renew their subscriptions directly from the App Store with new refund offers. Apple determines a customer's eligibility for the program based on our offer configuration, which allows us to incentivize users to re-subscribe to our app.

Eligible customers can find great deals on the App Store, including our product page and editorial picks in the Today, Games and Apps tabs, and in our app. Users can tap the offer card on the App Store to learn more and redeem the offer by opening or re-downloading our app.

6. TestFlight improvements

Updated the TestFlight invitation and registration process so that developers can attract testers based on their device and operating system, ensuring they receive more valuable feedback to improve their apps.

TestFlight invitations will now include a description of the beta app, its category, and optional screenshots showcasing new features and content for potential testers. Additionally, new metrics allow us to measure engagement with public links and track invitation acceptance or decline rates.

7. Focus State in App Store Search

Later this year, Focus State will be coming to App Store Search to help users more easily find the best apps and games that suit their needs. Focus State will offer users recent and recommended searches, providing quick access to past searches, as well as personalized suggestions to make it easier for them to start a new search.

8. New analytics in App Store Connect

Earlier this year, the App Store expanded the analytics available for our apps to help provide even more insight into product and app performance. These reports include hundreds of new metrics that will allow us to evaluate our performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Report categories include:

• App Store Engagement: the number of people on the App Store who interact with or share our app with others.
• App Store Commerce: downloads, sales, pre-orders and transactions made through the secure App Store shopping experience.
• Application usage: active devices, installations, deletions of applications and much more.
• Using frameworks: interacting the application with OS features such as PhotoPicker and Widgets.
• Performance: how our apps perform and how users interact with specific features.

This new data will help us better understand and improve our apps.

9. Customizing the app icon

Starting with iOS 18, users have the ability to place apps and widgets in any open space on the Home screen, customize the buttons at the bottom of the Lock screen, and quickly access additional controls in Control Center. App icons and widgets can get a new look with a dark or shaded effect, and users can increase their size to create the perfect experience for them. So now developers will have to make sure that product icons remain recognizable despite all possible customizations.

Read more about all the new WWDC 24 products here.

Review of ASO news from Google Play

1. New AI capabilities are in development.

At Google I/O, a new vision of Android was presented with an emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI). By implementing Generative AI (Gen AI), we can create the next generation of Android apps that will provide our users with unparalleled experiences and unique features.

Gemini models support new generative AI applications both in the cloud and on the device. We can now use Gen AI for development, leveraging the most powerful models in the cloud via the Google AI client SDK or Vertex AI for Firebase in our Android apps. Additionally, Gen AI is now integrated into development tools—Gemini in Android Studio improves developer productivity.

2. Android 15 Beta 3 was released

Android 15 Beta 3 is released, which moves Android 15 to Platform Stability status. This means that the APIs and all app-related behaviors are finalized for our review. You can also now publish apps targeting Android 15 to Google Play.

The Beta 3 post describes how users will be able to sign into apps targeting Android 15 using one-step passwords using facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, or a screen lock.

3. Android Device Streaming is already in beta testing

Now the issue with the availability of individual devices has been resolved. Let's say we want to test responsive app layouts on the Google Pixel Fold, but we don't have the device. To solve this problem, there is now Android Device Streaming powered by Firebase. With just a few clicks, we get access to real physical devices, including the latest Pixel and Samsung models. Moreover, we can use these devices to run and debug our application directly in Android Studio.