I recently received an email from a professional services marketer who has a great idea for an app. It’s highly targeted at a specific practice area and will offer valuable content to downloaders, allowing the apps to attract repeat visitors. However, with so many different smartphone and tablet platforms on the market today and the firm only having a limited budget for the project, their team was having trouble deciding which platform to launch their app on. Panvista has had experience launching apps for a variety of firms, large and small, in the professional services space so I tried to give them an idea of what we’ve learned.
Blackberry is still king in the enterprise.
For projects where we’ve launched apps on both iPhone and Blackberry, the Blackberry app has had far more downloads than the iPhone. This may be counter intuitive for avid iPhone and Android users but the sheer volume of Blackberries in the enterprise make it the largest audience. As a bonus, we’re also seeing most users upgrade to devices OS 5.0 and above (new Torches, Curves and Bolds) and as a result, we’re seeing more interest in downloading apps. From a recent look at our statistics we found that older Blackberries (2+ years old) now account for less than 1% of downloads.
The one downside with Blackberry is push notifications are more limited than they are on iOS or Android. Notifications appear as a small icon with a number next to it like the unread email icon on the start screen of your Blackberry. While it’s a great branding opportunity to get your firm’s logo on your client’s home screen, it often provides less value than iOS or Android notifications which appear as a string of text on the client’s lock screen.
The iPad offers a completely new content experience.
The second platform which is taking off is iPad. The iPad is a much more “lean back” experience than any smartphone, which people use in quick intervals when they have a moment of down time. People pick up their iPads when they have more time to consume information. While they may open an alert email from their desktop computer, they’ll be more likely to actually click through and read the publication from their iPad.
For adoption, Apple has now sold 15 million iPads. Many IT departments are running pilot projects with partners inside their firms and we’re also seeing a lot of senior executives purchase these devices on their own and bring them into the office. The iPad is the dominant tablet in the market so if you want to reach the largest tablet audience, the iPad should be your main concern.
Many workers now carry two phones.
Finally, the last two devices we’re seeing success with are iPhone and then Android. There are a lot of information workers using two devices these days, a Blackberry for work and then an iPhone or Android device for personal use so supporting either of these platforms will also reach a large professional audience.
Many firms have chosen to target these devices first because they’re the easiest to develop for. App designs are typically more graphically pleasing on these devices than comparison Blackberry apps which is also a drawing factor.
Launch strategically and test thoroughly.
When your firm is looking to launch a mobile app, considering who will be the exact audience is important. In professional services, Blackberry is still the primary device carried but the iPad has a unique use case and more workers are carrying iPhone and Android devices for personal use. If you only have a limited budget, pick one of these platforms and measure every part of your initiative so you can demonstrate success and get buy in to launch on more platforms.