Apple's new App Store guidelines could benefit messaging apps

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One of the provisions under Apple’s new App Store guidelines will go into effect for some companies on January 1 and could significantly hinder the ability of smaller businesses to create and maintain apps for the App Store, reports TechCrunch.

The new rule, aimed at cleaning up the crowded App Store, prohibits apps that have been created with a “commercialized template or generation service.” Such templates and services are popular among small businesses and organizations, like small restaurants, local media outlets, religious institutions, and various clubs and community organizations that lack the funding and internal skill sets to create and maintain a custom iOS app. It appears the policy only applies to public-facing apps; template programs for enterprise apps such as those made via the IBM/iOS partnership will not be at risk.

The major effects of this policy are twofold:

This update will be positive for custom original iOS apps. These apps, not at risk of being scrubbed due to the template policy enforcement, will see improved discoverability in the App Store as a byproduct of decluttering, which will in turn make app marketing and monetization slightly easier. The App Store has over 2.2 million apps as of January 2017, and the large volume makes discoverability of apps challenging for consumers and developers alike. To stand out in the saturated space, app publishers rely on expensive marketing and user acquisition tactics, as well as in-app monetization tactics.
But it will be a death knell for small business apps and the companies that popped up to support them. These app template services are largely used by companies that need basic functionality, like restaurants enabling consumers to choose items from a menu, enter a delivery address, and pay for their order.

This policy could be an unintended boon for social and messaging apps, which have been actively positioning themselves as ideal platforms for small businesses. Small businesses and organizations could refocus their efforts on messaging apps like Facebook Messenger or Kik, and social apps like Facebook and Instagram, which have become well suited to serve B2C needs over the past few years. Messaging and social apps are ubiquitous; Facebook Messenger alone had 1.3 billion monthly active users (MAU) as of September 2017.

They’re also continually rolling out new tools in an effort to become the preferred platform. In November, Facebook confirmed it was experimenting internally with Messenger Broadcast, a platform that would enable businesses to broadcast text, video, or image messages along with suggested replies to Messenger users who have previously initiated a conversation. Facebook itself rolled out the ability to order food from small restaurants in the US in October 2017. And in March 2017, messaging app Kik launched its own digital currency to simplify digital B2C transactions on its platform.

This model isn’t unprecedented: Chinese messaging app WeChat has already seen success as a messaging app medium for small businesses; many small businesses in China are sure to have a presence on WeChat and won’t even bother with a formal website.

It will also be an intended boon for the App Store. The success of the App Store once hinged on quantity over quality, but that dynamic has reversed as the mobile app industry has matured. Despite the fact that apps are essentially the mobile web as consumers tend to spend around 90% of their mobile time in apps, Apple doesn’t want iOS to be the door to the mobile web.

Apple’s Services revenue, which includes money derived from the App Store, has become an increasingly larger share of Apple’s total revenue over the past few years. Apple gets a 30% cut of App Store sales. The more attractive Apple can be to quality apps and services by eliminating clutter, the more revenue it will grow in its Services category.

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