How does the announcement at WWDC of the completely overhauled App Store, impact app discovery and ASO specifically? If you can't access the slides in high res, you can find them here too: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17S0-LBa5orlBf6zMfwq12MRoKpoV4EuYmZlVcI3cLBs/edit#slide=id.g1e3f7a4262_0_329

1. ASO CHANGES IN iOS 11
The new App Store announcement at WWDC 2017 and its impact on ASO
Published: June 6th, 2017
Last Update: June 7th, 2017
Moritz Daan (@moritzdaan) & Pablo Penny (@vaspab)
with help from Gabe Kwakyi (@gabetimes) & Thomas Petit (@thomasbcn)
ASOSTACK.COM

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SOME APPS WE’VE HELPED WITH…
Mobile Growth Audits, Mobile Marketing Automation, App Store Optimization, Analytics & Insights, etc.
Andy Carvell
Partner
Pablo Penny
Consultant
Moritz Daan
Partner
PHITUREMOBILE GROWTH CONSULTANCY FROM BERLIN

3. THE NEW APP STORE AND ITS IMPACT ON ASO

4. 4
AN ALL NEW APP STOREJUNE 5, 2017 @ WWDC APPLE ANNOUNCED A COMPLETE OVERHAUL OF THE APP STORE
Key release dates
● Developer release: Available now (developer account required)
● Public beta release: late June?
● Release: Fall 2017 (September)
See all videos here: https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc2017/

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SUMMARYWWDC RECAP FOR ASO
● All-new cards layout
● Move from algorithmic to editorial: Apple “fixes” the app store by taking full editorial control over the experience
○ Top grossing chart: Removed
○ Top charts: Demoted to a 2nd click
○ Search: Demoted to the last tab
● Improved ratings & reviews
○ Overall ratings are now shown instead of current version and can be reset
○ 1-tap reviews on page
● Focus on video: Autoplay & Localizations
● More prominent In-App Purchases that show up as SERPs and can be initiated from the page
● Changes in metadata fields:
○ Description can only be updated with new version
○ Title: from 50 to 30 chars
○ New field: “Subtitle” (30 chars)
○ New field: “Promotional text” (170 chars) - not indexed

6. CARDS LAYOUTIT’S ALL ABOUT EDITORIAL IN THE NEW APP STORE
6
Highlight
As Apple moves to a cards layout, there will be effectively only
2 apps be shown on the first screen, whereas this used to be 9
apps (1hero banner + 8 featured app icons)
It’s more important than ever to get featured.
BEFORE AFTER

7. DIFFERENT TABSTOP CHARTS AND CATEGORIES DISAPPEAR FROM MAIN NAVIGATION
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BEFORE
Highlights
● Featured is now called “Today”
● Apps and Games get their own tabs, both with editorial home pages
● Categories & Top Charts disappear. They are still accessible
● Search and Updates switch places
AFTER

8. GETTING FEATUREDIT’S ALL ABOUT EDITORIAL IN THE NEW APP STORE
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● Contact form: As editorial becomes more important, the App Store changes their Promotional Inquiries guidance from a
simple email address to a proper form: https://developer.apple.com/contact/app-store/promote/
● Lead time moved up to 6-8 weeks in advance
BEFORE AFTER

9. APPLE CONTROLS THE INSTALLEDITORIAL MIGHT ‘FIX’ THE BROKEN DISCOVERY
9
Gabe Kwakyi
from Incipia:
http://incipia.co/post/mobile-app-marketing-industry-updates/app-store-2-0-wwdc-2017-changes-in-app-store-optimization-app-subtitle-and-more/

10. AND THE UNINSTALLAPP STORE SETTING ENABLES AUTOMATIC UNINSTALLS OF UNUSED APPS
10
Via Ryan Jones

11. SEARCH AND CONVERSION

12. INDEXED TEXT FIELDSWHERE DOES APPLE PULL YOUR KEYWORDS FROM?
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BEFORE AFTER
● Title (50 chars): indexed
● Keywords (100 chars): indexed
● In-App Purchase names: only exact matches indexed
● Description: not indexed
● Company name
● Primary + Secondary category name: indexed
● Title (30 chars): indexed
● Subtitle (30 chars): indexed
● Keywords (100 chars): indexed
● IAP names: fully indexed (as opposed to exact match)?
● Description: unknown but potentially as field is locked
● Company name
● Primary + Secondary category name: indexed
● Promotional text: not indexed
red & green: changed & confirmed
by Apple, but not tested
blue: not confirmed

13. APP NAMEREDUCED FROM 255, TO 50 TO 30 CHARACTERS
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● Reduced from 50 to 30 characters
● Funny enough, Google increased the
character limit on titles from 30 to 50
characters one day later:
BEFORE AFTER

14. APP SUBTITLEENABLES YOU TO COMMUNICATE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION
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● New indexed subtitle with 30 characters max
● Appears below the app’s name throughout the App
Store
NEW

15. PROMOTIONAL TEXTCOMMUNICATING CHANGES TO CUSTOMERS
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Highlights
● Promotional text is a new field that can be changed without an update
(as opposed to the description per iOS 11)
● It’s likely placed on top of the description, this would however conflict
with the message that “The first sentence of your description is the
most important — this is what users can read without having to tap to
read more”.
NEW

16. WHAT’S NEWCOMMUNICATING CHANGES TO CUSTOMERS
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BEFORE AFTER

17. DESCRIPTIONHIGHLIGHTING FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY
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“You can update your app’s description only
when submitting a new version of your
app.”
This indicates that Apple is likely going to
index the description field
BEFORE AFTER

18. APP PREVIEW (1/3)WHAT HAS CHANGED?
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BEFORE AFTER

19. APP PREVIEW (2/3)3x, AUTOPLAY AND LOCALIZABLE
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Highlights
● up to 3 previews on product page
● localization of previews
● muted autoplay of previews (except India/China)
● screenshots appear after previews
● 15 second minimum seems to have been removed (?)
(Backwards compatible: “If your product page showcases multiple app previews, customers on iOS 10.3
and earlier will only see the first preview.”
Unsure if 10.3 would then show the localized version.)

20. APP PREVIEW (3/3)SEE AUTOPLAY AT WORK ON AN IPAD
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Via Lee Blyth

21. IN-APP PURCHASESVIEWING AND STARTING IN-APP PURCHASES
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Highlights
● Purchase can be initiated from the
Product Page
● Subscriptions and in-app purchases
shown on separate sections of product
page
● A maximum of 20 items can be
displayed
● Each item has its own display name,
promotional image and description
● IAP can appear in search results and be
featured on the Today, Games, and Apps
tabs
BEFORE AFTER

22. SEARCH RESULTSSEARCH RESULTS SHOW ALL KINDS OF OTHER SERPS TOO
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BEFORE AFTER

23. RATINGS: OVERALL INSTEAD OF LAST VERSIONDEVELOPERS ARE ABLE TO RESET THEIR RATINGS
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BEFORE
Highlights
● Ratings show all-time ratings instead of last version (the example of 8fit really shows the impact of this)
● You can reset all your ratings (src)
AFTER
via David Chavez

24. EASIER REVIEWSONE TAP RATINGS FROM THE STORE
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BEFORE
Via Thomas Petit
AFTER
3 TAPS TO RATE 1 TAP TO RATE

25. FROM DISCOVERY TO ‘REDISCOVERY’THE APP STORE SEEMS TO FOCUS MORE ON EXISTING APPS
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Prominent “what’s new” texts for users that
have your app installed
“Rediscover” apps that you have previously
installed
“Updates”-tab moves up in the hierarchy
(to the left)

26. TOP CHARTS

27. TOP CHARTS: NAVIGATION TABS ARE GONEBUT RANK IS SHOWN PROMINENTLY
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Highlights
● Apps that are ranking within their
category, now prominently display
the rank in their category on their
page
● Less focus on top charts with “Top
Charts” removed from top-level
navigation
● Top charts are still accessible but
now 2 taps from the main navigation:
○ 1) Tap on Games + Apps tab
○ 2) Scroll until the top 3 results
are displayed for Top Paid and
Top Free, then tap on “See All”
(iPad shows Top 6)

28. TOP GROSSING CHART IS GOINGREMAINING CHARTS: PAID + FREE
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Reading material: What happens to the App Store Intelligence industry with
no Grossing chart?
And the reply to Eric’s tweet by Luca Giacomel on whether these companies
could still pull that data via older iOS devices.
via Mike Schmid

29. FINALLY: THE RUMOUR MILL

30. A/B TESTING COMING UP?APPLE OPENLY TALKING ABOUT ICON TESTING
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Check back: this deck will be updated
as more changes will become
apparent.
Please let us know what you’ve seen :)
https://twitter.com/moritzdaan