Webcast: Is Your Mobile App Ready-to-Wear?

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good morning, and welcome to Keynote’s webcast - iOS 8 – Are you ready?’ My name is Josh Galde I am the senior product marketing manager for quality here at Keynote Todays live demonstration will be lead by myself and one of our in-house experts. Let me introduce: Chris Karnacki, a senior solutions consultant, who supports Keynote customers with their mobile testing requirements for iOS and Android <NEXT SLIDE>
• #3: Todays webcast will help you understand: The growth of the wearables market The upcoming Apple Watch The benefits of using a cloud-based testing platform to test wearable devices How to test app notifications on the Samsung Gear 2 <NEXT SLIDE>
• #4: Before we begin, let me review some housekeeping items: This webcast is being recorded and will be distributed via email to you allowing you to share it or watch it again later. Your line is currently muted; touch *0 for operator assistance if you experience any web or audio issues. Please feel free to submit any questions during the call. You can do this in the Q/A panel seen here in the bottom of your window. <NEXT SLIDE>
• #5: Since the inception of the mobile device in the 1980’s we have seen exponential growth and change. From the brick phone to the Motorola flip phone, to the launch of the iphone and finally Android, the market has and is evolving very quickly. We have seen a massive consolidation in the market including phones, cameras, video cameras, changing our way of life.
• #6: In fact, billions of people around the world have adopted this new way of interacting around the world. According to e-Marketer, by 2017 there will be 5 billion people worldwide using mobile devices. It has affected every industry from healthcare to retail to gaming. And recently there has begun another shift… Wearables.
• #7: While this new market is still considered to be in a very nacient stage it is quickly growing and is expected to grow leaps and bounds beginning early 2015. By the end of this year, over 19 million wearable devices will ship worldwide, tripling last year's figure, IDC reported on Thursday. Between now and 2018, wearable shipments will generate a 78.4 percent compound annual growth rate, eventually hitting 111.9 million worldwide shipments in 2018 alone. Wearable technology has become a hot market in the tech industry. Companies like Nike, Samsung, Fitbit, Jawbone, and others, are all offering different wearable devices, and IDC expects many more companies to join the fray in the coming years. As IDC points out, Samsung has stood out from the rest of the pack in wearables, offering devices in the still-nascent market. Analyst firm, IDC breaks this new market down into three segments: complex accessories, smart accessories, and smart wearables. According to new data, the mainstream will start getting into the game very soon, if they aren’t already. Complex accessories, such as Nike+ FuelBand, Jawbone UP, and Fitbit devices are already taking off.
• #8: IDC predicts that Complex accessories (mentioned earlier) will lead the wearables market through 2018 as users continue to embrace their simplicity and low price points, but new ‘smart wearables’, aka smartwatches are and will begin to take hold. And it is here that we see the need for testing being the most critical. Business Insider forecasts that 91.6 million smartwatch units sold globally by 2018. With an average selling price of about $100, that translates to a $9.2 billion market by 2018. And some, including the Apple Watch will be the biggest drivers. According to IDC: “Many analysts look at the smartwatch as the next tablet, a device that will define its own category and alter the pace of the entire mobile industry.  Interestingly, the prospect of smartwatches and other wearables persuading consumers to shell out money helped push IDC to temper their tablet forecasts, since some of that spending may have gone to tablets.  We don't believe smartwatches will compete with larger screen devices like tablets. Rather, they'll gradually take over the market for digital smartwatches, as consumers gradually come to expect more from them.  An Internet connection on a wristwatch may seem an optional or even strange frill (calculator watches once seemed cutting-edge, after all). But over time a connection will seem like a no-brainer feature. For example, a multi-time zone travel watch is a much simpler proposition with an Internet connection.  The ability to interact with voice-triggered or location-aware computing systems like Apple's Siri or Google Now may also eventually come to smartwatches, enhancing their usability and practicality (watches are too small for sophisticated touch commands).”
• #9: As we all have heard, Apple's finally entered the world of wearables. Officially unveiled at Apple's fall media event in Cupertino, Calif., alongside the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the Apple Watch (not iWatch) may well be one of the most anticipated products of recent years. It will be available in "early 2015" starting at $349 in the US. The Apple Watch is a music player like an iPod, a fitness tracker with heart-rate measurements, a communications device that will send and receive messages, calls and audio recordings, and a handheld portal to other apps, too. It also makes payments via Apple Pay. It can also control your Apple TV and act as a remote for connected smart home devices. According to CNET, “The Apple Watch seems intent to be a synthesis of many other smartwatches, trying to knit together all of these features into a coherent whole. In some ways, the Apple Watch's notifications, voice-activated controls, and swipe-to-glance features feel like elements of Google's Android Wear watches. And the focus on apps and built-in features like voice calling seem like what the Samsung's Tizen OS-based Gear watches have tried to aim for in the past.” Oh, and hey, it tells time too.
• #10: Apps, apps, and more apps. With the new Apple Watch companies will have the ability not to just push notifications to the device, but to actually interact with the user, similar to a mobile device. The Apple Watch will have some functionality that requires tethering and some functionality that does not. Every new app for these devices will require new design, size restraints, and compatibility with recent iphone models including iPhone 5, 5C, 5C, 6, or a 6 Plus. Sadly, earlier phones are excluded. Like most smartwatches, the Apple Watch is designed to be an adjunct to your iPhone. It's meant to stay paired and connected while you wear it for most features, but it also does some things while disconnected, too. The Apple Watch has a small, bright color touch display plus a scroll-wheel digital crown and button on the side for extra features. You can touch and swipe to interact, or speak to its microphone. The watch runs on a brand-new S1 processor, is equipped with a gyro and accelerometer, and can piggyback off the Wi-Fi and GPS on your phone. You press down on the crown to get to the home screen. The watch will take dictation, and offers very precise synchronized time to plus or minus 50 milliseconds. It also has a "Taptic" haptic processor that offers a subtle vibrational feedback for notifications, alarms and other messages. Like the iPhone 6, the Apple Watch has NFC. This will enable those Apple Pay payments, and help it act as a door-opening key at hotels.
• #11: Alright, so now we’d like to hear from you! Currently, do you plan on developing or supporting an app on smartwatches such as the Gear 2 or Apple Watch? YES NO Great! Looks like everyones submitted their responses. Now let’s see the results! (YES or NO) <NEXT SLIDE>
• #12: If yes, when do you think this will be a top priority for you and your team? (Select ONE) 1 - 3 months 3 – 6 months 6-9 months 9 – 12 months Great! Looks like everyones submitted their responses. Now let’s see the results! <NEXT SLIDE>
• #13: App quality is critical to the success and of any business. Whether it’s on a phone or smartwatch. While there can be uncontrollable circumstances, such as network speed or relying on 3rd party applications, many times it can be simply the USER EXPERIENCE… as seen here. We all want to avoid this… And adding another component of complexity (such as notifications to a smartwatch) only makes it that much harder to maintain that 5 star rating we all strive for.
• #14: Apps crashing is unfortunately becoming more common… this can mean life or death to many applications… Even after receiving the report, while the user is deleting your app, you still need to: Take time to understand and acknowledge the issue Transfer information to engineering Validate the problem Build and test the fix And deploy a new version of the app According to Econsultancy - only 16% of consumers would try a failing app more than twice before dumping it… A poor mobile app experience is likely to discourage users from using an app again. There is a very narrow window to get it right. And thus, no room for error… <NEXT SLIDE>
• #15: So, here is Keynote’s Mobile Testing Platform. When it comes to functional testing mobile apps and websites, there is no substitute for real devices, on real carrier networks, using real mobile browsers. Our platform gives you an efficient and easy way to test any mobile application including native, hybrid, or web, from anywhere in the world. How do we do this? We have built the worlds largest cloud library of real mobile devices, built on Keynote's patented Direct-to-Device® technology. We include all of the most popular devices on the market today, and now include the latest smart devices, such as the Gear 2, with planned support for the upcoming Apple Watch. This is unique to Keynote and not an option you will find elsewhere. With this technology we are able to integrate any mobile or smart device via software or hardware electrical connection. Any action that can be performed on a device in-hand (or on wrist) can be done with Keynote Mobile Testing. This technology is the reason we are able to give our customers the best and most accurate cloud-based mobile testing solution available. <NEXT SLIDE>
• #16: And for post production monitoring, we offer a mobile app monitoring solution. Mobile App Monitoring continuously interacts with your apps 24/7, exactly like a customer does in the real world. It is the only 100% cloud solution requiring no modifications to app being monitored. Perfect for your Operations team to be able to monitor AND report back to you the data you need to provide the best user experience. <NEXT SLIDE>
• #17: Now, I am pleased to turn it over to Chris for a live demo of a couple apps on Android using the Gear 2 and how you can test your notifications. As a reminder, please feel free to submit any questions during the discussion. You can do this in the Q/A panel in the bottom section of the window. Chris? <NEXT SLIDE>
• #18: Thanks Chris! Now, we would like to answer a few questions from YOU. Again, please feel free to submit any last minute questions in the Q/A panel in the bottom section of the window. SEED QUESTIONS: Why App test on real devices and smartwatches is so important? What if any issues have you seen that are unique to smartwatches such as the Gear 2 that your customers have run into? How could I test the performance of my app post production? AFTER ALL QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED OR 5 MIN TIL: <NEXT SLIDE>
• #19: So, how can you get started? If you’re a current customer of Keynote, contact your rep or solutions consultant to have them add the Gear 2 to your package of devices and start testing today! If you are not yet a customer, now’s a great time to join just click the ‘Free Trial’ link in the link window and register. And just watch, on Day ONE we will have the Apple Watch ready for testing! Thank you for attending today! We hope this webcast was both educational and informative. We will see you next time…. You may now disconnect. <END WEBCAST>