Apple's new messaging, voice opportunities are significant, if uninspired

Lyft’s iPhone app is now integrated with Siri

Apple has opened both Siri and iMessage to developers, taking advantage of the significant interest in voice-based services and next-generation messaging to attract marketers and breathe new life into the iPhone.

With iPhone sales dropping as the smartphone market matures, Apple is enlisting the help of marketers to create more dynamic experiences for loyal customers. The moves – which appear more me-too than innovative, borrowing from the successes of Line, Amazon Alexa and others – have already attracted brands such as Fandango, Lyft and OpenTable.

“When it comes to expressing yourself, we thought there was so much more if could we tap into all of the creativity of all of you developers,” said Craig Federighi, senior vice president at Apple. “So we are opening up Message to developers as well.

“With iMessage apps, iMessage has an app drawer with all of your iMessage apps,” he said. “You can tap the plus button and get to the app store and download other apps.”

Messages reimagined

Apple unveiled iOS 10 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday. While iOS 10 will be available to consumers in the fall, the company revealed a number of new features that developers can start planning around or taking advantage of now.

Messaging has been a hot topic so far in 2016, with chatbots and a number of other strategies for driving convenience and relevance in real-time for smartphone users.

Apple made a series of announcements yesterday that reinforced the importance of messaging for developers and marketers.

Within the iMessage app on an iPhone, users will now be able to easily access apps to create and share content, make payments and more, without leaving messages.

Fandango is one of the first brands to take advantage of this opportunity, giving iMessage users the ability to tap on the Fandango icon to discover new movies, search for showtimes and buy tickets from within their conversation. Users can expedite checking out with Apple Pay.

Fandango is also taking advantage of new lock screen capabilities, leveraging Apple’s 3D Touch technology for Notifications. As a result, users can hard press a Notification message from Fandango on the lock screen to discover movies, watch a trailer, buy and access tickets as well as rate and review a movie.

Speak now

Developers can also create stickers that can be pasted into conversations, enabling users to personalize GIFs or photos.

Additional updates within iMessage include the ability to send a messaging with the user’s own handwriting, send a message that remains hidden until the user swipes it and tap to automatically swap out words with an appropriate emoji.

Apple was an early mover in voice-based services with its voice assistant Siri. However, the platform has suffered from limited real-world applications as Apple underestimated the interest in using voice to simplify mobile tasks.

By opening up Siri to developers, Apple hopes to make a number of new voice-driven services available to iPhone users.

Siri can now be integrated with iOS apps so that a Lyft user, for example, can book a ride by asking the app to do so. In another example, a Square user can now ask the app to send money to someone.

Web payments

Apple is also giving developers greater access to Maps, enabling users to book a table through OpenTable or a ride with Uber from within Maps. Users can also search along their route to find the closest gas stations, food or coffee.

Additional announcements with iOS 10 include the new Home app for turning on lights and unlocking doors, redesigned Music and News apps, the ability to pick up a phone to wake it and the launch of Apple Pay for the Web.



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Tags: Apple, Consumer electronics, Craig Federighi, iMessage, mobile, mobile marketing, Siri

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