tvOS devs may be driven away from developing for Apple TV, claims a new report citing poor audience retention rates.
Suggesting that users are “generally disinterested” in Apple TV, the report from mobile app analytics company adjust says they found that just 8.9 percent of users return to a tvOS app seven days after installing it. That’s roughly half the number seen on mobile devices, where the comparable numbers stand at nearly 20 percent on tablets and 18.5 percent on smartphones.
Things get even worse over time, too. As per adjust, after 30 days app developers on tvOS are only likely to retain 4.1 percent of acquired users, which has big implications for developers’ chances of earning profits from in-app purchases or advertising.
adjust’s study isn’t perfect, of course. It’s based on a small sample of users (apparently “299,925 users, of which around two percent had been active on an Apple TV device”) for one thing. However, the company did sample apps which had been ported from iOS to the Apple TV, so that the comparison was made on the same apps’ performance on tvOS versus iPhone and iPad. The apps sampled were ones which typically fall in the top third of apps based on retention performance.
“These are apps that are some of the best performers on phones and tablets, yet when the apps are brought to Apple TV — just like tvOS was meant to — they fall flat,” said Christian Henschel, CEO and Co-Founder of adjust, “Compared to the benchmarks, the tvOS apps are the lowest quartile performers overall.”
Compared to the more established iOS ecosystem, the tvOS App Store is still in its relative infancy for Apple. However, this is hardly good news — and something that is particularly timely given that this week marks the start of Apple’s developer-focused WWDC.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
7 responses to “Apple TV apps may be struggling to retain their users”
Kind of misleading. Most of what I’ve installed on my ATV4 is also available at a website, and app on my PC/Mac or my iPhone. My ATV isn’t the only device I’ll be accessing a service from. When considering a service, I generally check for ATV app availability.
More telling and worth writing an article about would be the rate at which apps are uninstalled.
Most of the games I have on iPhone / iPad I’ve tried on appleTV but never played them more than a minute or two just to see what they are like. Most games are made for a touch screen interface. The remote just doesn’t feel the same. What people use a mobile device for is different than what they use a “console” device for. Watching movies and shopping is a good fit for appleTV. Maybe playing a game that’s meant for a gamepad is good but the fact that you can’t store any data on the appleTV means you have to constantly download levels. Not fun.
Maybe they should have included 4k
I find myself getting more and more frustrated by the ATV 4. My Netflix app frequently gives me error messages and stops playback. When I stream movies from my PC, if I pause too long it dumps me back out to the main menu.
Yesterday, trying to watch some extra features on a movie I purchased, I kept getting errors and the video kept pausing. My connection was solid and a reboot didn’t fix it. I just kept trying and it finally started working.
Ya dumping back to the main menu after a vid has been paused is frustrating. Def needs to be fixed
Allow browsers to be installed! I know, not gonna happen. But dang if it did, the opportunities that would open up!!
I like my Apple TV, but unfortunately most of the best apps are available to the US only. So ya, the my computer app gets alot of use and Netflix. Nice to have news apps too, but jeeze there’s only one Canadian news app! So Newsy and Haystacktv works well!!
It’s the remote. Apple should have bought steel series and bundled a game controller. The remote is the weakness.
Apple could fix this by removing the restriction that apps have to use the Apple remote. Have the App Store provide the disclaimer that a third party controller is required. Heck, they could even have the App Store do a quick check in the Bluetooth settings to see if a third party game controller has ever been connected and prevent the use from buying the app if it doesn’t find it.
This and 4K is the reason Apple TV gen4 is struggling IMHO