When And How Often Should You Update Your App?
Our lives have been improved because of mobile applications. Mobile technology industry has provided a solution for almost any type of task you could be indulged in. The number of mobile applications is continuously increasing. Even the most widely used and long-lived apps continuously release updates and not just to add new changes and features to the app, but for bug fixing too. As an app developer, updates are just another fact of life. But how often should you update your app? Because it is important to fix issues and bugs with your application at the same time it is important that you’re not irritating users with too many updates. Before digging into the details of how often should you update your app, let’s see the reasons for updating your app.
Also know – Tips to improve mobile app performance
Reasons For Updating Your App-
There are four main reasons to update your app- Bug fixes, feature releases or design changes, bad reviews and competition. Google play allows marketing teams to update google play page creatives seamlessly without rolling out a new version of the app, app store needs you to release a new version to update app store creatives.
1. Bug Fixes-
Updates that addresses bug fixes are born out of necessity- part of your app is not working properly. The magnitude of bug can vary from minor instability to app crashes, but your application needs to provide a seamless and delightful experience to retain users. These updates are important and you should work on it with high priority.
In google play, android vitals report measures the crash rate and App Not Responding (ANR) event count. These metrics influence the Google Play algorithm algorithm that will not promote apps that are too unstable. With the help of an ASO person, monitoring these metrics will help to inform the team that the new version is affecting rankings.
2. Feature Release-
Features are an important part of mobile apps and so feature releases are important to maintain the user engagement. New features are exciting and useful as they ensure that your applications’ features remain updated and relevant. Also, feature releases show users that you care about their changing needs. UI and UX changes are reasons for updating your app. Maybe operating system design guidelines have changed, your interface is outdated or highly complicated, or you’re basically rebranding.
3. Bad Reviews-
Generally bad reviews indicate serious bugs, defects or missing features. As a programmer, your first priority must be addressing user concerns and accordingly updating the app. With each app update on Apple store, you can either keep your rating history or start new. Hence you can use updates to your advantage.
4. Market Competition-
Users search for the apps that meet their needs. New updates that increase the app’s value will help you to be unique and stand out in the competitive market. On the other hand, failing to regular app updates may lead users to rather use competing apps as it conveys the sense of an app that is not supported any longer.
How Often Should You Update Your App?
1. Monthly Updates-
Updating app monthly is the most common and popular timeframe for app updates. As a programmer it gives you a baseline for when to expect releases and it’s frequent enough to make sure that your app stays relevant without annoying users. Simple, it’s a perfect balance.
Hence, releasing update at least once a month is a good strategy and will keep the content fresh. When you can update more frequently, don’t want to exceed three or four updates per month. Because too many updates irritates your users and might drive them away from your app.
2. Hitting Milestones-
Important app milestones like launch anniversary is good strategy for planning updates, especially bigger ones that include feature releases and not just minor bug fixes. This can increase hype around your app and create excitement among users about what’s coming next.
Similar to traditional storefront might offer a big sale or renovation to coincide with the anniversary of opening, scheduling big updates for app can help to refresh it and create user engagement.
Most of the time, users will download an app and forgot about it. Releasing updates around important milestones will remind users that your app exists and motivating them to come back to check new features will increase interaction. This is great for not just releasing big updates to app with the opportunity to generate hype, but it also forces development team to keep content fresh and updated with the trends.
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