ASO News Digest. July 2024

ASO News Digest is our effort to stay up to date with the updates that have occurred in the mobile app market over the past month. Any update and change in the rules of the main app stores can have an impact on the tactics and strategy of ASO. Here you can find the July 2024 update from the App Store and Google Play.

ASO News Review from the App Store

July was not rich in official news from the platform, everything fit into June and WWDC 24 and we are still digesting it. But something did happen:

1. Alternative payment options in the EU in visionOS 1.2. All details about payment options in the EU are here.
2. The App Store has updated the search screen on the store, but this is not yet available in all countries and not on all devices.

ASO News Review from Google Play

Google's app store isn't exactly rich in updates over the past month either. What can you say, July is summer vacation time.

1. On July 10, Samsung held its Galaxy Unpacked event, where new foldables, wearables, and more were unveiled.

Which is of great interest to us, because now, when creating applications, it is necessary to take into account various screens, of which there are now even more. But life for developers was made easier by the fact that last month an emulator for mobile applications was introduced, and now for Wear OS 5. Now, when creating an adaptive application, we scale it to mobile devices, tablets, foldable devices, desktop computers, and more.

2. New Play Store feature: “Collections”

The Play Store has introduced a new feature called Collections, which helps users discover personalized content outside of the Play Store using the Engage SDK. Collections automatically organize the best content from installed apps into categories like Watch, Listen, Buy, and Social. 

Collections highlight important content, encourage users to sign in to the app, and offer to install apps that aren't on the device. Integration with the Engage SDK is simple and takes about a week, adding less than 50 KB to the app.

The feature is already in use by companies like Adidas, Amazon Prime Video, Audible, Best Buy, and Spotify. Learn more in the Engage SDK integration guide.

3. Google Play also updated the search screen, or rather added it. Now the external difference with the App Store is not so obvious, check it yourself.

4. The fourth Android 15 Beta - Beta 4, the last scheduled update in the Android 15 beta program is here, so we need to make sure our apps are ready before non-beta users get access to Android 15.

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