7 signs your app needs updating

However, customer comments aren’t the only relevant feedback mechanism. There is a diverse array of performance metrics to consider, too. These include:

• Active users – Often expressed as Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU), this measures the number of unique users engaging with your app over the designated period.
• Session time – Sometimes referred to as Average Session Length, this measures the amount of time users spend on your app each time they access it.
• Retention rate – Measures the number of users who revisit your app over a given period. You can measure retention over any timescale, but monthly, quarterly and yearly retention are all considered important metrics.

This is just a small sample of the metrics available to app owners and developers. At The Distance, we go much deeper, ensuring we have a real insight into how an app performs. Metrics like Cost of Acquiring a Customer (CAC), Average Revenue per User (ARPU), Average Order Value (AOV) and App Load Time can also tell us a great deal about whether an app needs an update to improve performance.

Digital technology and eCommerce move fast. If you’re caught standing still, you risk losing customers to more agile competitors. In app terms, this often means introducing new features to keep up with trends within your industry and to maintain pace with customer demand.

Adding new features based on user feedback or industry trends can reinvigorate interest and keep users coming back. Whether it’s a sleek new design or enhanced functionality, updates ensure your app stays relevant in a competitive market.

We see this in the app ecosystem all of the time. Consider Instagram’s recent shift towards video. Though it generated considerable backlash amongst the app’s users, it was a clear attempt to reposition the app, avoid missing out on the growing popularity of video and catch up with an increasingly popular competitor in TikTok. Though the implementation may not have been perfect, this case shows how even the biggest apps regularly introduce new features.

Another consequence of tech’s ever-evolving nature is that the foundations on which you build it change quickly. With apps, this manifests in codebases that rapidly become outdated. An outdated codebase means it’s more difficult to maintain, and worse, it could lead to performance issues or vulnerabilities.

Take Apple’s programming language, Swift. Apple released the first version in 2014. It released the most recent version, Swift 5.6, on the 15th of June 2022. That means there were five large-scale releases over eight years, with numerous smaller updates in between. Regular updates allow you to refactor and optimise the code, making sure your app runs efficiently on all the latest devices.

Though updating a codebase is a lengthy and complicated process, it’s also often the best option. There reaches a point where outdated code makes maintaining an app almost impossible. It may even become incompatible with new operating systems. That’s when an update becomes absolutely essential. Fortunately, our expert developers are always on hand to help you recognise when you have reached that moment.

Whether it’s a new screen size, hardware feature, or operating system change, you need to make sure your app is fully compatible. Changes like these are one of the main reasons working with an industry-leading app developer like The Distance makes so much sense. We constantly stay up to date with the latest developments and ensure you know when your apps need updating.

Data security is a significant concern for any organisation that works with sensitive personal information. A company that fails to adhere to regulations is at risk of financial punishment and will also suffer enormous reputational damage.

While many larger businesses can ride out the negative press – Amazon, Slack and Klarna apps all suffered from significant data breaches in 2021 (DarkReading) – smaller companies find it much harder to survive the fallout.

Digital security is a never-ending race between those who want to steal personal data and organisations that want to protect it. Cybercriminals are always searching for new ways into secure systems and regularly find them. That means businesses must stay aware and always respond to evolving security threats. Ignoring security updates isn’t an option—after all, your app is only as secure as its most recent patch.

Read our article on App Security & Data Privacy

Updates are part of the app development lifecycle. For an app to remain relevant, secure and in line with regulations, it must receive regular updates. Technology, customers and industry trends are always evolving, and the only way your app will continue to offer value to users is if it grows, adapts and changes over time.

Whether it’s adding new features, improving performance, or boosting security, a proactive approach to app maintenance keeps your app ahead of the game.

Our team has more than a decade of experience creating, maintaining and updating world-class apps. We understand when, why and how we should update your app. That ensures the apps we develop for your business offer long-term value and a greater return on investment. If you want to learn more about how The Distance can help your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.