Apigee launches Mobile Analytics to aid developers

Apigee survery finds that 18% will delete app if it freezes for five seconds

Apigee, a website that provides an API platform for companies, announced Thursday that is launching a new configuration tool called Apigee Mobile Analytics.

Mobile Analytics lets software developers quickly detect, diagnose and fix problems with their apps running on mobile devices in real time. It helps them avoid costly negative user experiences that are caused by application errors and poor app performance.

Developers will be able to monitor and search though mobile application logs, detect application crashes and captures stack traces, determine network performance bottlenecks, push critical configuration fixes in production to reduce bugs and improve performance without the need for code pushes to the app store, and A/B testing of mobile features.

In an interview with VatorNews, Ed Anuff, VP of Developer Platform at Apigee, said that, with Mobile Analytics, Apigee is filling a hole in the marketplace.

Other analytics companies will give a developer reports on performance analytics, meaning how an app is doing from the consumer point of view, including how much time they are spending on the app or how many times they clicked an ad. What Apigee Mobile Analytics does is tell developers how their app is doing from a network point of view, meaning how often it is crashing or freezing, how stable it is, and how fast it is running.

Knowing how people are responding to the app isn’t worth anything if the app itself is not working, Anuff said. Mobile Analytics tells developers how their app is responding to the network, and how it is performing.

“It’s all for naught if the app is crashing or is too slow.”

With Mobile Analytics, Apigee is extending its analytics services from servers into mobile, which is where most development is heading, Anuff says. Companies are developing mobile first strategies, but APIs for apps are not yet as sophisticated as they are for websites. Apigee is trying to be the first to develop one that is.

When asked if Apigee might go into performance analytics as well, Anuff said that he believes that developers tend to use a bunch of different analytics services, since many do one thing better than others. In the case of Apigee, that is giving information about network analytics.

That being said, he did not completely rule it out as a possibility in the future.

2012 Mobile App Review Survey

In conjunction with the release of its new product, Apigee also announced today the results of its 2012 Mobile App Review Survey of over 500 American mobile app users, where they attempted to find out what the main reasons were that a user would rate an app with one star. The survey was conducted online by uSamp in October. 

The survey found that fully 96% of American mobile app users say there are frustrations that would lead them to give an app a bad review. Over three fourths, 76%, said that freezing apps was the biggest reason, followed closely by crashes, with 71%. 59% said slow responsiveness, 55% said heavy battery usage and 53% cited too many advertisements as a reason to give an app a bad review.

98% of those surveyed said that performance mattered to them, especially when it comes to banking, where 74% said it was important, followed by maps with 63%, mobile payments with 55%, mobile shopping with 49%, games with 44% and social media, where 41% said it was important. 

What should be most important to developers, though, is what response people have to apps that they are dissatisfied with.

44% of those surveyed said that they would delete the app immediately, and 38% said they would delete the app if it freezes for longer than 30 seconds.

Here is the really bad news, and the reason that Anuff says that developers should use their analytics tool: 18% of the responders admitted they would even delete an app immediately from their device if it froze for just 5 seconds. That does not give developers much wiggle room.

“In the growing app economy, there's a natural Darwinian effect, and only the best apps will survive," Chet Kapoor, CEO of Apigee, said in a statement.  "These survey findings underscore the importance for developers to closely monitor app performance, identify problems quickly and react immediately to resolve them.  Apigee can now help developers achieve this with Apigee Mobile Analytics, a sophisticated mobile app performance and configuration tool that lets developers quickly detect, diagnose and fix problems with their apps running on mobile devices -- in real time."

The point of the survey, Anuff said, was to better understand what is was from a user standpoint that drove satisfaction, and to find out what was most important to them. They can take now take this feedback and give it to the developers, and show them why they need to pay attention to how their apps are performing.

Palto Alto, California based Apigee was founded in 2004. It has raised $20 million in funding in July, led by new investor Focus Ventures, including participation from existing investors Bay Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, SAP Ventures and Third Point Ventures. The new round brought Apigee's total round of funding to $72 million.

Apigee has hundreds of customers, including Walgreens, Bechtel, eBay, Pearson, and Gilt Groupe as well as tens of thousands of developers who use Apigee to simplify the delivery, management and analysis of APIs and apps.  

(Image source: https://apigee.com)