Apple has revised its guidelines for its App Store, adding specific arrangement for exhibition and event apps.
Some month after announcing upcoming changes to its policy regarding the handling of mobile phone apps through its Apps Store, Apple has published the updated policy.
The updated rules include for the first time ever a specific mention concerning apps for exhibitions, stating that event apps can also in the future be based on what is known as a template based or "white label" app base.
"We are pleased to see this update. We know from UFI research that the majority of exhibition organisers is using 'white label apps' as the base for their mobile show applications, and - like many others - we had reached out to Apple to share the concerns of our industry", said Kai Hattendorf , managing director/CEO of UFI. "The update also marks the first time ever that Apple is citing our industry in its rules, which shows the growing awareness of the power of face to face events.”
Apple uses the App Store Guidelines to work with app developers, to ensure that the programmes offer through the company's App Store are in line with sertain user experience standards.
The revised rule 4.2.6 now states that "... Another acceptable option for template providers is to create a single binary to host all client content in an aggregated or “picker” model, for example as ... an event app with separate entries for each client event."
In UFI's communication with Apple on the matter, we acknowledged that Apple's policy change is a move to improve and embrace high quality apps. We stated the nature of the exhibition business means that most of our member companies work with these so called “clone apps” in order to serve their different trade shows, which are often held in entirely different industries. Some of our members organise 300 and more tradeshows globally and it is a very common procedure to launch these apps through an app generating tool.
We reiterated that these apps might have similar code but they serve different trade events/markets and contain in all cases different and high-quality industry specific content. And we explained that most of the trade show customers do not even know the name of the company organising and owning the exhibition they attend – for them, the name of the show is the brand they are aware of. Adding an example for Apple itself. we asked them imagine that they were offering apps for their own Apple Events, and doing so through an organiser called “pears”. Following the previous policy, they would advise themselves to operate a container app called “Pears”, which would include all the Apple events.
