Airship’s free Feature Flags by Apptimize helps app developers reduce risk prior to full rollout

Customer engagement company Airship announced that it is launching a free version of Apptimize’s Feature Flags solution, enabling app developers to control the scope and timing of feature launches in order to validate success and reduce risk prior to full rollout.

From new apps to those with massive audiences, developers can use Feature Flags by signing up for a free account, or take advantage of newly reduced pricing for unlimited Feature Flags from Apptimize.

The challenge with updating mobile apps is amplified by lengthy approval cycles required by the App Store and Google Play, which means new features either need to wait for the next update cycle or leverage suboptimal web views that lead to disjointed customer experiences.

Apptimize Feature Flags allow companies like Quizlet, Stash and Western Union to maintain multiple branches of code within apps to gradually release new features to a small subset of users first — quickly rolling features back if needed, or fully deploying them as they are proven successful.

This level of fine-grained control is vital in the competitive app environment, and is even more so now as businesses innovate with mobile to create new growth opportunities and revenue streams.

“To ensure the millions of students who use Quizlet’s learning app have the optimal experience and can study effectively, we run A/B testing on all new features before they are fully released which means a smooth process is essential to our success,” states Allen Pan, mobile engineer at Quizlet.

“Apptimize is our go-to for A/B testing because its tools provide easy-to-use controls to test and validate different configurations, including their feature flags for rollouts, and the results are easy to read and integrate into our internal analytics platform.”

Whether it’s new curbside pickup experiences, appointment booking processes, or implementing enhanced recommendations or social selling features, developers can use Apptimize Feature Flags to choose when and to whom new features are accessible, and easily turn them on or off. For example:

• VIP customers: provide exclusive or first-access to a brand’s gold loyalty members
• By location: different regions may have different expectations, requiring gradual rollout to 40 percent of users in Germany but only 10 percent of users in France as an example
• By demographics: from high-value customers to gender, developers can set Feature Flags to control rollout to specific groups
• By behavioral segments: use custom groups to target feature rollout to users with different affinities, interests, or behaviors

According to a senior software engineer at The Western Union Company, “Before Apptimize, we couldn’t control the rollout of features to specific markets, which was especially challenging as we manage multiple apps across the globe and had to wait for each of their app release cycles.

“Now we can ramp up, roll back or even schedule feature releases to launch across various countries and user segments, and with Apptimize’s support have developed a common framework for our different apps to control feature releases and experimentation across multiple user segments.”

“Exceptional mobile-first experiences are more important than ever as companies strive to offer customers new levels of ease-of-use, convenience, and innovation that win their hearts and wallets,” said Brett Caine, CEO and president, Airship.

“However, there are far too many businesses that maintain a ‘best guess’ and ‘fingers-crossed’ mentality that risks precious development resources, creates suboptimal user experiences, and jeopardizes hard-fought, expensive user acquisition efforts. We’ve now made it even easier — and free — for businesses to adopt feature release management and start reaping the rewards that optimization unlocks.”

In addition to feature release management, the Enterprise version of Apptimize offers unlimited multivariate testing. Marketers can launch experiments in minutes through its Visual Editor without coding or app updates, while developers can leverage programmatic testing for more complex experimentation with one-time configuration of dynamic variables that can be changed instantly to add new variants. These testing capabilities allow for the highest ROI when launching new features.