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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

App Clips

Apple App Clips is Out Today, Right in the Middle of the Contactless HeyDay

Apple’s iOS 14 drops today, which means a bunch of new features are coming to your iPhone. Among the batch of goodies to be found in the update is the release of App Clips, which could help accelerate the adoption of mobile contactless payments across the food retail and restaurant space.

We covered App Clips back when the service was announced at Apple’s WWDC event. In a nutshell, App Clips allows you to pull down just a portion of a native mobile app to give you its basic functionality, without needing to download and set up the full app.

Let’s say, for example, you are at a Starbucks but don’t have the Starbucks app installed on your iPhone. Normally, you’d have to download the full app, set up an account and then enter a payment method before you could even start your order. Through App Clips, you can grab just enough of the Starbucks app to order and pay. No need to download the full app, no need for an account and since it uses Apple Pay, no need to enter credit card information.

The big limitation right now is that a cafe, restaurant or retailer has to be participating the program and developed an App Clip. But if/when they do, App Clips can be opened by scanning QR codes, tapping NFC tags, or opening links via Apple services like Messages or Safari. For a full run down of how App Clips works, check out this post from 9 to 5 Mac.

App Clips is definitely arriving at the right time. The COVID-19 pandemic’s sustained presence here in the U.S. is pushing cafes, restaurants and grocery stores towards more contactless payment systems in an attempt to reduce human-to-human contact.

There are a ton of companies bringing contactless payment tech to market. Order for Me, PayJunction and Bbot are among the many startups building contactless payment systems for restaurants. Kroger launched a contactless payment pilot at its QFC store in Seattle last month. And there are a number of other companies doing contactless 2.0, basically through holograms, voice control and pay with your face.

The difference with App Clips, though, is Apple’s massive iPhone installed base. If this catches on, and given it’s utility (no downloading full apps just to get a cup of coffee!), that seems very possible, it could spur vast numbers of people to switch to contactless mobile payments. We just need to see if Apple has the right, well, touch.

Food Tech Intelligence Briefing: What Do App Clips Mean for the Food Industry?

This market power is derived from the strength of the iPhone. The device’s widespread adoption makes Apple and its associated app ecosystem a necessary consideration for any new consumer-facing technology (or technology adjacent) product launch. 

But as Techcrunch wrote last week, the world of apps that Apple ushered in a dozen or so years ago (yes, it’s been that long) has become long in the tooth. Not only are grid-based apps becoming less relevant in an age of voice assistants, AI, and chatbots, but most of us have become fatigued with app downloads and are reluctant to cede space on that ever-important first screen. 

This app fatigue is a problem for any products that rely on the aging app ecosystem Apple has built. If customers don’t use apps, brands can’t monetize through them.

Some products have tried to move almost entirely to voice, but it’s almost impossible to make a voice skill the primary interface for a device because they are so ephemeral. If we can’t see them, we aren’t going to use them. There is no first-screen for voice apps. 

Say Hello to App Clips

Which brings us back to Apple. At WWDC in late June, Apple introduced the App Clips, which are slimmed-down versions of an app or, more specifically, the portion of an app that is necessary in a given moment. 

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