Launched earlier today, AppbotX is a new open source support and communications solution for developers of iOS apps and soon for apps on other platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Unity. AppbotX is designed as a library that can be built into any app, allowing developers to easily provide inline notifications, smart feedback forms, FAQs, version updates and review prompts. It is the natural evolution of the Appbot service which launched in 2012 and enables developers to keep track of user reviews of their apps.
We’ve delivered over 15 million reviews for more than 34,000 apps with Appbot. We understand the pain points app developers have, complaints and bad reviews lead to fewer sales and poor rankings for apps. Now we’re launching AppbotX to solve communication problems mobile developers have with customers.
AppbotX looks to be a huge time saver for developers who want to implement better support mechanisms within their apps but don’t want to spend the time and expense of developing it themselves. I should caveat that statement by noting I’m not a developer, but even as a user the functions that AppbotX enables seem great. In particular I really like the idea of inline notifications that would allow a developer to send notifications to their users if there is a critical bug, server downtime or other important news. Because it runs on AppbotX’s servers, those notifications will still get to the user even if the developer’s servers are down.
Version updates are also a neat feature for users and developers alike, with AppbotX notifying users they have updated to a new version and letting them (if they choose) to learn more about what was included in the update. Some apps already do this (in various ways), but not enough in my opinion, as I’ve missed being able to know what new features are included in apps with the advent of automatic app updates. But if there is a user who doesn’t have automatic app updates enabled, AppbotX can also notify them that updates are available.
AppbotX also features a FAQ service that can be easily edited online, without the need to update their app. The AppbotX portal also allows developers to view user feedback on each individual FAQ (in the form of upvotes and downvotes). Finally, the feedback service of AppbotX is more than just an email form for users to fill in, with AppbotX automatically gathering information including the OS version, device type, memory usage, disk usage, if the device is jailbroken and more, to help developers pinpoint problems.
Developers can try AppbotX for 30 days for free, after that period pricing is determined by how many requests are made, costing $8 plus $1 for every 100,000 API requests.
