The Magic of iOS ‘App Clip’ Demos

I played a game without downloading an app. It was seamless and smooth and should be a new path for trials and mini-apps.

A couple weeks back, I was sure that widgets were the biggest part of iOS 14. Beyond the new look-and-feel possibilities — the biggest change in that regard to iOS to date — it seems like it’s possible some clever entrepreneurs will be able to come up with widget-first apps. That is, apps where the main point of interaction is the widget and not the app itself. We’ll see!

But I now think I was wrong that widgets are the biggest iOS 14 deal. Only because I’m now certain that App Clips are.

This revelation comes after playing a single game. One that’s not even necessarily my cup of tea, mind you. But the experience of playing a demo of the game via an App Clip was so seamless it feels appropriate for once to invoke the term “magical”.

The game in question is called ‘Phoenix 2’ by Firi Games. It seems like a fairly straightforward touch-based space shooter game. I found it thanks to TouchArcade highlighting the App Clip element.

Clicking on the link to the game’s website from an iOS device loads a page with a new “Play” banner. This implores to you “Play in the Phoenix 2 app clip” — clicking on the ‘PLAY’ button pops up an App Clip App Store card on the bottom of your device with a bit more info about the game. Clicking ‘Play’ here one more time doesn’t take you to the App Store but directly into the game. Running it twice — once on an iPhone and once on an iPad — I’ve found the “load” time to be between 5 to 8 seconds. And then you’re playing.

And the gameplay itself is super seamless. It feels no different than playing any other native app game. But again, you didn’t download the full game. Presumably just a small playload to play this introductory level. You can exit the game and come back and key playing. An app icon resides (with a “clip” outline around it) in the “Recently Added” area but presumably this will vanish over time.

Again, this is all magical because it “just works” in the way that Apple likes to tout everything they do “just working” — which seems to be true about half the time. It’s definitely true here. To the point where this clearly feels like something every game developer should do in order to “demo” their games. Once the ‘Phoenix 2’ demo level is over, you’re greeted with a screen to download the full game if you want to continue. Again, wonderful.

But there’s a bigger picture too. Given how well this works, I can see a world in which other developers beyond gaming take advantage of this technology to demo their apps. And, if I squint, I think I can even see a world of “micro-apps” that don’t need full apps to operate. Perhaps these are more ephemeral style apps. Apps where asking for a full download is a lot in this age of app saturation.

Obviously, Apple touted much of this when first talking about App Clips at WWDC. But it feels like they undersold it a bit, to be honest. Yes, it would be great to walk into a restaurant and get an alert to use their app via App Clip. But I think this undersells the potential — I think this can be used for any app for a number of reasons beyond timely, geofenced experiences.

And yes, as with widgets, “Android already did it”. I have not played around with that technology myself, but given the relative lack of buzz, I’m guessing the iOS version is a bit more seamless, and thus, perhaps more likely to take off in a major way. Again, we’ll see. I’ve been waiting for the rise of these “post-app” apps for a while…

(By the way, there’s a good discussion on this topic happening on Telepath right now — including with the developer of the game! — for those trying out that new social network.)

Update 9/29: As MacRumors founder Arnold Kim notes on Twitter, these App Clips actually work via iMessage too!