To Kill or Keep Zombie Apps: 5 Options Governments Have for Moving Forward (Industry Perspective)

During the last few years, the phrase, "There's an app for that!" followed a question about almost any function a smartphone user wanted to accomplish. And the truth of those words is proven by the 1.5 million apps in the Apple iTunes store and the 1.6 million apps in the Android store as of July 2015.

But with all of those apps vying for attention, as many as 80 percent to 90 percent have become so deeply buried that they’re virtually undiscoverable. People searching for certain app capabilities will review the first few, most-popular options or look at what’s being marketed. The apps that drop into the latter part of a search list likely have become “mobile app zombies” — forgotten, barely breathing shadows of their former selves.

In government, as in the private sector, zombie apps have become dead weight in a maturing mobile marketplace. They aren’t supported by the latest mobile device operating systems, and they haven’t been maintained and updated, so their content is out of date and their key attributes may be broken. The app stores don’t systematically “clean house,” so the old, dried-up apps continue to take up space unless developers delete them, the account they’re associated with is removed or the public complains enough for the store to scrub the app.

Because apps are easy to create, it was fairly common in the early days for government agencies to commission apps from a single developer who also would place the app in iTunes or another store on the agency’s behalf. Without a team responsible for maintaining these apps, some have fallen into oblivion over time.

To find out if your agency is saddled with zombie apps:

• Identify all the apps your agency has created.
• Check whether each app works under the operating systems of the stores where it’s offered and whether its features work correctly.
• Review the app’s content to determine how current it is.
• Review download and usage metrics. Are they high enough that the app still seems viable?
• Look at whether targeted users are the ones downloading your app. Surprisingly, and for unclear reasons, state government apps sometimes are downloaded in other countries. This could indicate that your app, at least in its present form, has little relevance to the audience for whom you developed it.

If zombie apps have invaded your agency — even though they’re largely undiscoverable in the app stores — you should address them. They can be prone to security problems, and the fact that they’re outdated reflects poorly on the agency. Most important, however, is that a walking-dead app presents a good opportunity for your agency to reexamine why it built the app in the first place. In reevaluating the app’s original purpose and future potential, you may find that the app, or at least some of its components, are worth resuscitating.

Your agency has several options for attending to a zombie app:

After assessing the app and deciding that its features don’t offer value to constituents, you could choose to let it die a quiet death by removing it from the app store.

If the app might still hold promise for constituent use at some future date, you can “hide” it in the app store until you’re ready to focus on it. Every app is like a Social Security number — iTunes and other stores allow only one app with a given name. Making your app invisible preserves your right to the name, giving you time to reassess the app’s usefulness and potential for later relaunch. Note that neither killing nor making the app invisible will remove it from the devices of those who have downloaded it.

In their current state, the features of a zombie app may not appeal to users — but they might deliver constituent value as part of a more popular app. Zombies with single functions in particular can find new life when their capabilities are folded into another app.

Technology advances have made responsive websites a more appropriate delivery system for some government services. Consider whether the services once offered through the zombie app might now be more efficient for users to access via your site.

Some zombie apps simply need a little life support. In both the public and private sectors, there’s a growing sense that for native apps to be viable, they must achieve total engagement with the user, meaning that the consumer must be able to interact with government in multiple ways through a single app. If a zombie app’s features remain valuable to your constituents and the app has potential to achieve broad constituent engagement, focus on updating the content and functionality, develop a plan for ongoing maintenance and enhancements, and relaunch the app to your users.

Robust apps deliver constituent value and can have long lives ahead of them. As you make sure your offerings are living, breathing and dynamic, users will continue to tell others, “There’s an app for that!”

Nolan Jones is director of eGovernment Innovation for NIC Inc., the nation’s premier provider of official government Web portals, online services and secure payment processing solutions for more than 3,500 local, state and federal agencies across the United States. You may reach him at njones@egov.com.