The OEM believes that offering a printing option in apps will “significantly improve engagement”.
Mobile World Live reported on the OEM’s statement at the Apps World event in London, where Brent Richtsmeier, Samsung USA’s Vice President of Development for the Solutions Innovation Group, claimed that a printing option in mobile apps “will up engagement”, as “there are many times users will want to print directly from apps”.
He added that “paper adds value and it is an interface that is always on”, specifically noting that “this is not just relevant when it comes to business documents and contracts, but also boarding passes for travel apps and photographs for picture apps”, as “sometimes, users will want a soft copy when they suffer from ‘screen fatigue’, a common complaint amongst millennials”.
The site added that a survey of the top 10 iOS and Android photo apps found that “users are twice as likely to return to the app and twice as likely to click on an ad when an app has an option to print”, while 20 percent of them “will stay in the app longer”, and be “three times more likely to make an in-app purchase”. Samsung’s survey also found that 67 percent of business users “want to print from their mobile devices” compared to 95 percent of consumers.
However, this “doesn’t mean enterprise apps don’t have just as much reason to look into printing”, with Richstmeier putting this down to “the fact that businesses are slower in adopting mobile in general”. He recommended that app developers look into the Mopria Alliance, which has set standards for a “seamless conversation between printer and apps”, and which can help developers take technology “beyond traditional printing” through integrating “other devices” in the app.
One such example of this was a “self-serve shipping app” that could “integrate shipping scales, barcode scanners and an NFC [near-field communication] reader into an app”, while another was “integrating a fitness wearable, a blood pressure measurement device and a medical scale [into] a health app”.
In Richstmeier’s view, developers “have the opportunity to take a boring technology like print and make it vibrant by making it service-oriented, and making use of IoT and the cloud”, adding that he thinks app makers “will have access to users they didn’t before”, concluding that developers undertaking this will “fundamentally be at the starting foundation of something that will take the mobile ecosystem to the next level”.