Aviate Just Got Better: Introducing the Smart Stream

yahoo:

By Paul Montoy-Wilson, Product Manager of Yahoo Aviate and Co-Founder of Aviate

When looking for an app on your mobile phone, it can be aggravating to sift through pages and pages of applications. What if your phone could just show you the information you wanted instead of forcing you through multiple steps to get there?

As the next step toward making this a reality, we’ve reimagined Spaces in Yahoo Aviate to bring you the Smart Stream. Now Aviate assembles relevant information front and center so you can take action right away. The Smart Stream adjusts the content it surfaces throughout your day, based on where you are and what you’re doing, allowing us to guide you to the information you want. And, the Smart Stream becomes smarter and more personalized as you use it.

image

Imagine you’re walking downtown in San Francisco on a Saturday around noon. We’ll surface nearby restaurants so that you can find a yummy place to eat. When the Giants game starts at 1pm, we’ll bring you live sports scores. If you plug in your headphones, we’ll pull your music apps up to the top of your Smart Stream. If there’s ever a specific card you’re looking for, you can always access it with the Focus menu, located in the search bar on your homescreen.

We’ve tested many new features over the past few months, working to improve the experience and anticipate your needs. We’re just getting started and look forward to hearing what you think.

Keep flyin’,

The Aviate Crew

Note: This update is currently available to English users in the United States on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and above. We’ve made the decision to no longer support Android 4.0.4 or older with this update. 

Cricket scores in Aviate!

Great news, cricket-loving Aviators!

The 11th World Cup tournament recently began and continues until March 29. There are 14 countries participating in the tournament, with an expected television audience of over a billion people globally. To keep all those people up to date on cricket matches, we are bringing international cricket scores right to your Aviate homescreen!

Aviate_Cricket_1024x512_v2B.png

Your TODAY and WORK spaces will show a card with upcoming matches, scores and match recaps. The cricket score card will appear automatically if your phone’s language settings are set to English and you are located in any of the following countries:

    • India

    • Great Britain

    • Australia

    • Pakistan

    • Sri Lanka

    • Bangladesh

    • South Africa

    • New Zealand

    • Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago (West Indies)

    • Ireland

    • UAE

Don’t live in one of the above countries? No problem. Just install the Yahoo Cricket App and restart Aviate from Device App Settings for the card to appear. The Yahoo Cricket app will also give you access to more in-depth cricket coverage, like commentary, news and match photos. Once downloaded, just tap the Aviate cricket score card to be taken to the app.

We’re excited to help you follow your favorite teams on the go.

Keep hitting for six!
The Aviate Crew

Science Powering Product: Yahoo Aviate Suggests Apps For You

By Andrew Gelfand

Meet Paul. Paul is a typical Yahoo Aviate user. His phone includes a typical mix of communication apps (e.g., WhatsApp and Skype), social apps (e.g., Facebook and Tumblr), sports apps (e.g., Yahoo Fantasy Football and ESPN Sports Center), tools, games, travel apps, and more. Like most Aviate users, Paul also likes to frequently install and try new apps. But with more than 500 thousand apps in Google’s Play store, it can be challenging for him to discover new apps that he enjoys. With the goal of solving this problem, Yahoo Aviate and the Personalization Sciences team at Yahoo Labs are working together to make it even easier for Paul to find his next indispensable app.

So which app should Paul install next? Traditionally, engineers would rely on collaborative filtering approaches to answer this question and identify a set of apps to recommend to Paul. The idea behind collaborative filtering is fairly simple: leverage historical usage behavior to identify a person’s app preferences and suggest new apps to each person by looking at other users with similar app preferences. For example, if Paul is an American football fan, as evidenced by his heavy usage of the Yahoo Fantasy Football app, and other American football fans often use the theScore mobile app, then it’s easy to conclude that Paul might want to also try the theScore (assuming it isn’t installed on his device already).

Standard collaborative filtering approaches to app recommendation such as the one described above base their recommendations on implicit feedback like usage or installation patterns. The implicit feedback also includes information about the apps being recommended, such as their category, text description, and star rating in the Google Play Store. But is this all that matters when recommending apps?

 Our Personalization Sciences researchers looked into it along with Yahoo Aviate data scientists and discovered that time of day (and context) is also a key driver of app usage behavior. The set of apps that Paul uses in the morning when he is commuting to work is different than the set of apps that he uses when he is at work, and different still than the set of apps he uses when relaxing at home on the weekend.

Paul’s installation behavior also varies with time. Consider Aviate’s weekly app installation pattern, which is simply the total number of app installs occurring on all devices with Yahoo Aviate as their default launcher during each hour of each day of the week. Notice in the graph below that there is a strong daily pattern. As one might expect, relatively few apps are installed in the early morning between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., while apps are heavily installed in the evening between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Even more interesting from a recommendation perspective is the percentage of apps of each type that are installed throughout the week. Installs of personalization apps (e.g., Zedge Ringtones & Wallpapers and the Go SMS Pro Emoji Plugin) peak around midnight, a couple hours after the overall peak in installs. In contrast, installs of communication apps peak in the middle of the day, while shopping app installs peak around 10 a.m. This is very useful from a recommendation perspective because if Paul likes to shop, as evidenced by his usage of the Overstock.com app, and other people who use the Overstock.com app also use the Groupon app, then not only do we know it is a good idea to recommend the Groupon app to Paul, but we also know we should do so at 10 a.m. rather than the late evening when he is likely to be interested in installing other types of apps.

We also know that one’s location (e.g., whether at home, work, or out at a restaurant), activity (e.g., whether walking, running, or driving), and even social setting drive app usage and installation behavior. The set of apps that Paul is interested in installing and using when he is at home in San Francisco on Sunday evening is frequently different than the set of apps he is interested in when he is meeting up with friends while visiting Chicago. As is shown in the table below, when Paul is in Chicago, we should probably recommend BRYQ for messaging, rather than Snapchat or WhatsApp.

 So back to our original question: Which app should Paul install next? Clearly it depends on all of the factors we’ve discussed: Paul’s location, the time of day, Paul’s usage and installation history, the usage and installation history of people using the same apps as Paul, and more. At Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Aviate, we are using all of these contextual and behavioral signals to build models of Paul’s installation behavior and provide him with the best contextually relevant app suggestions.

Aviate’s vision is to bring you the information you need when you need it. Helping you find the right mobile app is just one of the ways in which Aviate and Yahoo Labs are working in partnership to achieve this goal. As we continue to iterate on our scientific research, look for Aviate to serve you recommendations based on your interests and context, such as movies and nearby restaurants!

Search on Aviate for everyone!

Today we’ve rolled out Search to Aviate users around the world. No need to open a new window, because Aviate shows your Apps, Contacts and Web Search results right on your homescreen.


Search on Aviate is available in over 70 markets where Yahoo Search is available. Users on Android 4.0+ will see a Search box appear on their Aviate homescreens when their devices update to the latest version of Aviate.


Homescreen-Intl.png



Finding your stuff is now quicker than ever - wherever you are!


Keep flyin’,

-The Aviate Crew


Note: Search on Aviate is not available in China.

Our Holiday Giveaway Winners

Throughout the month of December we’ve had an awesome time reviewing homescreens submitted to our Get Wow Aviate Holiday Giveaway. We’ve awarded seven lucky (and creative!) users with  gift cards, Xbox Ones and other sweet prizes! Want to Get Wow? Check out some of our favorite homescreens below.

Winners.jpg

Here are the wallpapers, icon packs and widgets a few of our winners feature:

We’d love to see your homescreen too! Post them to our facebook page or shoot us a tweet for a chance to be entered in our weekly #CreAviator series.

Keep Flyin’

-The Aviate Crew



Notes:

These homescreens were placed (and cropped) into a Nexus 5 device for display purposes.

‘Twas the night before… terror

‘Twas the night before presents, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that a gift-wrapped new phone would soon be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of new smart phones danced in their heads Now health tracker, new camera, and shatter-proof glass! More memory, and HDR, and really accurate maps! 

The morning came quickly, and they sprinted down the stairs They ripped open their presents, and guess what was there? Nothing. Diddly-squat, nada, zilch, zero, zip. The children  screamed in terror: what the what, holy sh- (narrator clears throat) 

Among the gifts under the tree, there was no smart phone box And the stockings on the mantle were just limply hung socks.  The children’s holiday spirit, once so lively and so bright Evaporated quickly, like an old battery in the night. 

But wait, my dear sad children, don’t fall into despair,  I’ve got the perfect something to cure this holiday scare It’s Aviate, and it upgrades your old phone, don’t you see? It organizes beautifully, and best of all, it’s free!

The children now looked happily at their new old phones in hand And exclaimed in admiration, for it really was quite grand. Their old, boring phones now looked beautiful and clean Their apps and info organized into a brand new home screen! 

Awesome! they said, Sublime! Cool, nice, swell, nifty, wow!  They never would’ve believed it, and from here on out avow To cherish their old phone, though they had wished for new Not all old things are broken, they now know this to be true.

One cannot always count on a brand-spankin’-new smart phone But you can make an upgrade to one you already own Upgrade your phone with Aviate, and I bid you remember me Like happiness and love, the best things in life are free.

So now, download Aviate, and let your happiness take flight Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

Introducing Search on Aviate

By design, Aviate shows you apps and information the moment it’s useful. But what happens when you need to find something a bit more specific? Today, we’re excited to begin rolling out Search on Aviate.

Search Four.png

 

Search on Aviate is your gateway to your apps, contacts and the Web, with Web results powered by Yahoo. Aviate will display all your search results directly on your homescreen, so you won’t have to open a browser or separate window. This initial release is for English-speaking users in the U.S., but we look forward to bringing Search to more Aviators soon.

timehop.png

How to get searching:

  1. Download the newest version of Aviate from Google Play or update your current release.

  2. A transparent search widget will (magically) appear on your homescreen.

  3. Search away!

With Search on Aviate, getting to the stuff you love has never been faster.

Get Flyin,

The Aviate Crew

P.S. Search on Aviate is only available for devices on Android 4.0+

App Suggestions Get Local!

LocalApps.jpg

Today, we’re excited to bring app suggestions to international Aviate users! With this new update, users will see localized app suggestions at the moment they’re useful. You’ll now easily find productivity apps at work, entertainment apps at home or navigation apps when you’re on the go!

 

Accessing App Suggestions:

 

  1. Swipe left from your homescreen to see your Collections.

  2. To open a Collection, tap the arrow on its upper right hand corner.

  3. App suggestions appear when you tap the light bulb. Make sure to swipe through app suggestions until you find the right one!

  4. To pin a suggestion to your Collection, tap the blue “Add” box. Downloading the suggested app is as simple as tapping the pinned app - this will take you straight to the Play Store!

 

We hope this app discovery experience helps simplify your life today!

 

-The Aviate Crew

 

Notes:

  • Localized app suggestions are available in the following markets with others coming soon!: Arabic Markets: en-GB, Australia: en-GB, Brazil: pt-BR, Canada: en-CA and fr-CA, France: fr-FR, Germany: de-DE, Hong Kong: zh-HK and en-HK, India: en-GB and en-IN, Italy: it-IT, Singapore: en-GB, Spain: es-ES, Taiwan: zh-TW, UK: en-GB

Wow us with your Aviate homescreen!

Over the past few months we’ve loved seeing the homescreens our fans have posted on Facebook and Twitter. We’ve decided to up the ante with a four-week competition that starts today!

Every week we’ll give away prizes to the most interesting and unique Aviate homescreens. We’re looking for the entries that use Widgets, Wallpapers, Icon Packs, Themes and background images in beautiful and creative ways.

We’ll announce a winner or winners each week - prizes include two $500 cash cards, a 55” TV, two Xbox Ones and finally, one lucky winner will get a trip to Vegas!

You can enter once each week, so get ready to wow us!

Here’s how to enter:

  1. Download Aviate.

  2. Customize your homescreen with Widgets, Wallpapers, Icon Packs and Themes.

  3. Snap a screenshot of your customized homescreen.

  4. Submit your homescreen through the Holiday Giveaway tab on our Facebook page.

For more info on this exciting competition, check out our Facebook page. We’re excited to see what you whip up.


-The Aviate Crew.

PS: Eligibility in the Aviate Wow Holiday Giveaway is restricted to US residents.

Make It Yours: Customizing Aviate

image

Get ready to wow us! In preparation for our Wow Holiday Giveaway here’s a quick guide to help you customize Aviate with Icon Packs, Wallpapers, Widgets and Themes:

  1. Widgets

Widgets give you at-a-glance views of info from your favorite apps right from your homescreen. From Alarm Clocks to weather forecasts, widgets make your homescreen fun and functional. Check out our guide on adding widgets here. Want to resize them? Look no further!

  1. Wallpapers

Wallpapers are the images that cover your homescreen background. Use the wallpaper picker to choose a wallpaper or add your own image or photo.

  1. Icon Packs

Icon Packs give old icons a fresh new look. Learn how to add Icon Packs here!

  1. Themes

Finally, tie it all together with the Light, Dark or Transparent theme. Check out our theming post here!

Need some inspiration? Our #CreAviator Tumblr series shows off a set of super cool homescreens every week. There are gift cards, a 55” television, Xbox Ones and a trip to Vegas up for grabs!

Keep Flyin’

-The Aviate Crew