Some email marketers do seem to be freaking out about the upcoming changes to Apple Mail after seeing screenshots of inboxes from the forthcoming iOS 18.2 update. I don't think it's the end of the world -- and I'm not even totally convinced that Apple Mail is in a long term final state -- but it's good to be aware of what's going on here so we can be better informed. So that's what I'm going to talk about today.
I'm not going to go super deep here because iOS 18.2 is still in beta and there are some open questions around how some bits of this stuff work. But, let's do a quick review of the top three things that I think will affect (or at least concern) email marketers.
Apple Intelligence-driven message summaries are replacing pre-header content. When this feature is enabled, a recipient will see perhaps two bullet points-worth of A.I.-generated summary of the message content, instead of your pre-header content. Will this mean people will never open marketing emails? Of course not, but if you want to grab some attention during this preview/list view, you'll have to make your messages interesting enough that the summaries won't be boring or generic. This is perhaps easier said than done.
Should you still bother to include a pre-header? Yes, for now. Wait and see what adoption rates are here and how broadly this spreads throughout the Apple mobile user base. To me, this does suggest that the end of pre-headers is coming. But that's a tomorrow problem, not a today problem.
Open question: Apple says that an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 model iPhone is necessary to utilize Apple Intelligence. Does that mean that these A.I.-driven message summaries will only work on newer iPhone models? Or does that requirement relate only to the bigger/broader A.I.-driven features?
For those saying, "How dare Apple cover up something in my email message content," the pre-header area was meant to be a hint at the message's content driven by the first bits of the actual body content. Marketers repurposing it to add an extra call to action or fill the space with a haiku? That was a hack, son. I'm not really sure you owned that real estate to begin with.
Second: Apple Categories (Or, What's Old at Gmail is New at Apple)
Apple's got tabs now, just like Gmail. Well, not exactly like Gmail. The engine driving Apple's message categorization is on-device, for privacy reasons. Does that mean that feedback from users will help better inform category placement for a sender or their campaign overall at Apple mailboxes? I'm unclear on that. That's very much the case for Gmail, but Apple's privacy model is quite different, and this has long implied that their feedback mechanisms for sender reputation and message placement probably differ quite greatly.
The four categories in Apple Mail are: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions.
No, there will not be a reliable way to "force" messages into the Primary category. Beware people who suggest otherwise; they are likely trying to scam you. This is a long standing issue for Gmail. Scammers might find a way to add garbage text to "trick" a message into appearing into primary instead of promotions, but it won't last (or never worked at all).
Apple's making a heck of an assumption: that users want their messages categorized. I say that because data from a few years ago showed that as many as two-thirds of Gmail users turned off tabs. Meaning that those users didn't like the way Gmail was categorizing messages for them. I don't see more recent survey data on this, but I guess I'll assume Apple has done some research and thinks that users are ready for another try at this.
On the flip side, savvy marketers who have been landing in the Gmail promotions tab have noted that engagement remains strong. This very much implies that people who want messages categorized will come to the promotions tab to open and click on marketing messages. Or that they weren't going to engage with your messages, regardless of which category the email engine placed them in to.
In short, categories won't kill email marketing. It will be slightly annoying that some messages will land in different categories on Apple versus Gmail. Hopefully it'll be somewhat rare, as under the scientific logic of "great minds think alike," you'd assume that they generally will both be good at identifying certain types of messages. But there will certainly be edge cases where categorization will be different between the two providers. It's going to happen, and you're not going to have an easy way to solve it.
Third: Business Connect Confusion (Is it BIMI? What about BIMI?)
In 2023, Apple announced a free tool called "Apple Business Connect" where companies could register with Apple to manage how their brand and details were displayed to Apple mobile device users. As part of an enhancement, Apple's now adding the ability to show a sender logo for the registered company in Apple Mail (as well as in other Apple mobile apps).
For those wanting full coverage across as many mailboxes as possible, I think it's best to still configure and implement BIMI (with a Verified Mark Certificate for Apple and Gmail support) and thenalso participate in the free Apple Business Connect program. The Apple Business Connect logo will show in more places than just email (including in Maps, Messages, Wallet, phone calls, payments) -- but all of those places are inside of Apple's ecosystem.
One significant point of confusion is that folks posting screenshots of Apple Mail in iOS18.2 beta are showing off inboxes with very generic looking substitute logos -- an icon showing the outline of an airplane, for example, instead of the airline's logo. Is this because it's just in beta? Will a BIMI logo show through here if it's available but a Business Connect logo is not? Will this become a non-issues as just about every company will rush to implement Business Connect, if they haven't already? These are all questions that I do not yet have answers for.
It's important to note that Apple has not suggested that they are abandoning BIMI. And, for those who care about email security, Apple is requiring that companies wishing to participate in Business Connect have a DMARC configuration similar to that required for BIMI (with a policy of quarantine or reject). Business Connect might be an alternate path to a logo, but its DMARC requirements calm my fears about logo mechanism fragmentation slightly; in that, whatever path is chosen by a given sender, the sender email domain security requirements appear equal (and strong).
And finally, I wonder: is the Business Connect email logo functionality tied to the iCloud inbox. Meaning if you use Apple Mail to access a Gmail inbox, will the Business Connect logos still display? That gets tricky for reasons I won't get into here, and I'm a bit doubtful about the chances of cross-compatibility. That means, that while Apple is the leader of the mobile experience, the fact that they're not the leading mailbox providers means that a whole bunch of your customers might never see a Business Connect logo, because they're using Apple Mail to access a Gmail (or other non-Apple) mailbox.
I've gotten a handful of panicked emails from folks upset about how Apple Mail seems to be handling logos. Don't panic! Keep in mind:
We don't know exactly how fully baked the final experience here is.
Apple wants to make their users happy.
Apple will be paying attention to see if this makes their users happy.
Apple will not stick with something that doesn't make their users happy.
Apple's clearly trying something new here. If it ends up not being what email users want, if they didn't get it right initially, Apple is sure to iterate and change things. If they don't, they'll drive users away from Apple Mail and into the arms of the Gmail mobile app.
First: A.I. Message Summaries Replacing Pre-Headers
Apple Intelligence-driven message summaries are replacing pre-header content. When this feature is enabled, a recipient will see perhaps two bullet points-worth of A.I.-generated summary of the message content, instead of your pre-header content. Will this mean people will never open marketing emails? Of course not, but if you want to grab some attention during this preview/list view, you'll have to make your messages interesting enough that the summaries won't be boring or generic. This is perhaps easier said than done.
Should you still bother to include a pre-header? Yes, for now. Wait and see what adoption rates are here and how broadly this spreads throughout the Apple mobile user base. To me, this does suggest that the end of pre-headers is coming. But that's a tomorrow problem, not a today problem.
For those saying, "How dare Apple cover up something in my email message content," the pre-header area was meant to be a hint at the message's content driven by the first bits of the actual body content. Marketers repurposing it to add an extra call to action or fill the space with a haiku? That was a hack, son. I'm not really sure you owned that real estate to begin with.
Second: Apple Categories (Or, What's Old at Gmail is New at Apple)
Apple's got tabs now, just like Gmail. Well, not exactly like Gmail. The engine driving Apple's message categorization is on-device, for privacy reasons. Does that mean that feedback from users will help better inform category placement for a sender or their campaign overall at Apple mailboxes? I'm unclear on that. That's very much the case for Gmail, but Apple's privacy model is quite different, and this has long implied that their feedback mechanisms for sender reputation and message placement probably differ quite greatly.
The four categories in Apple Mail are: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions.
No, there will not be a reliable way to "force" messages into the Primary category. Beware people who suggest otherwise; they are likely trying to scam you. This is a long standing issue for Gmail. Scammers might find a way to add garbage text to "trick" a message into appearing into primary instead of promotions, but it won't last (or never worked at all).
Apple's making a heck of an assumption: that users want their messages categorized. I say that because data from a few years ago showed that as many as two-thirds of Gmail users turned off tabs. Meaning that those users didn't like the way Gmail was categorizing messages for them. I don't see more recent survey data on this, but I guess I'll assume Apple has done some research and thinks that users are ready for another try at this.
On the flip side, savvy marketers who have been landing in the Gmail promotions tab have noted that engagement remains strong. This very much implies that people who want messages categorized will come to the promotions tab to open and click on marketing messages. Or that they weren't going to engage with your messages, regardless of which category the email engine placed them in to.
In short, categories won't kill email marketing. It will be slightly annoying that some messages will land in different categories on Apple versus Gmail. Hopefully it'll be somewhat rare, as under the scientific logic of "great minds think alike," you'd assume that they generally will both be good at identifying certain types of messages. But there will certainly be edge cases where categorization will be different between the two providers. It's going to happen, and you're not going to have an easy way to solve it.
Third: Business Connect Confusion (Is it BIMI? What about BIMI?)
In 2023, Apple announced a free tool called "Apple Business Connect" where companies could register with Apple to manage how their brand and details were displayed to Apple mobile device users. As part of an enhancement, Apple's now adding the ability to show a sender logo for the registered company in Apple Mail (as well as in other Apple mobile apps).
This is not BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification); a broader email ecosystem implementation of sender logos, supported across a multitude of mailbox providers.
For those wanting full coverage across as many mailboxes as possible, I think it's best to still configure and implement BIMI (with a Verified Mark Certificate for Apple and Gmail support) and then also participate in the free Apple Business Connect program. The Apple Business Connect logo will show in more places than just email (including in Maps, Messages, Wallet, phone calls, payments) -- but all of those places are inside of Apple's ecosystem.
And finally, I wonder: is the Business Connect email logo functionality tied to the iCloud inbox. Meaning if you use Apple Mail to access a Gmail inbox, will the Business Connect logos still display? That gets tricky for reasons I won't get into here, and I'm a bit doubtful about the chances of cross-compatibility. That means, that while Apple is the leader of the mobile experience, the fact that they're not the leading mailbox providers means that a whole bunch of your customers might never see a Business Connect logo, because they're using Apple Mail to access a Gmail (or other non-Apple) mailbox.
I've gotten a handful of panicked emails from folks upset about how Apple Mail seems to be handling logos. Don't panic! Keep in mind:
- We don't know exactly how fully baked the final experience here is.
- Apple wants to make their users happy.
- Apple will be paying attention to see if this makes their users happy.
- Apple will not stick with something that doesn't make their users happy.
Apple's clearly trying something new here. If it ends up not being what email users want, if they didn't get it right initially, Apple is sure to iterate and change things. If they don't, they'll drive users away from Apple Mail and into the arms of the Gmail mobile app.Comments
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