Salesforce And Apple Launch Customer Experience And Learning Apps For iOS

By Amit Chowdhry ● Nov 19, 2019
  • Salesforce and Apple announced the launch of two flagship apps, including a redesigned Salesforce Mobile App and the Trailhead GO app

Apple and Salesforce have announced the launch of two flagship apps from the customer relationship management company. These apps include the redesigned Salesforce Mobile App and new Trailhead GO learning app. The apps include rich customer experiences and features that are exclusive to iOS and iPadOS.

The companies also announced the next-generation Salesforce Mobile SDK, which empowers developers to easily build and deploy native apps for iPhone and iPad on the Salesforce Platform. Apple and Salesforce had launched a strategic partnership at Dreamforce last year.

“Working together, Apple and Salesforce have helped hundreds of businesses and millions of developers transform the way they work,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s Vice President of Product Marketing for Apps, Markets and Services. “With brand new Salesforce Mobile apps exclusive to iOS and iPadOS, and an enhanced SDK that supports the latest advancements in Swift, Apple together with Salesforce offers customers strong privacy, powerful multitasking and the best user experience in business on iPhone and iPad.”

The Salesforce Mobile App was completely redesigned to deliver a new user experience enabled by Einstein with advanced analytics and features exclusive to iOS like Siri shortcuts and Face ID support. This means that anyone can run their business on mobile in a way that’s conversational and smart by leveraging the power of Siri and Einstein to quickly add tasks, take notes, and update the CRM.

And Trailhead GO — which is the first-ever mobile app for Trailhead exclusive to iOS and iPadOS — can be used to connect to the free online learning platform used by millions of Trailblazers to skill up for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Using Trailhead GO, learners now have access anywhere and at any time to more than 700 modules covering in-demand business and tech skills, including trails such as “Get Started with iOS App Development” — which teaches developers at any level how to build native apps. It was built on Swift using Salesforce’s Mobile SDK. And Trailhead GO supports Handoff in addition to Accessibility features like VoiceOver and Magnifier and iPadOS features include Split View for multitasking and Picture-in-Picture for video courses.

The new Salesforce Mobile SDK — which is optimized for Swift and iOS 13 — adds support for the latest advancements in iOS 13, iPadOS and Swift, including Swift UI and Package Manager in order to easier and compile distribution of code. This new SDK will empower over 6 million Salesforce developers to quickly build and deploy native Salesforce apps for iPhone and iPad. And the SDK has already been used by hundreds of businesses to focus on what they do best, which is provide a superior customer experience.

The Salesforce Mobile App is now generally available for free on the App Store. And the new user experience and features require Salesforce admin opt-in.

And Trailhead GO is now generally available for free on the App Store. More features including support for iOS Dark Mode and Sign in with Apple across Trailhead are expected to be available later this year. And the new Salesforce Mobile SDK 8.0 with support for Dark Mode and Swift UI is expected to be available later this year with additional features optimized for iPadOS expected to arrive in a 2020 release.

“With Salesforce Mobile, Salesforce and Apple are empowering sales, service and marketing professionals on the go to deliver game-changing customer experiences, powered by AI,” added Bret Taylor, President and Chief Product Officer, Salesforce. “And with Trailhead GO, millions more can now skill up for free, anytime and anywhere, to learn in-demand skills and fill the jobs of today and tomorrow.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook is going to join Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff for a fireside chat at Dreamforce 2019 today at 1:30 p.m. PT at the Yerba Buena Theater.