In-App Experiences for the Apple SDK

In-App Experiences use Airship’s on-device automation framework to provide instant, personalized content that integrates natively with your app. This includes ScenesA mobile app or web experience of one or more screens displayed with fully native UI components in real time, providing immediate, contextual responses to user behaviors. Scenes can be presented in full-screen, modal, or embedded format using the default swipe/click mode or as a Story. They can also contain survey questions., which can be displayed as modal or fullscreen overlays or embedded directly within your app screens, and In-App Automations (IAA), which power banner, modal, and fullscreen in-app messages triggered by events.

Scenes are fully customizable in the Airship dashboard and require minimal SDK integration. For advanced In-App Automation customization options, see In-App Automation.

Requirements

To use In-App Experiences, you need:

• The AirshipAutomation module installed (see Getting Started)
• Airship SDK initialized with takeOff (see Getting Started)

Adding custom fonts

Custom fonts added to your app bundle can be used in In-App Experiences. To add fonts to your app, follow Apple’s guide on Adding a Custom Font to Your App .

Once added, you’ll need the font family name to use it in Airship. To find the family name:

1. Add the font files to your Xcode project
2. Use this code to print all available font family names:

for family in UIFont.familyNames.sorted() {
    print("Family: \(family)")
    for name in UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: family) {
        print("  - \(name)")
    }
}

for (NSString *familyName in [UIFont familyNames]) {
    NSLog(@"Family: %@", familyName);
    for (NSString *fontName in [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:familyName]) {
        NSLog(@"  - %@", fontName);
    }
}

After adding fonts to your app, create a Font Stack in the Airship dashboard by following the steps in Setting brand guidelines. You can then select the stack when setting In-App Experience defaults and creating in-app messages.

Controlling display

Control when and how In-App Experiences are displayed in your app. You can auto-pause displays on launch (useful for splash screens), manually pause all in-app displays, set intervals between displays, control when individual messages are ready to display, and specify which scene window displays messages in multi-scene apps.

Auto-pausing on launch

For apps with splash screens, you can configure Airship to automatically pause In-App Automation on launch. This prevents In-App Experiences from displaying during the splash screen. Once your app is ready, resume display by setting isPaused to false.

Set the autoPauseInAppAutomationOnLaunch option in your Airship config when calling takeOff:

var config = AirshipConfig()

// ... other config settings ...

// Auto-pause on launch for splash screen
config.autoPauseInAppAutomationOnLaunch = true

try! Airship.takeOff(config)

// Later, when splash screen is dismissed and app is ready:
Airship.inAppAutomation.isPaused = false

UAConfig *config = [UAConfig config];

// ... other config settings ...

// Auto-pause on launch for splash screen
config.autoPauseInAppAutomationOnLaunch = YES;

[UAirship takeOff:config error:&airshipError];

// Later, when splash screen is dismissed and app is ready:
UAirship.inAppAutomation.isPaused = NO;

Pausing display

Pausing will still allow In-App Experiences to be triggered and queued up for execution, but they will not display. This is useful for preventing in-app experiences from displaying on screens where it would be detrimental to the user experience, such as splash screens, settings screens, or landing pages.

Airship.inAppAutomation.isPaused = true

Airship.inAppAutomation.isPaused = YES

Display interval

The display interval controls the amount of time to wait before the manager can display the next triggered In-App Experience. The default value is set to 0 seconds and can be adjusted to any amount of time in seconds.

Airship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.displayInterval = 30

UAirship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.displayInterval = 30

Controlling per-message display

You can control when individual In-App Experiences are ready to display and listen for when they are displayed or finished. This is useful when you need to check app state before displaying content, such as:

• Verifying the current screen or view controller is appropriate for the message
• Checking custom data in the message’s extras (custom keys) to determine if it should display
• Ensuring certain app conditions are met before showing the message
• Integrating with other in-app messaging products

Airship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.onIsReadyToDisplay = { message, scheduleID in
    // Return false to prevent display
    return false
}

Airship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.notifyDisplayConditionsChanged()

- (BOOL)isMessageReadyToDisplay:(UAInAppMessage *)message scheduleID:(NSString *)scheduleID {
    // Return NO to prevent display
    return NO;
}

UAirship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.displayDelegate = self;

[UAirship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging notifyDisplayConditionsChanged];

Displaying in multiple scene apps

By default, In-App Experiences are displayed in the last active window scene. The InAppMessageSceneDelegate allows you to override this behavior and control which UIWindowScene displays a given in-app message. Use this delegate when your app supports multiple scenes and you need to customize which scene displays the message.

func sceneForMessage(_ message: InAppMessage) -> UIWindowScene? {
    // return a custom scene or nil to use default
}

Airship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.sceneDelegate = sceneDelegate

- (UIWindowScene *)sceneForMessage:(UAInAppMessage *)message {
    // return a custom scene or nil to use default
    return nil;
}

UAirship.inAppAutomation.inAppMessaging.sceneDelegate = self;

Next steps

• Learn how to create Scenes in the Airship dashboard
• Present Scene content with Embedded Content
• Create reusable components with Custom Views
• Customize In-App Automation for IAA