With Apple’s newest announcements yesterday, you can expect some exciting changes in the next couple months. Surprisingly for the first time the iPhone wasn’t the center of the announcements. With Apple’s release of the Watch (not iWatch as we all assumed and will continue to call it anyways), they delved into a new product category for the first time since the iPad release in 2010.
Remember as a developer it’s crucial to stay informed and ahead on any feature or product changes – and Apple just released a ton! Below we’ve outlined some of the most exciting changes happening and how you should be looking at it:
Two New Phones: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
Source: Apple
The iPhone 6 will have a screen measuring 4.7 inches, while the iPhone 6 Plus will be 5.5 inches. At the same time they’ll be the thinnest phones ever coming in at 6.9 mm and 7.1 mm, compared to 7.6 mm for the iPhone 5S. Both are boasting improved speed and longer-lasting battery life.
What you need to know: App developers will be able to design apps that can be viewed differently when the phone is held horizontally. The screen resolution on the Plus version will be sharper than previous iPhones, at 401 pixels per inch rather than 326.
But don’t worry: Apple’s X-code allows your apps to adjust to multiple screen sizes, but features such as horizontal viewing and the ability to add more tappable content will require some redesigning.
Plus – Fitness focused: The phones will have a new sensor, the barometer, to estimate vertical climb, such as stairs, not just how far you’ve walked or ran.
Release date: Sep 19
The New iOS 8 Features
Messaging: Tap to Talk, QuickType, advanced Group Messaging
Source: Apple
Finally they’ve added the “Tap to Talk” feature which allows you to send voice messages within the app instantly.
iOS 8 also features a smarter keyboard with QuickType, which allows predictive text. The more you use it, the better your iPhone will understand how you communicate.
What you need to know: For the first time Apple will allow third-party keyboards, meaning you’ll be able to build apps that can be used right inside the current app. This is a common theme with the new iOS – allowing more third party apps.
Siri: Music Recognition + Language expansion
Source: Apple
Siri now works with Shazam, meaning Siri can now recognize music. You can also now wake her up simply by saying “Hey Siri.”
Siri also will now display text as you say it and supports 22 languages.
Family Sharing: Price sharing, parent controls
Source: Apple
Apple introduced Family Sharing at the WWDC, but it’s finally coming into play.
What you need to know: It allows up to six people to share data as well as purchases from iTunes Store, iBookstore, and the App Store. This means users can now share the cost of apps and play them at the same time.
Family Sharing also includes security features to modify kids’ spending, such as asking permission from one device to the next when a purchase is attempted.
Health app: Third-party integration in one dashboard
Source: Apple
The new Health app provides an easy‑to‑read dashboard of all your health and fitness data.
What you need to know: Apple’s created a new tool for developers called HealthKit, which allows all health and fitness apps to work together. The Health app works with health & fitness apps to pull data into one place, however we can see how this would cause less usage of certain apps when you can see the data through Health instead.
Design: Improved notification center
Source: Apple
You can take action on texts, email, calendar invitations, reminders, and even messages from apps like Facebook right from their notification banners without leaving the app you’re in.
Touch ID: Fingerprint ID for all
Source: Apple
Touch ID is now accessible to all apps. Fingerprints can also approve purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store, as well as take advantage of Apple’s new Apple Pay.
What you need to know: Your app can now use Touch ID to authenticate a user before accessing some or all content in your app.
HomeKit: Build for the next Smart House
Source: Apple
Apple is now offering users the potential for their own ‘Smart House.’
What you need to know: With Homekit, you can use a new framework for communicating with and controlling connected devices in a user’s home. Your apps can enable users to discover devices in their home and configure them, or you can create actions to control those devices. Users can group actions together and trigger them using Siri. This opens doors for a whole new plethora of apps.
iCloud: Larger space, more options
Source: Apple
You can now store all your documents or files of any kind in iCloud and access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.
What you need to know: CloudKit allows users to anonymously sign in to your apps with their iCloud Apple IDs without sharing their personal information, however from a developer standpoint their personal information provides valuable demographic and/or marketing data so that’s not exactly a feature you’ll most likely want to take advantage of. CloudKit also provides authentication, private and public databases, and structured and asset storage services — all for free.
The Apple Watch
Source: Apple
The Watch is the first new product since 2010. With a variety of styles and colors, the Apple Watch claims to be something for everyone.
What you need to know: You’ll need an iPhone to use the Watch. Think of the Watch as an arm attachment to your phone (sounds bad, but that’s technology, folks!). The Watch displays texts and other notifications directly from your phone.
It’s compatible with Siri, Apple Pay, and allows for animated emojis 🙂
It’s fitness-focused. The Apple Watch will use an accelerometer and GPS technology to track the activities of users. The watch will also encourage users to meet basic fitness standards like standing up a bit during each hour and getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day.A user can also “send” someone else their heartbeat by pressing two fingers to the Apple Watch screen to allow it to measure a pulse. Users can share sketches, sound recordings and wrist-based love-taps – watch out Tinder!
Unlike most Apple products, you will not be pinching or pulling this screen as the side dial will allow you to zoom in and out. The Apple Watch’s touch screen will also be able to differentiate between a tap and a press, which would should present more control options on the very small amount of available real estate.
Personally, we find a lot of these changes exciting and much-needed. Granted, Android has had many of these features, and still has advanced features (hello waterproof), but they have yet to beat Apple in developer revenue so we continue to see our iOS apps perform over our Android apps.
More importantly, there are a lot of new features in this product and iOS 8 roll-out that can be turned into new apps. This is exactly what you should be looking for everytime Apple, Google, or Microsoft release changes. However, if you’re stressing out about being first to develop, while important at times, it also pays to wait once all the bugs have been worked out and you can see what other developers have been doing. Similar to a game, sometimes in business you want to see how others play their cards first. Regardless, tuning into these new features alone have earned people hundreds of thousands.