The days following a WWDC never fail to turn the world of Apple enthusiasts upside down. Whether professional iPhone developers like us, or regular end users who just love Apple products, this year’s conference has been especially dramatic on the iPhone front. This go-around Apple’s put to bed some long-standing niggles – and dropped a few surprises – with a stunning new design and feature set for iPhone 4: a front-facing higher end camera, LED flash, new paper-like display, vastly increased processing power thanks to Apple’s own A4 chipset, longer battery life, noise cancelling dual microphones and an awe inspiring glass and stainless steel industrial spec.
True, iPhone 4 had been dissected, diagrammed and reported on ad nauseam even months before Jobs’ announcement, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm on release day. And despite the leaks coming out of Vietnam and hands-on time with stolen prototypes, what the prophets couldn’t prognosticate was how deliciously the hardware gooses the software. Just consider iOS itself. It’s a huge lift for developers, a massive gift from Apple for anyone with an eye to publishing for the App Store.
The first turn-on in iOS is multitasking, which depending on your application type can be achieved through one of 7 core background services Apple provides: background audio, voice over IP, background location, push notifications, local notifications, task completion and fast app switching.
The upshot of this is users will genuinely feel they’re multitasking, while the software is actually only running one app at a time, albeit with services. So in terms of raw power that developers can exploit and direct toward their apps, we have the lion’s share of CPU, memory and other resources at our disposal.
Aside from multitasking, we also now have Game Center with integrated social networking, and this is going to change the gaming experience on iPod touch and iPhone forever. And with the introduction of iAd, developers now have another revenue model with the potential for ad-supported apps distributed at no charge to users. User reaction to in-app advertising has yet to be tested, but we’re already testing various configurations.
The introduction of app-specific location settings also means you don’t need to change your location each time you use a new application that requires setup with different locations. The ability to gift apps is another nice feature with terrific upside for developers.
What else have we got to look forward to… ah yes, Spotlight now not only searches your device, but also the Web and Wikipedia. In-page video playback for Safari is another lovely addition. And iPhone 4 is now more enterprise-friendly with enhanced data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution and SSL VPN support. Wake on wireless, too, automatically re-connects you when your lost wireless connection is regained. Places in photos offers other interesting possibilities and Mail has been completely revamped.
Spotlight with Web & Wiki searchComing to the SDK, full map overlays means developers can implement a transparent map layer on top of screen contents, a boon for location-oriented utilities, games, and lifestyle apps. And the AV Foundation framework for the first time gives developers full control over video playback and capture. Full photo library and calendar access now gives developers the power to directly access these previously semi-restricted features. Now, too, you can send short messages via your apps through in-app SMS, and Accelerate provides easy to use functions for your computational / number-crunching needs. Another welcome addition are the Quick Look APIs, similar to OS X’s desktop version, giving users the ability to page through documents and other filetypes without needing to launch an app. The UIAutomation instrument, too, can be made to automate touch events, while Time Profiler and Energy Diagnostics Instruments can be used to fine tune your applications.
All these new SDK-side features represent a huge opportunity for iPhone developers to not just tack on new feature to existing apps, but to dream up entirely new creations and markets. iOS and iPhone 4 mark another exciting chapter in Apple’s handheld lineup. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got in store.
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