We are thrilled with the announcement that there is **probably..** going to be a new iPhone announced September the 12th together with the release of iOS 6.
We are excited about the possibilities that this will bring for us. But on the other hand we need to make sure that all the apps we operate will run like a charm when it is released; which is an interesting challenge.
The Cool Stuff
When we think of the new iPhone and iOS 6 we have a clear wishlist:
- Speed
- NFC
- Access to WIFI
- Bigger screen
- Better battery life
These capacities will enable us to create new concepts, and make other ideas work better. When we started with GPS tracking back in the Nulaz days for example; the app worked well, but it was a drain on your battery. To make an app run well, it needs to be in harmony with the hardware capabilities offered by the device.
We want speed and there is no explanation needed for that. We want NFC because we want to enable seamless mobile payments and social exchanges that go from device to device (like virtual business cards). We want access to the WIFI because we want to do indoor positioning; so we can enable indoor location based services like wayfinding and geofencing.
Of course we know most of the stuff that IOS 6 is going to bring us, but some things might be dropped or changed before its released.
The Challenging part
A new device and a new operating system also bring challenges. We need to get our hands on an iPhone 5 asap so we can test if all our apps still run well. We also need to test iOS 6 on all other devices that will run it to check the same thing. On the other hand, most of the bugs we find with backwards compatibility are usually fixed in the x.01 release (in this case the 5.0.1) – but we’re not going to wait for that.
A bigger screen means that we need to adopt our app interfaces. With the shift from normal to retina it was ‘easy’ because all we needed to do was blow up the screen to 200%. However, we’ll probably be confronted with a change in aspect ratio as well. Our apps we not initially designed for that. So we’ve got a lot of things to optimize and change.
Conclusion
Of course we need to do some work when there is a new release of an iPhone and iOS version. However, we love the excitement and new possibilities it brings. So we will watch the Apple event with anxiety on Wednesday!
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