When Apple rolls out their version updates, beyond all the media frenzy it creates, there are genuine forums and discussions that review the major changes. Barring the usual launch event slides and key points floated in the media, there is an understated attempt to entice developers to take the game to the next level. The features seem user centric by all means. But deep down, Apple throws their dice to send clear messages to the developers to take their apps to the next level.
Just like their most updates, iOS 16 also promised a lot of performance and security enhancements. The media event was well placed and choreographed to lure the users. But the after events, the sessions, developer counseling and subsequent interactions suggested that there is a lot beyond the device and software features.
What Are The Key Points Apple Considers While Launching A Product?
Apple knows the power of the internet. The devices, apart from their own capabilities, should also be able to interact not only with other similar devices but also with routine devices. When an update is rolled out, there are some criteria that are kept under consideration. Let us take a look at some criteria that sound obvious looking at these version updates from iOS.
Accessibility
Apple has its own universe of devices. Every year we see a new product being launched. Apple wants your iOS apps to interact with all the other devices as well. So apart from the usual performance enhancements, we see a lot of accessibility improvements as well. For instance, your apps are better accessible on your watches, tv, iPad, your car and other devices with each update.
Sharing
After establishing strong accessibility, Apple wants to ensure that there is sufficient sharing between the devices. Your iOS apps can transfer data to all the other devices through a central storage facility. This enables you to not just access your apps from multiple devices but also to share data across them.
Hardware
Apple emphasizes a lot on the ideal balance of software and hardware. Building good hardware features is just half the battle won. With each iOS update, Apple wants your apps to better use the hardware features to truly optimize the experience. In the past there have been times when developers have completely redefined the way some hardware features like depth sensors, gyroscope and face ID work. The newer versions of iOS pave the way for developers to make the most of the hardware.
Creation
Content creation is the single most important thing on the internet today. Creating content is an industry itself. But it is not just limited to creators. Content is also created to attract attention and engagement on apps or other platforms that navigate through apps. iOS versions are more and more enabling creators to create engaging content.
Security
An omnipresent aspect in every iOS update is the security of the device and its data. In this data driven age of technology, it is very important to secure not just user data but the analytical data as well. All apps track behavioral patterns of users to offer them personalized ads. The version updates of iOS ensure that both your data and analytics are safest.
Features That Will Change the Way Apps Work In 2023
Considering all the above points that Apple may be working on while rolling out an iOS update, there are some features this time around as well that look promising. There are some really intuitive features that your apps could utilize to gain the most out of the software and hardware experience.
iOS is a great way to get the best out of your apps in business terms. Apple has a user base that represents a certain demographic. The user base also indicates resourcefulness of this demographic since most iOS devices are not inexpensive. Multiple industries benefit from iOS app that they develop for their businesses. This user base won’t mind spending an extra bit to get the best quality products and services. Altogether, having an app made on the iOS makes the overall return of investments faster.
Here are some features that will define the way apps function in 2023
Widgets
For a long time iOS ignored the power of widgets. To their defense, up until recently, widgets didn’t offer much functionality apart from just being thumbnails that move. With widgets now doing great for other platforms, it was time the iOS also enabled that. With widgets on iOS, your app interacts with the users without them having to open the app. The design of these widgets allows you to put your best content and your best app page on it. If you are getting a custom iOS mobile application for your business, make sure you also have a widget designed for it. These appearances can be updated regularly. Upon accessing the highlighted page on the widget, the users are navigated straight to that page of your app.
Spotlight
Spotlight is another futuristic feature on the new versions of the iOS. The search bar on the app drawer is called spotlight on iOS. This spotlight so far only showed results of relevant keywords. The results included app and device search keywords. Now with the improved spotlight, any inside feature or piece of content from your app can also appear in the search result. So upon searching a phrase, the iOS shows relevant results which include all apps that consist of that phrase in their pages or content. If you know the keywords that the users are likely to search on their iOS devices, you can optimize your app accordingly and incorporate those words in the metadata or content posts.
Notifications
With the new home screen, now it is possible to club notifications with an intuitive animation. The personalized home screen plays with the picture and its dimensions. It also allows certain actions to be performed from certain apps. But the most notable change among the latest iOS features in the home screen is the notifications. These notifications now roll up from the bottom of the screen. This gives the users an uninterrupted view of their personalized home screens and shows the notifications in a minimal way.
Visual Search
The iOS uses the device capabilities to offer state of the art solutions to the users through their apps. One of the very few promising features in the recent updates has been the visual search option. Now iOS users can just open their camera and click something that they want their phone to look up to for them. This can be an object or even text. The textual search has been a big hit among the users where they just click a picture of the text written and the iOS shows relevant results. The text in the image can also be copied to clipboard. This is great for practices like translation and other searches. Apps can leverage this feature and enable their users to search anything from a picture. The app can then show the relevant results within the app based on the picture.
Apple Pay
Apple wants an integrated experience that is the most secure and seamless for their users. The payments can now be made through taps. Users can store their credit cards as a digital version in the wallet and allow Apple Pay to make the payments with the linked accounts and cards. The latest features of Apple Pay Later also include splitting a payment into different parts across weeks. All this is done without any interest or fees. These integrated payments then enable users to track their orders and manage tokens or cashbacks from the merchants in a convenient way.
Conclusion
The new features let the users interact with your app in some really interesting ways. It is safe to assume that the aforementioned features are going to appear across most popular apps soon in the coming months. Incorporating these features in your app will make the user experience a tad bit better than the rest for your users. Uniformity is iOS’s biggest card. It offers a seamless and uniform way for the users to access their apps across all their devices. Be it on Xcode, Swift, Objective C or React Native app development service, what Apple wants from businesses and developers is to integrate these features in the future versions of their apps so that the users optimize the benefits of these features from the software as well as the devices.
Pinal is a React Native Developer working with Gtech Web Infotech Pvt. Ltd., a leading mobile app development company in India. Being capable of building cross-platform applications that are highly proficient and offer intuitive user experience is her forte.
