Recently, Apple released its iOS 5 that captivated the attention of iOS device users and developers. But what actually changed? Why should you consider its new features when thinking of your next app? How can these features give your app greater exposure and help you to maximize the return on your investment of your iPhone/iPad app development?
Today we will take a look at a few of the new features of iOS 5, and know how they can help tailor your app ideas to meet new iOS device capabilities.
We at HireRussians believe that you’ve probably already read quite a number of reviews on the new iOS features. That’s why we will only focus our attention on the practical effects of these features on your potential plans for new iOS application development.
We consider the iCloud to be the most interesting feature of the iOS 5 release because it gives wide prospective abilities for designing handy and powerful iOS-applications. Let’s now discuss the reasons why we advise our customers to build new iOS 5 features into their future apps, in order to give you a better idea of iCloud’s potential.
It is essential to understand that while the service is called iCloud, it does not actually supply your app with the functionality of Cloud computing. This means that you should not expect iCloud to replace custom server-side storage or computing. iCloud could, however, replace a server-side well in its backup functionality. But even in this capacity the iCloud will not allow you to perform any type of collaboration activities for this data including sharing. So, it is unlikely that the iCloud will remove the necessity of creating a custom server-side, but it can make the user experience smoother.
iCloud does ensure a complete synchronization of user data between devices. Such synchronization is a burning issue for applications that need users to enter any type of information. This could be almost anything, such as the number of calories eaten per day for a diet tracking app, shopping lists, household’s expenses and earnings for an accounting app, cycling routes for a travelling app, tasks for a get-things-done or a project management app, etc. Nearly all types of data can be synchronized by the iCloud in your application, providing for endless possibilities.
If you plan to collaborate your future application with iOS standard apps such as Calendar, Contacts, or Photo, you should definitely consider the support of iOS 5 features since they ensure all data synchronization between user’s Mac, MacBook, iPhone, iPod, and iPad.
The iCloud synch guarantees that users can use your application from all of their Apple devices easily making all of their personal settings and content available. This means you can now enable your users to use your application when they want, the way they want, with any device they have at hand. Your new application with this capability will propel you well above your competition because it shows your users that you care about their convenience. As an app publisher, you will gain a great deal of credibility from users by providing this freedom.
Other welcome news regarding iOS 5 features has to do with Twitter integration being built-in into OS, and thus into all native applications. This should be taken into account while planning your future app so that it will make use of the system authorization and not request the user to log in into Twitter through your app; users will definitely appreciate this handy feature.
Generally, it seems that the new features of iOS 5 are all about simplifying user experience with Apple devices. We at HireRussians always try to encourage our customers to create their apps in the most user friendly way, and because of this, customers often leave us thankful feedback on Elance further illustrating the point that this is the best way to proceed.
While all of this may sound good, you may still be wondering what the cost of creating an app that supports iOS 5 features will be. You may just be pleasantly surprised! In fact, if your developers are familiar with new iOS features implementation your development expenses may even decrease, although it depends a great deal on the specific requirements of your app. Regardless of cost, it is still advisable to consider making your app iOS 5 compatible. Even if you already have an app selling in the App Store you can always upgrade it to be more efficient and more user-friendly. You may find making this change will provide you with a newsworthy matter that will spread the word about your application faster than you can imagine!