iPhone iOS4 – What it means to your users and you

So, where to start? Let’s talk about the ‘biggy’ – multitasking. We, the people, have been waiting for this since 2007 and the general feeling is one of expectant delight about it’s arrival.

However, the truth is that Apple has already implemented a much better concept for multitasking, and one that has been utilised very effectively by numerous App developers – notifications.

Put simply, notifications allow an application to send you messages even when the App itself isn’t running. Using MSN as an example, I simply log into my MSN application, which controls this on a remote server, and this remote server sends me an alert, through the notification server, when I get a MSN message – I can then re-open the App at my leisure, reconnect to the remote server, and continue my chat.

I was very dubious of this way of thinking when notifications first came about, but it actually makes a lot of sense – if you have an App running constantly, It’s using up your battery and resources (and your bandwidth!) even when you’re not actually using it. Much better to only actually run the App when you need it.

The good news is, many of the other new features in iOS4 offer many more real-life benefits, rather than just being headline-grabbing.

Mail has been vastly improved – not only is there much better Exchange support, including the ability to have multiple Exchange accounts set up, and better remote management, but a much better search and an ‘inbox view’, which lets you see all your accounts in a single list (believe me, when you have 6 email accounts set up, this is a godsend!) making mail an altogether much more powerful tool.

The ability to organise your Apps into folders is a stalwart for the jailbreaking crowd, and a very welcome addition to iOS4. Rather than having your applications, 16 per screen, over multiple screens, you can actually group them into folders. This is a great feature for organising your apps into categories such as games, social media apps etc, and one of the features I use the most.

Another feature of iOS4 is the additional camera control, and this will come into play even more on the new phone this its improved resolution, LED flash and forward-facing camera. For the first time, the camera application comes with an inbuilt digital zoom and, more importantly, the tap-to-focus feature is now available whilst shooting video – a welcome additional to any budding Spielbergs.

Then there’s Facetime. This is, to anyone who’s owned a smartphone in the last 10 years, simply video calling with a nice marketing name, however in typical Apple style it’s an already existing feature that could actually be ‘game changing’. It’s integrated right into the phone functionality of iOS4 – if you call someone on your iPhone, and they have a compatible device, you will be presented with the option to make that call a video, rather than voice one. There is no other app to load, it’s a simple, one-press option.

There’s lots of features of the new iPhone operating system which I’ve not touched on there – over 100 improvements to the interface itself, and around 1,500 new APIs that will allow app developers to utilise the iPhone as never before. The reason I’ve covered off multitasking, mail and video is because these are the features that are really going to make a difference to your business.

Why? Let’s consider your user-base: millions of people already have an iPhone, and with all the major UK networks poised to carry the new version of the phone, rather than just O2, that number is about to get a lot bigger. The phone is also now more attractive to the corporate market, with improved exchange support and security features.

Put short, a lot of your customers will have an iPhone and this opens up some interesting opportunities.

The iPhone is, at the end of the day, a closed platform. There’s only a few screen resolutions and sizes to consider, and you know what the hardware is. The Safari browser also supports the latest HTML5 web coding standard, and all the rich multimedia and interface options it provides. In short, you know how your users will be interacting with your content on the iPhone – there is no real guesswork.

Just imagine an application that utilises face-recognition, using the forward facing camera of the new iPhone, to create a secure login to your service from a custom developed app. When a customer rings your helpline, you can engage them in a video chat right from that call if your customer desires, because your operatives are kitted up with equipment that will communicate directly with Facetime.

Your next application will be able to utilise the geo-location abilities of iOS4 to provide an unparalleled augmented reality experience to your users – letting them see a completely different world, overlaid onto the walls of your gallery.

In short, iOS4 – and the new iPhone – will have a massive impact not only on consumers, but on the businesses that want to engage those consumers. From technology that ‘just works’ and brings a rich user experience, right down to the simple fact that the iPhone is fast becoming the number one smartphone across the planet, means it should feature very heavily in any plans you have to get involved with your customers.

To read the full report, see MiNetwork.me

Author: Garry Byrne

Divisional Head of Strategy

Reading Room Manchester