Behold iOS 8, Bigger iPhones & Wearables Are Upon Us


 

September 13, 2014 | By: Adrian

As you all may very well know, Apple has announced the new iPhone 6 and it’s much larger brother, the iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 sports a new “Retina HD” display of 4.7″ with a 1334×755 resolution and the iPhone 6 Plus a “Retina HD” display of 5.5″ with a 1920×1080 resolution.

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So what does this mean for developers and the apps that they currently have in circulation? Well, fortunately, not much at first. Unlike the transition from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5, apps will not be letter boxed in the center of the screen. Apple will use their tech wizardry to scale the apps to look native on the new phones from day one (*if they are optimized for the iPhone 5).

Now this doesn’t mean that developers should just sit back and relax. The new resolution capacities on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus allow for a more vibrant UI by taking advantage of crisp icons, higher resolution images, and the extra screen real-estate. There areĀ also many additions to iOS 8, like the new landscape mode for the iPhone 6 Plus that could add value to the user experience. Finally, with each major iOS update comes framework changes, which means looking for deprecated code and updating the code base to take advantage of the new update. This should be on the top of the list for all developers.

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Apart from the new iPhones, there was the much-speculated release of an Apple wearable device the Apple Watch and a NFC payment system called Apple Pay. Apple Pay will be included in the new iPhones and the Apple Watch. Apple Pay will be rolling out in numerous retail stores and apps allowing users to store their credit cards on the phone and express checkout goods with a simple touch verification bypassing the hassles of a regular credit card transaction. The Apple Watch is Apples take on the growing trend of the smart watch. The watch is going to heavily interact with the iPhone allowing apps to push notifications to the watch and the watch to hand off commands and information to the iPhone. This will surely spring a ton of innovative apps and, although the Apple Watch is not scheduled for release until early next year, the Apple Watch and the new Apple Pay system is something every developer should think about utilizing.

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