iPhone iOS4 – What it means to your users and you

23/06/2010 - Manchester

Opinion by Garry Byrne - Div Head of Strategy

Yesterday Apple made public the latest version of its iPhone software - rebranded as iOS4 - slightly ahead of the international release of the newest iPhone 4 handset on the 24th June. I'm sure there's already a million 'initial thoughts' articles popping up as people rush to be the first to put their name against what is undoubtedly a very active keyword search, but this is not one of those articles. I've been running iOS4 on my iPhone, in its various beta guises, for over 2 months and as such am able to offer a real opinion on the various features the new software offers, and how usable they actually are in day to day life.

So, where to start? Let's talk about the 'biggy' - multitasking. I, along with most of the iPhone-owning world, have been clamouring for this since the original phone was released in 2007. The iPhone has historically only been able to run one non-system application at a time, if you wanted to connect to MSN and browse the web at the same time it wasn't an option as any application that connected to you MSN would log you out as soon as you exited the app and loaded up Safari. Thus, the announcement of multitasking has been much rejoiced by owners old and new as Apple are finally allowing 'standard' smartphone functionality onto its very much closed operating system.

The thing is, having had iOS4 running for a couple of months, I've not used it. Sure, the applications I have don't readily support any of the multiple ways they can now utilise the multitasking functionality, but the truth is that Apple 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 your phone a pop-up alert message, much like an SMS alert, through a centralised Apple server. This means they can do this even when your application is not running. I can log into a MSN service provider, who manage my logged in status for me, and then simply use an app to connect to that service provider when I want to chat on MSN. If I get a message whilst the app isn't running, then the service simply sends me a notification through Apple, and I can reload the app at my leisure and continue my conversations.

Sound crazy? I suppose it might, especially when other phones let you simply load up MSN on the phone, and leave it running - still connected - in the background for you to use at will. But let us take a step back and think about this. If you have an app running in the background, it will be using your phone's resources (in terms of battery and processor power) even when you're not using the application. More importantly, it will also be using your data allowance to remain connected - even when you're not using the application. Suddenly, this sounds a little silly. It makes sense to farm off the formality of connecting to MSN to a remote server, and just load up the app when you actually need it.

I was very dubious of this way of thinking when notifications first came about, but apps such as BeejiveIM (an instant messaging client that allows you to simultaneously connect to such services as MSN, Facebook chat etc) have implemented it so well that I really don't need the app running in the background - I just load it up when it notifies me someone has popped me a message. I use this setup on my iPad every day (which doesn't even have iOS4 and its 'true' multitasking ability yet), allowing me to browse, check email, watch a film and still stay online for chat in the background.

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 - essentially an icon on one of the homepage screens than, when pressed, will split the screen to reveal all the apps stored in there. 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 which simply re-samples the image it's capturing (leading to a somewhat blocky end result), and more importantly, the tap-to-focus feature is now available whilst shooting video - a welcome additional to any budding Spielbergs.

Talking of the camera leads on nicely to a key feature that was kept very quiet until iOS4 was officially announced - 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'.

Facetime is integrated right into the phone aspect 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.

Again, this was something I was dubious about - video calling has existed for years, can this really be a key selling point for the iPhone? Having casually observed the response to this feature, I actually believe it can - a friend of mine who lives in Canada is now buying an iPhone on the premise that his mother in the UK can do the same, and they can easily share video calls of his son without the hassle of pointing a laptop webcam here and there. Never mind that they could have done this on pretty much any smartphone of the last 5 years using Skype…this looks like it will 'just work', and thus is a reason to buy the phone they have been avoiding for so long.

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? Firstly, let's consider your user-base, and how many of them currently have an iPhone in their pocket, either as a primary device, or in many cases as personal phone to accompany their corporate Blackberry. The market is already massive, with millions of iPhones having been sold in the UK alone, and this market share is about to get a whole lot bigger. For a start, the current iPhone market percentage is based largely on a single network offering, with Vodafone and Orange only able to offer the phone for the last 6 months or so. This is all about to change, with all 5 of the UK networks confirmed to be carrying the new iPhone - not only will this put the phone into the hands of a much larger potential user-base, but the competition caused by more players in the market will naturally drive prices down, further encouraging take-up.

Then there's the simple fact that the features we discussed, having been introduced in iOS4, will remove a lot of the barriers to ownership voiced by smartphone lovers and IT departments nation-wide. It's no longer viable for an IT manager to refuse the iPhone as a corporate device, as Apple have worked hard to ensure it fits with a business' need for security and accountability. Video calling, as I've already seen, will entice people to buy the phone.

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. Aside the fact that there are now several screen sizes and phone versions to contend with, it's still very easy to know how your users will consume any media, be it on the web or via an app, and thus is controllable - you don't have to consider endless system configurations or browser plug-ins on the iPhone. You know you can trust the hardware, from how it utilises geo-location to what you can do with the camera, and as such you can create apps and feature-rich websites on a relatively small budget that will be instantly accessible to a very large sector of your audience. And let's not forget that the Safari browser on the iPhone supports HTML5, meaning it can take advantage of the vastly enhanced multimedia and usability features this standard offers.

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 users. 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.