Key iOS 5 Developer features - a CEO’s perspective

Most of the news leaving the hallowed halls of the Moscone West building in San Francisco, where Apple’s Developer Conference - WWDC 2011 - is taking place, centres around the announcement of iOS 5 and its fluffy new features and services such as iCloud, iMessage, Newsstand, and Reminders. Surprisingly, very little has been reported on the major technical improvements in iOS 5 from a developer perspective. And iOS 5 has a lot of big improvements for developers.

Here are the features that I truly believe will make a major improvement to a developer’s life:

1. Notification Center

One of the main complaints over iOS in the last six months has been the inflation of push notifications that disturb the user experience with an iPhone or iPad. Notification Center in iOS 5 builds on the existing notification system with provisioning now built right into Xcode, making it easier to implement.

With the new Notification Center in iOS 5 you can display and manage notifications without interrupting the user. The user can see all notifications in a single place via the Notification Center from the home screen or from any app by swiping down the status bar. When the user gets a new notification it will briefly appear at the top of the screen instead of a popup. The lock screen also displays the notifications so you can respond to them quickly with just a swipe.

To read more about the Notification Center visit here. 

2. Automatic Reference Counting (ARC)

I might be going out on a limb here, but in my opinion the ARC is what is normally referred to as garbage collector. One of the key complaints by Android developers, particularly when developing for iOS, is the difficult of memory management in iOS.  This also affects users since apps constantly crash.  With ARC though, the developer no longer needs to be an expert in memory management as the compiler does the job for you.  In theory this should allow apps to run faster and more reliably. Whether it will make apps more stable in general or cause developers to become sloppy remains to be seen.

3. Twitter integration
To be fair this has been one of the main features discussed in the media. But I believe this is more due to the fact that the media loves Twitter.  What they don’t say though is that Android has supported Twitter and other social networking integration for over a year, as Android allows apps to interact with each other.  Nevertheless, iOS now provides the key features of Twitter as well.  The deep integration allows the association of a Twitter account within iOS settings. So now the integration with an app does not have to be done by the user by logging in and or adding an account manually.  Since most apps nowadays provide sharing through Twitter, this will enhance the user’s experience enormously.

4. Core Image

During the last year some of the coolest and most popular apps have been photo editing or photo filtering apps such as Instagram, Hipstamatic, Camerabag, Photogene and many more. Core Image provides a framework for editing images and videos, making it a lot easier to implement these features into any app.  In addition to this, the framework is tightly integrated with the hardware to make performance even better.

5. OpenGL ES

The new OpenGL capabilities are what really excite game developers and 3D animators.

With the GL Kit in iOS 5 the capabilities for advanced rendering and texture techniques have become even better, and we are yet to see how those capabilities can be utilised.

6. PC Free

The sixth and last feature I want to highlight has little to do with the developer SDK but may turn out to become one of the biggest advantages.  Today the majority of users upgrade to the latest iOS within the first couple of months. Some though, will still stick to an older version and cause headaches for developers in terms of backwards interoperability support.  Hopefully PC Free will be so tempting a feature that only a small share of users will remain with older versions of the OS. Unfortunately, however, Apple also announced that the oldest iPhones cannot be upgraded to iOS 5 so some legacy issues will still remain.

So there you have a CEO’s perspective on iOS 5.  Let’s start making use of it when it’s launched (hopefully) in September.

Golden Gekko is attending WWDC but it seems, playing with the SDK and Apple’s other new toys has kept them too busy to give us a full report yet.

The mobile OS battle is not over yet

We frequently get told that developing for other platforms than iOS and Android is meaningless. Many declare all other platforms dead. For the last 3 years, we’ve been told that J2ME is dead. But still in 2011, on a worldwide base, there will be more J2ME enabled devices sold than smartphones. People have also been telling us that Blackberry is a dead platform, that Microsoft has zero chance to succeed in mobile, that no one will develop apps for Palm/HP WebOS and that WAC is a failure before it has even had a chance to launch.

We believe it is very dangerous to make statements like this. The industry moves extremely quickly and there are a lot of factors involved. This is why we believe that the mobile OS battle will continue for some time:

1. The operators/carriers don’t want Apple and Google to gain complete dominance

The operator device teams at operators made it clear during conversations at Mobile World Congress that they don’t want Google or Apple to dominate completely. They will continue to back Nokia with the Windows Phone, RIM with Blackberry OS, Limo as the operator partnership and WAC as a cross-platform development platform.

2. Failing is not an option

For RIM, HP and Microsoft failing is not an option. The Blackberry OS made RIM successful and this is what lead HP to acquire Palm WebOS. Microsoft is probably the company that has the most to lose. Their strategic deal with Nokia they has proven how far they are willing to go to achieve their objectives. If RIM fail with Blackberry OS they will go down for the count as a smart phone manufacturer.

3. Device manufacturers and OS developers have deep pockets

Nokia, Samsung, RIM, HP and Microsoft all have big cash piles to execute thei mobile OS strategy. They may not get the same number of app developers to adopt their platform as Apple or Google and they may fail in the long term. However, it does mean that they can invest huge amounts of money in marketing, pay developers for app development and get big brands and services such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google, etc. to build for their platform. They will not give up in the next 2-3 years.

     

4. Consumers still want choice

There is still demand for different solutions by consumers. Not only is the mobile phone a fashion statement - people want different looking phones - but there is also a demand for different screen sizes, input mechanisms and shapes. A great example is Blackberry which has continued to be very successful among business users as well as teenagers thanks to the keyboard and great messaging services.

5. Money is not everything

Having said that several of the mobile OS players have very deep pockets money is definitely not everything. Nokia allegedly spent as much money on R&D for Symbian and Qt as Apple has on R&D. Despite this they failed. At the same time Palm WebOS, which is considered one of the most advanced smartphone platforms, was developed by a small team within Palm and with the distribution of HP it might succeed.

What do we bet on for the future?

Having said that the battle will continue there is no question about who is dominating at the moment. iOS and Android are currently the platforms of choice. Other platforms are prioritized, based on promotion agreements with the device manufacturers and carriers. We believe that there are great opportunities for differentiation and distribution by embracing the full mobile ecosystem.

Top 10 activities and predictions in mobile 2010 to 2011

Once again it’s time for us to summarise the past year´s key trends and predict the future for 2011.

At the end of 2009 we looked back at the year that passed and forward to 2010 to identify some key insights and trends. Maybe we cheated but it looks like our crystal ball for 2010 was right on the spot for 4 out of 5 of ourpredictions.

Review of our predictions for 2010

1. Breakthrough for mobile marketing

Most importantly the breakthrough for mobile marketing and apps have now happened which led to a revenue growth of more than 125% for Golden Gekko in the middle of a global financial crisis. One key factor was that major brands such as GAP, Zara, Domino's Pizza and Mango launched m-Commerce initiatives which all surpassed expectations making the mobile platform a business critical channel.

2. Increased mobile platform fragmentation

We saw an increase in fragmentation, which came true with more versions and hardware configurations of Android, Samsung Bada, Windows Mobile 7, with renewed investments in Palm WebOS by HP and MeeGo announced by Nokia and Intel.

3. Android accelerates past iPhone

As expected Android surpassed iPhone as the most sold smartphone OS, while the iOS market share growth stabilised.

4. Mobile networks collapse under traffic load

Finally, several of the networks in the UK (O2) and US (AT&T) experience vastly reduced performance due to smartphones and dongles.

5. Improved efficiency in mobile service development

The one prediction which did not really materialize was improved efficiency in mobile service delivery through new tools and products. The reason is most likely that most of the tools and services are not good enough yet which could be a great opportunity for 2011.

The key trends 2010

1. Launch of the iPad and other tablets

In January Apple announced the iPad which has ever since been sold at an amazing rate although I think the usage patterns have surprised quite a few. Most of the usage takes place at home rather than while mobile. At the same time other manufacturers, despite promises, failed to bring out competitive devices during 2010 even though Samsung managed to sell about 1 million.

2. Microsoft Windows Phone 7

Maybe it was because expectations were low but reviews of the Windows Phone 7 operating system and phones have been very good. Unique user interface, great social networking integration, excellent SDK for app development and all in all the first real smartphone OS from Microsoft.

3. Launch of iAds

When Apple acquired Qattro Wireless the iAd formats with rich media had already been developed but Apple took it and turned it into a great new innovation. Although the impact in terms of mobile advertising was very small in 2010 iAds has set the benchmark for mobile ads for the next couple of years.

4. Launch of 50+ appstores by operators and handset manufacturers

The openness of Android is both good and bad in terms of security, fragmentation and developer control. One slightly unexpected result however is that everyone is now launching their own appstores. In 2010 Android appstores were launched by Vodafone, Telefonica, Verizon Wireless, Orange, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Samsung and many many more. We expect this trend to continue in 2011 making distribution of Android apps more challenging for developers but also giving them more opportunities to sell and promote their apps.

5. Blackberry proving that they can hold the fort

Many analysts thought that RIM was down for the count in the beginning of 2010 with the competition from iPhone and Android but over and over again they have beaten forecasts in terms of sales. Maybe there is demand for something different than the iPhone even though the app environment and browser is nowhere close even on the latest Blackberry 6 devices? And it will be interesting to see what is yet to come. In the past 12 months RIM have acquired one user interface expert (TAT), one SDK developer (QNX) to be used as basis for the new tablets and a couple of app developers (DataViz and Cellmania).

Our predictions for 2011 are

1. Smartphones for everyone

The price of Android phones is dropping drastically with the low end expected to reach 30-40 euro by the end of 2011.* You can already buy a ZTE Blade for about 120 euro with a specification similar to the Nexus One and other manufacturers such as LG, Huewai, Lenovo and Dell will launch low-end Android phones throughout 2011. In addition to this Nokia will continue to offer Symbian for as little as 50 euro and RIM will offer Blackberries at around the 100 Euro mark. There may also be some surprises from Apple with iOS and HP with WebOS. The exciting thing about the drastic drop in prices is that smartphones will reach mass market allowing businesses and developers to reach a much greater audience. The challenge will be to see if app usage is still sustainable or if the early adopters have a different behaviour.

* All quoted prices are list prices for an unlocked phone without contract. Prices with contracts vary depending on country and operator.

2. Mobile is going from a marketing to a business critical channel

In 2009 we talked about mobile advertising shifting to mobile marketing. Now it's time for the next phase. Based on soft launches in 2008-2010 many brands are now seeing mobile deliver substantial revenues with examples including Opentable, eBay, Amazon and Domino's Pizza. Retail brands such as H&M, Zara, GAP are now following suite with major investments expecting that the mobile channel could be as big as the web or even bigger.

3. Multi-platform strategies will be the key to successful mobile strategies

Although a lot of businesses are now turning to mobile web including XHTML and HTML5 as the base platform for their mobile business, downloadable apps continue to drive innovation and discovery. The app platforms continue to develop extremely rapidly with at least one major release per year from Apple, Google, HP/Palm with new functionality and business opportunities. Mobile web on the other hand is based on standards with considerably slower evolution since everyone needs to agree. Therefore the gap between native apps and browser based services will only get larger for now. Mobile browsers could potentially evolve as fast as the apps but then the advantages of standardised coding would disappear. In conclusion businesses and developers that want to stay ahead in mobile will have to develop for and support multiple platforms including XHTML, HTML5, iOS, Android and maybe Symbian/MeeGo, Blackberry and Windows Mobile 7.

4. Breakthrough for m-payments and NFC

With Google introducing NFC (Near Field Communication) support with the launch of Nexus S and Apple expected to follow with NFC on the iPhone 5 we expect a breakthrough for NFC and related services in 2011 although the eco system will take a long time to develop. In Japan NFC already has already replaced tickets and magnetic cards on the tube and allows you to pay for physical good in stores just like a debit card. And the potential services that can be offered are almost endless. NFC equipped devices should in theory be able to communicate or listen to RFID chips that are already everywhere. We could put sensors in flower pots that tell your phone when they need to get watered, products in the store could give you information instantly without the need for barcode scanning, the phone could store your loyalty cards for air miles or hotels.

The breakthrough in 2011 will be in terms of innovation and initiatives by major players rather than mass market adaptation which will still take many years.

5. Rapid growth for tools that improve mobile service and app delivery

This was a prediction for 2010 that did not materialise but we have not given up. Historically businesses that offer developer and service delivery tools in mobile have not been very successful with the greatest exception being Admob. The reason has mainly been that the buyers haven't had sufficient skills and knowledge to use self-service tools and therefore preferred to buy a full service offering making it difficult for mobile marketing companies to establish scalable business models. Another reason is that few marketing agencies want to use template based solutions something Golden Gekko has experienced with Tino as well as Mobile Rhodi with their service. In 2011 we believe that this will change with more experienced marketers and better tools. The main areas of development will be mobile ad serving (Adfonic), CRM and messaging services (e.g. texting.ly), mobile content management systems (thinkshed), self-service app development services (Tino and Mobile Roadie) and appstore distribution.

Happy New Year 2011!

How to market and distribute mobile app

You've developed a great mobile app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Palm WebOS, WM7 or any other platform and now you want people to download it whether it's free or paid for. Yet, even the world’s greatest mobile app will deliver no results unless you make people aware of its existence. Over the past year Golden Gekko has produced a basic guide based on 5 years of application development and distribution and over 50m downloads to date on how you get the most out of your mobile app through various different distribution channels.

The white paper is available in 2 different parts that will be published on the blog over the next month. The parts are:
1. Mobile App Distribution - Mobile Distribution Channels including Mobile Advertising, Messaging, Appstores, Search, Communities and Operators - Download
2. Mobile App Distribution - Other Distribution channels including Web, ATL, BTL, PR and sharing/viral - Download

Use links above to download white papers.

The Beauty of Fragmentation

Having developed mobile apps for over 5 years we have an enormous amount of good and bad experience from different platforms and fragmentation. So can there actually be good things about fragmentation?

Good

• Working within standardisation is a slow and complicated process. To innovate, technology companies must sometimes divert from the standard
• The agreed standard is not always the simplest or smartest way to do something. Therefore platform developers constantly strive to improve the future standards by implementing them as proprietary components before the standard has been established
• Proprietary technology creates de facto standards – Microsoft Windows, iPhone OS and Adobe Flash are great examples of this
• Differentiation is good – we want different screen sizes, keyboard inputs, sizes and colours. Not everyone wants a black or white iPhone

Bad

• Applications have to be tested on all different variations of e.g. the Android or Symbian OS, display resolutions, user input methods (Touchscreen, QWERTY, etc) and hardware configurations
• The cost of optimising and testing the applications is substantially higher for Android, Symbian, Web Runtime and J2ME due to fragmentation
• The development phase is longer due to the time consuming additional device optimisation and testing that is required

At Golden Gekko we constantly work on improving our platforms and tools to get around these challenges and instead leverage the positive differentiation of fragmentation.

But the title of the blog was the beauty of fragmentation and not pros and cons or how to battle fragmentation. The following graph from Tweetdeck illustrates the enormous variety of Android devices now being used to download and use apps from the Android Market. Beauty or Beast? You be the judge.

Why do iPhone apps look so much better than Android apps?

One question we often get asked is why the Android version of most original iPhone apps looks so bad in terms of design and feel. A quick comparison reveals that even Facebook has failed to develop an Android app which is anywhere close to the iPhone equivalent.

Facebook example

Facebook app on Android

Facebook app on iPhone

              

Strengths and weaknesses

	good	bad
iPhone	Great combination of facebook look and feel and utilizing the iPhone app design principle	No option to show time and coverage while using the app
Android	Nothing better than the iPhone	Icons look old, not correctly sized and the colour schemes don´t seem consistent with the Facebook website or Android design Search requires two clicks In notifications, links open up the browser

Why is there such a big difference? Is this simply because Apple is so brilliant in terms of design? But why would Google with their simplicity and great usability across most online services not be able to take their skills to the mobile? Is there another explanation?

To answer the question we've looked at 3 different factors including the SDKs, the developers and the expectations.

1. SDKs and approval process

The main purpose of the iPhone SDK and App Store approval process is that Apple has signification control of the user experience, therefore they provided a framework for developing "standard" looking UIs. Google on the other hand took a much more liberal approach with Android arguing that developers should have total freedom in almost everything they do. Although Apple has loosened up requirements since the app market's inception, the effects of the original approach are still very obvious.

2. The developers

This is going to be a sensitive one but the truth is that most iPhone developers were originally web designers / developers with HTML, Java Script, CSS and maybe flash experience. They are usually not hard core coders. This means that they are very focused on the look and feel of a product.

Most Android developers on the other hand are Java developers with a background in coding PC applications and other more technical coding experience. Apple made iPhone development as easy as Microsoft made PC development with Visual Basic which means that the creative and design centric people can make their own apps without deep coding knowledge.

3. Expectations

In addition to this there are different expectations from users. Historically, Apple customers have been more interested in fashion and design whereas Android originally had a perception of being more techie. With both operating systems now reaching a much wider audience this is no longer true but maybe the expectations are still different between users. Despite the big differences between the iPhone version and Android version of the facebook app they both have the same rating (3.5)

So does it have to be this way?

The answer is simply NO. The Android operating system has the same capabilities as iPhone to create great looking apps even though the UI framework doesn't go as far. The only people to blame for the deficiencies in Android apps are the individuals and businesses developing the apps. In an attempt to assure that every Android app developed looks at least as good as the equivalent iPhone version, Golden Gekko has developed an own UI framework that simplifies the creation of graphics and improves therefore the outcome, This way Android apps do not fall short on iPhone apps and the results speak for themselves.