iPhone 8 Rumours - touchID and a Boring Name

The rumour-mill is yet again running hot in anticipation of the latest refresh of Apple's flagship iPhone device.

It's been 10 years since the iPhone first hit the streets and revved up the mobile app marketplace revolution that has been responsible for keeping many businesses - including our very own Creative Intersection - busy engineering and deploying mobile apps.

Our insiders (and lots of leaked reports) tell us that there are some interesting things happening with this milestone release .... tipped to be called the "iPhone Pro".

Aside from sporting an AMOLED screen, which is brighter, crisper, more vivid and less power-hungry than the current crop of iPhone screens, there are rumours about touchID being removed from the device and replaced by facial recognition.

From left to right:  iPhone 7, iPhone Pro, and iPhone 7 Plus  (pic via 9to5mac.com)

Whilst facial recognition is likely to appear on the new iPhone Pro, touchID is likely to stay despite the all-glass front (with a screen that spans the entire area of the phone, there is no room for the traditional "home" button).

Apple rarely do leaps-and-bounds innovation these days, so their iterative approach would have the touchID sensor still being available in some way - if only to not scare existing users into thinking that they're being watched and probed every second of the day by the nefarious creatures that inhabit their digital security blanket.

Ultrasonic fingerprint sensors developed by Qualcomm, for example, are not quite ready for prime time, so how could Apple still include a touchID sensor without having to resort to a rather pedestrian placement like the back of the phone (where the logo sits, for example) ?

Easy!

The touchID sensor in a standard iPhone and iPad is in the form of a circle (the metal bit around the home button) that can sense ridges along that edge boundary. Do some maths on the ridges being detected (in the form of an algorithm, described in Apple's "Efficient Texture Comparison" patent) and you can work out with a fairly high degree of certainty that the finger touching it is a match.

Now straighten the circle into a line and you still have a decent sensing area (a high number of ridges) ... then apply the same algorithm (modified slightly) and you still know that the finger touching it is a match.

So - why wouldn't you just put the touchID sensor along the side edge of the phone ?  It only needs to extend along a part of the edge, and if one is placed on either side then the sensors can work in tandem to provide faster sensing with high accuracy (two half fingerprints are as good as a whole one). Maybe it'll need to be renamed to "gripID" but would still work the same way.

Cases would need to be modified to include access to the sensor, but every new iteration of any mobile phone needs some modification to cases anyway - so it's just a good opportunity to sell more cases.

.... or ... we're full of crap and have no idea what the iPhone 8 will be like or what it'll be called. Only time will tell.  😀

Tune in to Apple's live stream from their shiny new Spaceship Headquarters on 13th September at 3am (AEST).

And if your business needs a mobile app, check out "Business Apps Powered by ciSUITE:".


Update 13/9/17 ... YEP! We got it wrong for the new OLED iPhone (officially released today as "iPhone X" - pronounced "iPhone Ten"). There is no touchID but the name is still pretty boring.

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have also been released and they are just a refresh of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus - including retaining their touchID hardware.

WWDC Rumour: Apple iOS 8 Could Include Split-Screen Multitasking

The rumours are heating up as we close in on Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) for 2014.

The latest rumour to surface is that the next update to the iPhone/iPad Operating System (iOS) will allow users to run multiple apps at once and even drag-and-drop content between those apps. This is a luxury that Microsoft Surface users have lorded over their iOS cousins for a long time.

Currently, iOS only allows certain types of apps to continue to perform limited work in the background when another app is on the screen (e.g. Playing music or checking GPS location data) - so this would be a quantum shift in multitasking on iOS devices and is likely to help greatly in the quest to bring tablets further into the business environment.

Creative Intersection's good friends at 9to5mac.com have more details.

..... and of course, we will bring you more details as we will have our own representative from our Brisbane production facility personally attending the WWDC Conference in early June.

Australian iTunes App Store Price changes - April 2014

Apple have announced some pricing changes that will affect a small number of local "stores", including the Australian iTunes App Store.

No news yet on what the changes will be specifically, but it looks like there will be an adjustment to some of the pricing "tiers" that Apple app publishers have to choose from to set the price of their apps.

In Apple's iTunes App Store, a publisher can't choose just any price for their app ... they have to choose a tier which then relates to a price in each country in which the app is sold.

The "free" tier is obviously the same worldwide, whereas Tier 1 - for example - equates to USD 0.99. Australian apps at Tier 1 prices were previously AUD1.19 but were brought back into line with USD a couple of years ago due to exchange rates.

Apple are now adjusting that again, which means that the prices for Australian apps will most likely go up slightly.

The good news ? ... If you're an app developer/publisher who resides in Australia then your app prices will increase for any apps sold in Australia, and your 70% cut of that app price will increase accordingly.

Don't forget - if you're thinking of creating an app, check out our blog post on how to best monetise your app (hint: don't charge up-front ... charge for in-app purchases or use advertising).


Update 2-Apr-2014:  Apple's new Australian pricing changes the Tier 1 app price from $0.99 to $1.29 (AUD) and Tier 2 from $1.99 to $2.49 (AUD). This is a sharp rise (25-30%) which seems a little out-of-line with the AUD exchange rate but the positive side is that as an app publisher you now earn 25-30% more for those lower Tiers.

The other Tiers have also changed to varying degrees (remember there are many Tiers right up to Tier 87 which is now a whopping $1,299.99 AUD).

In-App Purchases By Far Exceed Paid Apps

News just in last week from our friends at eMarketer: Free apps with in-app purchases account for nearly all non-advertising revenues.

In other words ... if your app is available only as a paid version you are most likely missing out on a very large proportion of the revenue that you could otherwise be earning.

We have known this for years, based on anecdotal evidence from our numerous clients - which is why our recommendation is often to release a free limited version which allows for the user to experience the main features of your app without risking being sold a lemon (after all, there are a lot of try-hard and me-too apps on the App Store - both Apple/iOS and Google/Android).


Interestingly, while the Google Play Store (Android apps) has been picking up quite a bit of market share, it's almost exclusively (98%) for apps that are free to download and which then offer in-app purchases. Apple users aren't far behind with 92% of revenue from the Apple App Store being from free apps with in-app purchases. For Apple, that's a 15% increase in 11 months and is creeping ever-closer to 100% for either platform.

The lesson here is to remember to think about how you're best going to earn back the development costs and like any business, it pays to understand your customers' spending habits.

If you have a great idea for an app for iPhone, iPad, or Android handsets and tablets and would like to discuss it with us confidentially to see if it can be done (and how best to position yourself to make a profit from it), give us a shout.

iMessage services down due to Hurricane Sandy

We have seen several reports of that the iMessage service provided by Apple is having some problems and messages in many cases are failing to deliver between i-devices.

This also seems to affect other APN (Apple Push Notification) services such as those provided in many apps available on the iTunes App Store.

The current prevailing theory is that message traffic generated in the wake of Hurricane Sandy may have caused Apple to need to add capacity to their APN systems, which has left many "tokens" unable to be used (a "token" is a unique identifier stored in your phone to help it let Apple's servers know who you are and what services you should be receiving).

Another theory is that Apple's North Carolina data centre is being slammed and has had to drop some services. Those services are being re-routed to other data centres.

Right now, the best fix seems to be to simply restart your iPhone or iPad (if it is having trouble successfully sending a message).

If you are in the affected areas, you may also experience data outages (e.g. your own ADSL and WiFi), in which case iMessages and other notification services may not work anyway. In such cases, disconnect your iPhone/iPad from the WiFi network (if ADSL/cable internet is down) and try using your carrier's 3G network instead.

Our best wishes go out to our friends and customers on the East Coast of the U.S..