Any announcement from Apple or news about an Apple product or service is guaranteed media attention. The media gaze is heightened during the WWDC and this year’s event was no exception. Several lengthy posts have been written scrutinising every aspect of the event. Herewith some of the issues we noted from an industry insider perspective:
App thinning
This is perhaps an announcement not adequately highlighted in personal tech portals and blogs. According to the official document:
The App Store and operating system optimize the installation of iOS and watchOS apps by tailoring app delivery to the capabilities of the user’s particular device, with minimal footprint. This optimization, called app thinning, lets you create apps that use the most device features, occupy minimum disk space, and accommodate future updates that can be applied by Apple. Faster downloads and more space for other apps and content provides a better user experience.
What this means is that app thinning can significantly reduce the size of installed apps. This will come in handy for devices with relatively lower storage – the 8GB and 16GB ones. As this article from Ars Technica explains making this works should not require a lot of extra work from developers.
Ad blocking in Safari
Adblockers are common on the desktop. According to Monday Note, ‘300m people in the world have downloaded an ad blocking extension and about half have actually installed it’. With iOS 9, Apple has given developers the option to include ‘content blocker’ extensions that define resources (like images and scripts) for Safari to not load. Some are calling it a blow to mobile advertising, while some others may see it an enhancing the mobile experience as it saves data. It will be interesting to see how the implementation pans out in the coming months.
Swift goes open source
Loud applause and cheer greeted the announcement about Swift going open source. The news has been welcomed by the developer community and such a move will hopefully benefit the community and the end consumer.
Aside from the above, WatchKit and HomeKit announcements at the WWDC could lead to vast improvements in the app experience for end consumers.
