So another Apple Event, again executed to near clock work precision was held yesterday. Most of the announcements were on expected lines: new iPhones, the iPad Pro, revamped Apple TV etc. While it seemed like an incremental update to everything, what was revealed was hardly incremental.
The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus may look identical to their current avatars but are hardwired completely differently thanks to 3D Touch primarily. The iPad Pro too isn’t just a larger-screen iPad, it promises to bridge the gap between a tablet and a PC with its powerful hardware capabilities and the Apple Pencil. As app developers, there were a few things which caught our fancy:
3D Touch
It is almost the equivalent of right-click on desktops, now on a mobile. It is like the ‘long press’ in Android but without the time delay. One of the greatest advantage of this feature is that it has added more actions to a single gesture. This is great for gaming apps – for example, they could use it in a game for a character to run upon force touch or just walk when doing a touch gesture. This greatly enhances the user experience of gaming. Utility apps which have a hierarchical view of data can also use this to quickly get deeper into a hierarchy with a single gesture. It also adds quick actions to the home buttons to do certain core tasks related to an app without having to launch the app.
Read more about the technology here and here.
tvOS and Apple TV
Tim Cook said, ’The future of TV is apps’ in his opening remarks introducing the new Apple TV. We can see why – it opens up new possibilities in casual gaming and content consumption (be it video or images). With the tvOS SDK and a built-in App Store, it promises to be an immersive experience for consumers taking advantage of the powerful CPU/GPU, 1080p display and the new Apple TV Remote featuring a touch surface, built-in accelerometer and gyroscope.
All in all, with the updated WatchOS2, iOS9, 3D Touch and tvOS, Apple has given a lot to developers to build upon. It is now upon us to create delightful interfaces and products for consumers. Exciting times ahead, indeed.
