Why Should You
Move Your Apps
to
7 Platform?
IOS 7 is public now and it has been adopted by
Apple customers at a staggering rate, with global
iOS device penetration that recently surpassed
74% according to Apple. So what’s in store for you
in this biggest technology refresh from Apple?
Read on this research paper to know the key
features in iOS 7, followed by the key strategies to
migrate your apps to iOS 7 platforms.
Key Features of IOS 7 platform
New Frameworks
Sprite Kit – The Sprite Kit provides a hardware accelerated animation systems for 2D or 2.5D games. It also
provides graphics rendering and animation, sound playback support and physics simulation
Game Controller – This allows developers conﬁgure Made-for-iPhone/iPod/iPad (MFi) game controller
hardware in your app. The controllers must be optional and a way must be provided for players to use the
game without a controller
Peer-to-Peer Connectivity – The peer-to-peer connectivity supports discovering nearby devices and directs
communication without an Internet connection
JavaScript Core – This allows wrapping of standard JavaScript objects into Objective-C. This can be used to
evaluate JavaScript code and parse JSON data
Media Accessibility – This manages the presentation of closed-captioned content in your media ﬁles
Safari Services – Support for programmatically adding URLs to the user’s Safari reading list
64 Bit Support
Apps will support compilation in 64-bit runtime. All system libraries and frameworks support 64-bit mode, so that they
can be used in both 32-bit and 64-bit apps. The advantage is when compiled for the 64-bit runtime, apps may run faster
due of the availability of extra processor resources in 64-bit mode. Also porting code will have lesser issues since iOS uses
the same LP64 model which is used by OS X and other 64-bit UNIX systems
Enhanced Features
In addition to the new features there are lots of
AirDrop
changes in the existing features. Following are
the key highlights.
AirDrop lets users share photos, documents, URLs, and other kinds of data with
nearby devices
UI Changes
UI Revamp
The iOS 7 user interface has been completely redesigned. Every nook and corner of the UI has been redesigned from
icons, colors, typography, and button to general look and feel of the entire OS. The emphasis is on translucent and
transparent design
Apps compiled against the iOS 7 SDK will automatically have the new appearance for any standard system views when
it is run on iOS 7. However if the app’s views are customized, then changes have to be made appropriately to support
the new appearance
Also when Auto Layout feature is used to set the size and position of the views, they are repositioned automatically
Dynamic Behaviors for Views - The individual views in the apps can have dynamic behaviors like incorporating the real world
behavior and characteristics such as gravity into the app’s animations. This is available when the views conform to UIDynamicItem protocol which is newly introduced in iOS 7.
Text Kit – A set of classes from UIKit classes, is for managing text and ﬁne typography. Text Kit can lay out styled text into
paragraphs, columns, and pages. Text Kit is integrated with all UIKit text-based controls to enable apps to create, edit, display,
and store text more easily than ever before
Multitasking Improvements
IOS 7 supports two new background execution modes for apps
Apps that regularly update their content by contacting a server can register with the system and be launched
periodically to retrieve that content in the background.
Apps that use push notiﬁcations to notify the user that new content is available can fetch the content in the
background.
Maps
Apps that now take full advantage of the 3D map support
found in the Maps app, including controlling the viewing
perspective programmatically.
Games
Using a feature called Exchanges players initiate actions
with other players, even when it is not their turn. This
feature can be used to implement simultaneous turns,
player chats, and trading between players. The limit on
Leaderboards per app has been raised to 100 from 25.
The authentication support has been improved and
features added to prevent cheating.
Inter-App Audio
The audio unit framework adds support for Inter-App audio which enables stream
audio between apps on the same device.
OpenGL ES
OpenGL ES version 3.0 is supported and adds new features to OpenGL ES 2.0.
Objective-C
The Objective-C programming language has been enhanced to support modules, which makes the builds faster and
shortens the project indexing times. Module support is enabled in all new projects created using Xcode 5.
Deprecated Features
The UIKit framework deprecates the following
The wants Full Screen Layout property of UI ViewController is deprecated. In iOS 7, view controllers always
support full screen.
UI Color objects that provided background textures for earlier versions of iOS are gone.
Many drawing additions to the NSString class are deprecated in favor of newer variants.
The MK OverlayView class and its various subclasses have been deprecated from Map Kit framework and have
been replaced by new MK OverlayRenderer class
The Audio Session API in the Audio Toolbox framework is deprecated. Use AVAudioSession class in the AV Foundation framework instead
The CLRegion class in the Core Location framework is replaced by the CLCircularRegion class
Following existing mechanisms of getting the unique identiﬁers are deprecated
UniqueIdentiﬁer of UIDevice. This was already deprecated in iOS 5 but in iOS 7 it is completely removed.
MAC Address. In iOS 7, requesting a MAC address will return the value 02:00:00:00:00:00.
gethostuuid function in the libsyscall library
The UUID property of the CBCentral class has been deprecated. For specifying the unique ID of your central objects, use
the identiﬁer property instead
To use an unique identiﬁer for identifying the device consider using one of these
IdentiﬁerForVendor property of UIDevice
Advertising Identiﬁer property of AS IdentiﬁerManager
CFUUID.
Now that we know the key feature of IOS 7, next let’s see the 5 key strategies to migrate Apps to iOS 7 platforms
below.
Strategy # 1: Prioritize your apps for Migration
Historically, iOS users upgrade within days of release. For instance, 93% users upgraded to iOS 6 just 8 months after launch.
Keeping this in context, Consumer apps (B2C) should get the highest priority for migration since the risks in migrating to
new changes are relatively lesser than Enterprise Apps (B2B) and also they are likely to switch to similar/alternate apps
which does the same job eﬃciently and provides the wow factor.
Enterprise apps (B2B) should get the next focus as they are typically tend to get tied up with custom backend legacy
applications/BI tools etc which needs greater impact evaluation before migration.
Strategy # 2: Re-Engineer Your App’s Information Architecture
The gamut of UI elements has changed in iOS 7. The new UI emphasize on transparency, translucency, reﬁned visual
touches, ﬂuidity that enhances the user experience. This means your entire app’s information architecture has to be
re-engineered from scratch to be in line with iOS 7 user experience. Overall following things have to be taken care.
Navigation Elements – The status bar should be transparent and navigation bars, tab bars and tool bars and
other user controls have to be translucent.
Buttons – They have to be without borders and backgrounds and custom ones need special mask to support
the automatic view-snapping animations.
Type System – Dynamic type has been introduced to improve the legibility of the text, regardless of the size it
is rendered at.
Screen Real Estate – Make use of entire screen real estate to present the content to the edge of the screen.
Parallax Eﬀect – This is an accelerometer powered 3D eﬀect on the home screen which gets exhibited when the
device is tilted and shifted. Your app can take advantage of this eﬀect to improve the user experience.
Reduce the clutter – The UI design should not cram the content on the screen and should have reasonable
white space around the UI elements to look easy on the eye.
Avoid Splash Screen – Avoid the usage of splash screen as much as possible. The app should be usable almost
immediately.
Avoid Skeuomorphism – Pre iOS 7 UI design elements should not be used in the app. That is, avoid using
bevelled buttons, gradients, drop shadows or other skeuomorphic design elements
Strategy # 3: Maintain OS Backward Compatibility on Case-by-Case Basis
Either your app should embrace iOS 7 totally or get stuck with iOS 6 and be prepared to get ignored. However in certain
cases where iOS 7 speciﬁc features are not required and there is/are a potential reason(s) for you to stick with iOS 6 for a
while, then it’s prudent to support both iOS 6 and iOS 7 look and feel in the same app by maintaining diﬀerent set of UI
elements in your code base. This would typically be the case with enterprise customers.
This way you could continue to cover the existing user base of your app while you simultaneously transit to iOS 7.
Strategy # 4: Embrace Multitasking
Users always want to switch to other apps during the time when your app is occupied doing something else. Instead of
making them wait and spend idle time in your app, you should make use of new multitasking (previously conﬁned only to
selected apps approved by Apple) capabilities to keep it updated even when user switches to another app.
Also keep the app preview screen in the app switched mode updated to let user know what’s happening in your app without
bringing your app to the front.
Strategy # 5: Tap into Enhanced Security for your Business
iOS 7 introduces several enhancements to secure your business data. Following are some enhancements you should
consider leveraging in app and in your third party MDM solution.
Open in Management – Control which apps and accounts are used to open documents and attachments.
Managed open in gives IT the ability to conﬁgure the list of apps available in the sharing panel. This keeps work
documents in corporate apps and also prevents personal documents from being opened in managed apps.
Per app VPN – Conﬁgure an app to automatically connect to VPN when they are launched. This gives more
granular control over corporate network access. It ensures that data transmitted by managed apps travels
through VPN — and that other data, like an employee’s personal web browsing activity, does not.
Enterprise single sign on (SSO) – This means user credentials can be used across apps, including apps from the
App Store. Each new app conﬁgured with SSO veriﬁes user permissions for enterprise resources, and logs users
in without requiring them to reenter passwords.
What do you think about the new iOS 7 feature and designs? Do you like it or hate it? Share with us your thoughts.
About Aspire
Aspire Systems is a global technology services firm serving as a trusted technology partner for our customers. We work with some of the
world's most innovative enterprises and independent software vendors, helping them leverage technology and outsourcing in our specific
areas of expertise. Our services include Product Engineering, Enterprise Transformation, Independent Testing Services and IT Infrastructure
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