How failing to optimise for iOS 7 can cost iPhone developers big bucks
Published on 20 October 2013
Many of us will have heard news of the latest iOS 7 release, whether we own an iPhone or not. Users of the smartphone have hit the headlines due to the quick rate at which they have been upgrading to the latest version of the mobile operating system, faster than any previous release. This is particularly impressive when we consider how many more iOS devices are now in circulation, compared to the release of iOS 6 in September 2012. Apple sold over 9 million new iPhone 5S and 5C models on the weekend of their release, and has had consistently high sales of iPads and iPods throughout the year.
The 600mb iOS 7 download can be accessed remotely through Wi-Fi, which could partly account for the fact that over 35% of users had upgraded on the first day of release. The new iOS 7 features a completely overhauled graphical interface, with a new simplistic design. Gradients, bevelling and text effects have been replaced by basic block colours and a simple font, which is as minimalist as it is stylish. With this graphical overhaul, as well as the many “under the hood” changes made by Apple, the pressure is now on iPhone developers to optimise their apps for iOS 7 — or risk losing both customers and money.
App testers uTest recently warned that up to 90% of iOS 6 compatible apps would cause crashes or rendering issues when run in iOS 7, especially communications-based apps which utilise the Apple graphical keyboard. Their findings were based on iOS 7 beta testing by over 100,000 individuals, spread across 200 countries. This means that iPhone developers risk losing a majority of their customer base, as ever-growing number of users upgrade to iOS 7 and expect both fully functional apps and a graphical interface which doesn’t feel like an entirely different operating system.
For evidence of this, we need only look as far as popular paid messaging app WhatsApp. WhatsApp is used to chat by several hundred million iPhone users worldwide, and holds the app store’s number five spot for total revenue. However, it’s just as vulnerable as any other app when it comes to iOS 7 optimisation. uTest have analysed the ratings and reviews of WhatsApp since the upgrade to iOS 7, and have noticed a significant negative impact. The average rating before the release of Apple’s latest mobile operating system was 3.56, but this rating drops to 2.81 when only reviews mentioning “iOS 7” are taken into account. This would suggest that many iOS 7 users are unhappy with the lack of updates — both graphical and functional — which the popular app has received.
If failing to optimise for iOS 7 can have such a negative impact on large apps with huge customer bases, what could it do for you? As an iPhone developer can you really afford not to update your app for iOS 7?