WWDC 2017 — What did we find out?
5th June 2017, San Jose, CA.
As usual Apple set out their best laid plans for all things : tvOS, Apple Watch, macOS and iOS, so let’s break it down and see what this all means for us here at Man City Digital.
First off, let’s go with iOS and the announcement of (drum roll)… iOS 11.
With iOS 11 come updates across the following areas:
- iMessage
- App Store
- Apple Pay
- Siri
- Apple Music
- Apple Maps
iMessage
First up, Apple announced an update to iMessage with a fresh design and importantly for us a redesigned iMessage app drawer. Allow me to rewind to WWDC 16 and the birth of iMessage Sticker Apps.
One of Apple’s big announcements in 2016 was that third party app developers could create iMessage sticker apps that brought an extra dimension to the emoji and extended out a whole new iMessage app drawer.
Find out more about stickers here.
We swiftly followed with our own becoming the first football club to embrace the new technology launching our dedicated iMessage stickers App in October 2016…Take a look and download it here :
Manchester City Official Stickers brings your iMessage conversations to life including ; Pep Guardiola, Sergio Aguero and David Silva in digital sticker form. As well as cool animations for those big City moments and iconic City phrases.
Fresh for iOS 11 comes a redesign of the iMessage app drawer which is good news for us as our stickers app will now be easier to use and right there front and centre!
We’re working on a new release for the 17/18 campaign bringing more players and fun stuff to the app so it’s safe to say, watch this space!
App Store
Next up it’s one of the biggest announcements from WWDC 17 and it’s the news that for the first time in 9 years, Apple will redesign the App store.
So what does this mean for us and our apps?
Apple will introduce :
- A Today tab — Surfacing the latest Apps
- A Games tab — A dedicated space for games
- An Apps tab — A dedicated space for Apps!
With the ‘Apps’ tab third party app developers will have a newly designed product page focusing on engagement with the addition of new features such as : video, on-boarding how to guides and updated user reviews. Keep an eye out as we will be rolling these out with City App in 2017, In fact, I’ll do a future blog about what we do and why!
Apple Pay
Moving on to Apple Pay and the news iOS 11 will support person to person payments integrated into iMessage with an Apple Pay App, allowing users to send and receive money through iMessages…fancy!
We’re interested to see how this develops and how we might be able to take advantage of this technology in the future with ticket payments and so on. Interesting!
Siri and SiriKit
iOS 11 will bring Siri Intelligence to your device , designed to understand what you want next, using unique on device learning to understand topics of interest to you. An exciting addition. For example for readers of our Apple News content, Siri will help surface news from our official Man City Apple news channel, bringing our content to you, when you want it!
Read more about our dedicated Apple news channel from our Product Optimisation Manager Victoria Black here
Press Play — Apple Music
For those of us who subscribe to Apple Music with the iOS 11 software comes a development kit, Apple has introduced a new set of APIs called MusicKit. This is exciting for us third party app developers as once the app has your permission we can create playlists and recommend songs to you…
Did someone say City App Match day playlists? Suggestions to @Mancitydigital on Twitter please!
Apple Maps
A new addition to maps in iOS 11 will bring an extra dimension of detailed floor plans rolling out across Malls and Airports in the US with directory, search and browse by floor functionality.
We’re thinking Etihad Stadium floor plan….lets see how this feature further develops.
So that’s all things iOS 11, plenty to get involved with!
What else did Apple announce, outside iOS 11?
Apple Watch
The announcement of watchOS4, & the the New siri watch face.
Users of the Apple Watch will be able to install the all news Siri watch face designed to surface the most relevant and timely content & information to you, straight to your wrist.
The watch will use siri intelligence to display information through machine learning and your daily routines, monitoring the apps you use and when you use them. *Coughs City App Coughs* As well as including, photo memories from the same day last year or memories from your current location.
This is extra cool to us as we see several opportunities, not only can our app and apple news content be surfaced, could we bring your City seasoncard to your wrist through wallet? Potential!
And finally…
AR Kit
This exciting new feature allows third party app developers to start using Augmented Reality to enhance device capability, As Graeme Goulden mentions in his post on Skill City our friends at Rhythm have already started exploring what we could do in this space, the future.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned to Man City Digital for more digital musings & updates.
Win, draw or lose. Up the blues!
