Is your app, iPhone 5 ready?

iPhone 5 is launched and in its first week of sales is set to break many records. Apple has brought many changes to the latest iPhone. One of the major changes in the latest iPhone is the screen size which has been increased from 3.5-inch, 960 x 640 pixel display, to 4.0 inch, 1136 x 640 pixel retina display. While the bigger display comes as good news for iPhone aficionados, however for iPhone app developers and brands that have built apps, it means more work as apps will get displayed in letter-boxed format in iPhone 5 robbing the fun and experience of a large, vibrant display. On the newly launched iPhone 5, the older apps will show up on screen at the same size as on the iPhone 4S with two black strips placed along the left and right in landscape mode and in top and bottom in portrait mode. While Apple claims that iPhone developers and app sellers can make their apps compatible to iPhone 5 with simple updates very quickly, it doesn’t seem to be so easy. Here’s why-

The larger screen provides app developers opportunities to maximize their use of screen real-estate and adopt the new resolution which is 16:9, a way ahead from previous 3:2 resolution. Moreover, the new dimensions also provide more space to add more content to your apps. So, there is more to do than simple updates to optimize the large screen in iPhone 5.
– From the perspective of coding, developers will now have to use Xcode 4.5 with iOS 6 SDK. In addition to that there are many things to consider while updating the app-

1. All apps must stick to Cocoa Auto Layout Strategy so that the existing apps scale properly on the 4-inch iPhone 5 / 5th generation iPod Touch devices. In other words, every developer should refrain from writing hard coded rects such as CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 460) and should use self.view.bounds.size instead.

2. viewDidUnload has been deprecated. Using it would still work but, the support would be taken down in the future releases. Developers should move their existing code from viewDidUnload to didReceiveMemoryWarning from now on.

3. If your apps have a dependency on Contacts, Calendars, Photos & Reminders, don’t expect to get the data always. These things require user permissions in iOS 6, and we have to be prepared to handle errors when the user denies permissions.

4. shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:, willRotateToInterfaceOrientation: and didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation: are no longer called and are deprecated on iOS 6 devices. However, if you are still supporting earlier iOS devices, the code would work.

To support iOS 6 devices, you have to implement additionally these methods – application:supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow: in application delegate and shouldAutorotate method in view controller.

If your view controller has this:

-(BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {

return (interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait);

}

Replace this to the following in App Delegate:

– (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {

return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait;

}

If your view controller supports auto rotation, add this:

– (BOOL)shouldAutorotate {

return YES;

}

For view controllers that have custom layout logic for each orientation, developers have to implement UIView’s viewWillLayoutSubviews instead which is available from iOS 5.

5. If a landscape-only app launches a portrait-only view controller such as GameCenter login view controller, the app crashes. Workaround is to also add portrait orientation for the window in supportedIntefaceOrientationsForWindow: method.

So, games and apps that use interactivity, large size graphics, motion and sensors etc., will need more than a simple update and a major revamping to provide the same experience to users as in iPhone 4S. Moreover, app developers should also have to delicately balance between iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 users. There will still be a large population which will continue to use iPhone 4S and therefore developers have to come with two different versions as apps for iPhone 5 will not be compatible to iPhone 4S.

With millions of apps in app stores going for the updates and in queue for approvals, it makes perfect sense to opt for revamping as early as possible so as to seize the bountiful opportunities offered by iPhone 5.

According to Fiksu, around 10 million people are likely to buy the new iPhone 5 in the next 10 days after it hits stores on Sept. 21, 2012. In addition, according to The Wall Street Journal, analysts predict Apple to sell as many as 23 million new devices by the end of 2012. The growing iPhone market will present a huge opportunity for brands to engage with their customers through apps. But, to make the most of the opportunities on the offing, your app needs to be iPhone 5 ready. Are you ready yet?