Dean Hager, CEO of Jamf has discussed Apple’s announcements yesterday at the Worldwide Developer Conference with Apple World Today. Here are his thoughts:
The App Store has 500 million plus weekly visitors. This stat is mind-blowing and shows why Apple is in such a great position in the enterprise right now. Back in the ‘80s, users were incredibly loyal to Apple. However, the App world followed Microsoft Windows. As a result of Windows having all of the dominant Apps, Microsoft became dominant in the enterprise. Today, that’s Apple’s game, and it’s why their success is unprecedented and I’m optimistic on their longevity.
Money developers earn through App Store will top $100 billion. And that’s why apps will continue to target Apple. It’s important for any app — both enterprise-focused and consumer-focused — to target iOS, but especially for enterprise apps. iOS is most of the enterprise market and must be a developer-first OS choice for app creation. It also strikes me how Apple has flattened the world. Any individual, from anywhere in the world, can write an app and potentially hit it big through Apple’s App Store. It’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about deploying Innovation & Learning Pods to developing nations.
Swift and Swift Playgrounds.
I still think this is one of the greatest secrets in education. Swift Playgrounds is the simplest, best quality coding curriculum I’ve ever seen. Since Swift is the fastest growing programming language, and the curriculum can be implemented at any school within weeks, K-12 schools should be embarrassed if they don’t offer it. Every school should because everyone can and should code.
Eighty-one percent of one billion iPhones are running the latest software release. This is staggering. Microsoft and Google are light years away from this achievement. There are three outcomes of this: (1) much happier customers/users, because they can get to all Apple innovations within a short time of announcement; (2) easier to support within the enterprise because having users on the same release of software is more secure, reduces user uniqueness and improves user-driven enterprise conformity; and (3) creates the absolute necessity to work with a device management provider that fully tests new operating systems PRIOR to general availability.
iOS 12 to focus on older devices. It’s nice to see Apple responding to their negative press from the past year. Many people were upset by the perception that Apple was slowing old devices only to get customers to upgrade. It was a more complex set of decisions than the press made it out to be, but still, I’m impressed Apple responded in this manner.
iOS 12 – ARKit. The use cases are abundant. I continue to be most excited about what AR will do in the field of education and children’s healthcare. Educators are prime for providing students with experiences they would never have had available to them historically, especially in under-resourced schools. And in healthcare, distraction therapy has proven incredibly valuable, especially for kids. Can you imagine how great it will to be to use AR to provide children an augmented experience to take their mind off of the unfortunate, mundane or even painful procedure in their real world?
iOS 12 – Siri and Quick Actions. This is going to open up amazing potential. Today, we ask Siri what time it is or what the score of the basketball game is. Within a short time, we will ask Siri for our daily sales numbers, to connect us to our next meeting, or how to resolve a problem we’re experiencing with our computer — which can kick off self-diagnosis, followed by an automatic connection to the Genius Bar or creating a trouble ticket. Siri will be the verbal front-end for services within a school, at a hotel, or for countless requests within a business environment.
iOS 12 – Allowance. This is a game changer. When I was a little boy, my mom would leave the house and tell me that I could only watch one our of TV and then I had to go outside. I never listened, and there was little she could do about it. This has been a struggle for parents for 40 years. The ability to govern our kids’ access to technology and applications is a godsend to parents around the world.
iOS 12 – Memoji. I can’t believe I’m commenting on this. But in time, the facial ID will create a new kind of problem in our world. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t progress it. It just means we need to deal with it. Thirty years ago, we never thought of the concept of Photoshopping pictures. Once you took a picture, that was it. With the facial ID, in a few years, every time we see a person saying something on video, we will say, “Was that really them, or was that an augmented version of them?”
Apple Watch – 60% growth in 2017. I smile every time I see this. I sure wish all of the writers who declared the Apple Watch a big disappointment would write retractions. Believe it or not, we still have only seen the beginning of the Apple Watch’s potential. For me, it has transformed my exercise and my connectedness. Like Mary Dodgin, I too have a story of the Apple Watch rescuing me from a challenging health situation.
One day, our children may laugh at the size of the phones they carried in their pockets the same way we reminisce about the long cords we were once tethered to on our landlines. The Apple Watch still has more potential for transforming our daily lives than perhaps any other Apple product — providing access to every door we need to enter, payment for anything we want to buy, personal identification, and a steady stream of real-time health data. And Walkie Talkie looks awesome!!! I can’t wait.
Apple TV. The Apple TV feels like it is on the verge of something big. While it has been on the market for a decade, the developer kit and device management have only been available for a short time. Innovation has been slow by third parties on Apple TV. However, I think it has progressed more in the last year than it has in its entire history.
macOS Mojave. With the new OS functionality, the new macOS App Store, the coming ability to port iOS apps to the Mac, Xcode improvements, fingerprinting, and Apple’s statement that iOS and macOS are not merging, hopefully people will finally stop claiming that. MacOS probably has the greatest user loyalty of any OS in history. With Microsoft transforming into a cloud company — and caring less about owning the client — the opportunity has never been bigger for Apple to win massive market share with the Mac. And Apple knows it. MacOS isn’t going anywhere but up.
Like this article? Consider supporting Apple World Today with a $5 monthly Team AWT membership.
