UPDATED with Health Kit, Family Account, and HomeKit details:
Today at the Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple unveils its new line of products and services for the coming year. This is one of the biggest WWDC conferences ever, and as a licensed iOS developer I am disappointed not to be at the Marcone Center today. That privilege goes to our Chairman Mike Sax this year who has been writing for Apple’s mobile platform since its launch.
Every year at this time, we learn about new innovations from Apple which drive the mobile economy. These new product launches foster tremendous growth and opportunity for independent software companies. Today was no different. The developer community has much to work with on iOS 8.
Family Accounts:
Apple’s decision to add family-friendly features is promising for the many developers creating children’s apps. With the introduction of Family Accounts, Apple has put parents at the center of their children’s digital life. Parents can now share appropriate content among family members. The new Ask to Buy feature puts parents in control. They can now ensure that their children get permission first before downloading free or paid content.
HealthKit:
HealthKit will be an incredibly valuable tool for developers in the mobile health and wellness space. Providing a single, secure place for users to store medical and fitness data, developers can keep their users engaged in their digital health and well-being. Users can be confident in the security of their health care data through HealthKit’s superior encryption. By restricting apps from selling user health information to advertisers or data brokers, Apple is creating a platform that users can trust with their sensitive medical and health data.
HomeKit:
HomeKit will help users access many home automation services from their mobile device. What is remarkable about this new feature is that it does not allow participating apps to use the API or database for purposes beyond home automation. In other words, this data cannot be collected for use in advertising. With so many conflicting statements about the use home automation data with devices such as Nest, users can have confidence that when using HomeKit, the information these devices collect will be used for its intended purposes only.
Coverage:
Washington Post 1, Washington Post 2, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Politico, Valley News, Benzinga, EasyBranches.eu, Communications Daily (sub. req’d), Washington Internet Daily (sub. req’d)