When will the iPhone 6 come out?

June 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Friends and colleagues who know I follow Apple developments closely often ask me “When will the iPhone 6 come out?”. I thought I’d create a quick summary blog to answer this question as best we can without absolute confirmation from Apple.

To answer this question it may be helpful to look at recent history:

  • The first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007
  • The iPhone 3G was then released on July 11, 2008
  • The iPhone 3GS was released June 19, 2009
  • The iPhone 4 was released on June 24, 2010
  • The iPhone 4S was released on October 14, 2011
  • The iPhone 5 was released on September 21, 2012
  • And finally the iPhone 5C and the iPhone 5S were released on September 20, 2013

I would therefore expect the iPhone 6 to launch either on September 19th or September 20th 2014.  I would not be surprised if Apple launched their new iWatch on the same day.

The new iPhone 6 will probably initially launch with a larger 5.5 inch display and will be followed in October / November by the smaller 4.7 inch display.  The main features will be a new display coating made from Sapphire crystal, a faster processor, higher minimum memory and probably some additional sensors and improvements to Siri.

As I hear more I’ll update this blog post.

Filed Under: iPhone Tagged With: , ,

Apple iCloud KeyChain Web Developers Best Practice Guide

March 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Apple’s password manager (iCloud KeyChain for Safari) may not be the best password manager but that’s completely irrelevant because by now it’s already the most popular, most widely adopted password manager in the World. It’s therefore important that you make sure your website is compatible with this piece of Apple technology. As a user of Apple’s Safari I’m increasingly shocked at the number of major websites that are not compatible with the Apple password manager.

Testing that your site works with Apples iCloud password manager will improve your User Experience (UX) and also improves your sites security.  In my experience people are much more likely to use a strong password if Safari picks the password for them.  In addition to this Safari generates a random strong password for each site, so the chances of a hack on one site being used to gain access to another are greatly reduced.

The key points to making your site compatible are:

  1. Make sure that testing your site against the Safari password manager is incorporated into your user acceptance test plans from now on.
  2. Make sure that testing includes your password change page and password recovery pages. Specifically make sure that when your user picks a new password that this gets saved away properly by Safari and is used next time they need to logon.
  3. Make sure that your site can accept the long complex passwords generated by Safari – currently 15 long containing upper and lower case and dashes.  For example:

    Apple Safari Web designers and developers password manager guidelines.
    The most frequent issue we encounter is that sites don’t allow the hyphen in passwords.

  4. Make sure that your website does not undermine this great security by then emailing out this strong password to the user/customer as part of their registration confirmation.
  5. Make sure that your website does not store passwords as clear text in its database. It should be using a one way hashing algorithm so that the password itself can never be retrieved.

If you discover any hints or tips for making your website work really well with Apple’s Safari / iCloud KeyChain password manager do please get in touch and leave a comment below.  We’ll be sure to update this blog post as we discover more about it.

Filed Under: Apple Mac OS X, iPad, iPhone, IT Security, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Does Audi support Apple CarPlay?

March 8, 2014 by 7 Comments

Apple CarPlay allows you to connect your iPhone 5+ via the lightning connector and have selected apps displayed in a simplified form on the dashboard. The simplified form means that the driver isn’t distracted by all the usual fun and features of a their iPhone.

Will Audi ever support Apple CarPlay?

I’m desperate for this functionality in my Audi.  I drive a high end model that’s only a year old but the Audi MMI system is like something from days of MS/DOS and painfully slow and clunky. Even the MMI integration with the iPhone that it supports doesn’t work that well.  I’ve now given up with it and put a cheap air vent iPhone holder next to the steering wheel and use the TomTom App for navigation which is infinitely superior to the Audi built in satnav. I’ve got an iPod touch in the glove compartment connected to the MMI interface for music and podcasts.

When I heard about the Apple CarPlay system I got excited. Some car manufactures are planning to offer upgrades to existing customers so that their cars can support CarPlay. Anyway I tend to replace my car every 2 or 3 years so I thought no doubt my next Audi would support CarPlay.

Sadly it doesn’t look like Audi are planning to support CarPlay. Their name is missing from the list of manufactures on the Apple website.  Further Audi is currently backing Google and an initiative called the Open Automotive Alliance launched in January 2014 at the CES trade show in Las Vegas.

So at the time of writing (March 8th 2014) there is no public sign that I’ve been able to find that Audi have any plans at all to support Apple CarPlay. I can’t honestly believe that they won’t ultimately have to back both standards or risk losing serious market share.  You see the thing is these days all new cars are actually really good so the purchasing decision is heavily influenced by little things like dashboard features.  Ask any car sales man these and they’ll tell you that one of the most frequently asked questions they get is ‘will it work with my iPhone’. I hope Audi do get tho sorted out in the next 12 months before I look to change my car or I’ll certainly very seriously consider another car brand.

As and when I receive any more information on Audi’s plans for Apple CarPlay I’ll post an update.

Update June 26th 2014:  At its Google I/O developer’s conference in San Francisco, this week they announced Android Auto, their answer to Apple’s CarPlay. Much like CarPlay, Android Auto is designed to bring the Android experience to a car’s in-dash infotainment system.

Google said that Android Auto is contextually aware and puts the apps that users need front and centre on the car’s dashboard. Google stressed that Android Auto is “completely voice enabled,” relying on Google Now much the way CarPlay relies on Siri for voice commands.  In my simple view having two such similar systems in the marketplace is yet more reason that firms like Audi need to provide a choice between Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, preferably as an automatic configuration based on whatever handset you plug into your dashboard.

Update June 27th 2014: Today Audi formally announced that they would be supporting Apple CarPlay in a press release they say, Our customers want to be ‘always on’ and use the services they know from their smartphones in cars as well,” says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Technical Development at AUDI AG. “In this regard, we are working closely with leading companies like Google and Apple. In the future, customers will be able to use the functions available to them on their smartphones via the operating systems in their cars as well.

This is really good news for everyone. What we need to know now is when and if Audi issue an update to their MMI so that CarPLay can work with any existing models.

Update January 12th 2015: Apple have now launched a page with the official list of makes and models that support Carplay.  As of today the list of Audi models supporting Carplay  is still shamefully small with just the A4 and Q7 being listed.  It’s interesting that their parent company VW are showing that they support CarPlay on almost every model.

Filed Under: Cars, iPhone Tagged With: , , , , ,
Next Page »