I’d like to imagine an IT leader who, in the spirit of true innovation, skips the usual conferences on data centres and infrastructure and skips out to San Francisco for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC 2015, instead.
They might have to dress down a bit in some cases, and at some moments attendance could require a giddy enthusiasm for which CIOs are not really well known. Still, I think they might learn a lot about the kind of technologies that will engage users most, and could give them a sense of where they might need to tweak or optimize their enterprise strategies over the next six months.
Here’s a sample of what Apple announced, and what it might mean for CIOs:
iOS 9: For the past year or so, the mobile app industry has been buzzing about deep linking, which is a way to take users further into an app and potentially changing the way we navigate through variety of experiences on smartphones and tablets. Apple’s latest OS will provide an API to allow searches within apps and other deep liking possibilities. If you’re a CIO, this is a good opportunity to gather your application development team and brainstorm about the kind of next-generation app experiences iOS 9 might make possible.
Apple Pay + Square: The company’s mobile payment technology still isn’t here, despite some rumours about pilot projects with RBC and the like, but it was still interesting to see how Apple is integrating with Square, the payment firm launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Specifically, the Square NFC reader will let Apple Pay users tap to pay as normal thanks to NFC technology support or “dip the chip” for EMV-equipped cards. This is a small business play, but Canada is largely a nation of small businesses, and IT leaders should keep a close eye on how transactions of the future will be conducted. This will definitely be one of them.
Multitasking on iPad: There was no mention of business use cases for this announcement, but it wouldn’t take long for most CIOs to come up with some ideas. The ability to run two apps simultaneously was positioned as something consumers would enjoy, but think about the benefits of businesses that want to look at a document while watching a webinar, or navigating between professional and personal apps. This is what the BYOD programs of tomorrow will be all about.
These are just three examples, but there was lots more. What have you already been asked about since Apple wrapped up the WWDC 2015 keynote, and how might you incorporate any of what Apple is planning into your own projects? Share your thoughts in the comments below.