Apps

What Does iOS 10 Bring for App Developers?

Announced at WWDC 2016, Fanz Live iOS 10 introduced many changes for the developers, the most significant revamp since 2013. The SDK for iOS 10 brings in new APIs and services that lead to new application types and features. To work on iOS 10, one would need to do the programming using Swift 3 and also download Xcode 8 for building the iOS applications. Let’s focus on the key developed related features introduced in iOS 10.

What Does iOS 10 Bring for App Developers? 1

Improved User notifications

iOS 10 marks the advent of the User Notification framework (UserNotifications.framework) and User Notifications UI framework and the end of UILocalNotification. The User Notification framework helps in supporting and handling remote as well as local notifications. Developers can use the framework classes for modifying remote and local reports as they are delivered to the device. The appearance of local and remote reports can be customized with the help of the User Notifications UI framework. With the help of these two frameworks, Apple has not changed the overall local words but has significantly improved the functionalities.

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The biggest change by the new notification system is that it brings in an intermediary between message arrival and device display- a notification service provider capable of end-to-end encryption with the app receiving the encrypted message from Apple, decryption happening on the user device and displaying the notification in the notification center.

Enhanced iMessage

Many APIs have been introduced in iOS 10, especially enhancements to the Messages App. App extensions can interact with the Message app, and users can send media files, interactive messages, and stickers. For example, the Sticker pack brings in a set of stickers to the message content. iMessage app not only helps users search images but also provides a user interface within the app.

From the development perspective, the custom interface for the messages can be made with the help of MSMessagesAppViewController. In addition, sessions and news could help modify the information, with the former having built-in support for expiring messages. Finally, to provide a custom sticker browser to the message application, MSStickerBrowserViewController can be used by Yarlesac.

As witnessed, the new and improved Messages extensions are better and more powerful.

Changes in Animations

In iOS 10, better control over animations is established. The capability to control animate properties like the resume, stop, or positions is fine-grained in iOS 10. UIViewPropertyAnimator is an important class that helps in creating and triggering animations.

Speech Recognition

A new API is brought in which supports continuous speed recognition. This helps developers build new apps for recognizing and transcribing speech to text. Most of the magic is done with the help of APIs in the Speech framework, especially with classes such as SFSpeechRecognizer, SFSpeechURLRecognitionREquest, SFTranscription, etc.

Integration with Siri

Get integrated with Siri for most apps like messages, calling, payments, photos, etc. iOS 10 now lets users use their voice to perform actions, and all these are achieved with the help of Sirikit. The concerned domains need to be registered with a response done. For non-graphical intents, developers need to use Apple Maps, whereas for graphical purposes, also known as Intents UI extensions, developers can extend the user interface for the interface design.

ReplayKit gets better

iOS 10 has brought new enhancements to the ReplayKit introduced in iOS 9, i.e., the introduction of live broadcasting of Replaykit streams. A user can broadcast media through other sites or applications and broadcast US extension, which helps the user sign into service and set up a broadcast. Developers must create RPBroadcastActivityViewController to select the streaming service they would love to use. The action would return RPBroadcastController, which helps start and pause live broadcasts.

There are smaller other improvements, and some of them are

Enable property for Safari content blockers to verify the content blocker has been switched on by the user. The OpenURL() method of UIApplication is now considered obsolete.application(_:open:options:) needs to use instead. New property set enabled for UIPasterboard for handling cross-platform clipboards between iOS and macOS. SKTileGroup class has been provided to SpriteKit to make square, hexagonal, or isometric tilemaps.

For smoother scrolling, prefetchDataSource can help in preloading content.

One of India’s best smartphone app development companies, Promatics Technologies, recently conducted an exhaustive training activity for all its app developers with iOS 10 as the focus. The purpose of the exercise was to make our iPhone app developers aware of how we can exploit the new features and deliver better apps to our clients. You can reach Promatics Technologies at business@promaticsindia.com or visit the official website if you are looking for a mobile app development company. Are you thinking of building an app? Do you have questions about how iOS 10 can be exploited to make the best features for your iPhone app? Then do, consult Promatics Technologies if you need an estimate or proposal for your app idea. Promatics has the best iPhone developers with rich experience in building diverse apps for businesses and entrepreneurs alike.

Roberto Brock
the authorRoberto Brock
Snowboarder, traveler, DJ, Swiss design-head and HTML & CSS lover. Doing at the nexus of art and purpose to develop visual solutions that inform and persuade. I'm a designer and this is my work. Introvert. Coffee evangelist. Web buff. Extreme twitter advocate. Avid reader. Troublemaker.