Welcome to Brown’s Bytes! Your weekly insight from Mobliciti’s CTO Andy Brown. Follow #brownsbytes
9th September 2022
Regular readers will already know what this Byte has to be about this week…
Whilst it doesn’t get the kind of hype in the press that it used to, anyone working in tech will know that Apple held its annual event this week. Despite this being very much an event aimed at the consumer, I watch these with the Enterprise in mind. As always there are some interesting nuggets to bear in mind.
The big one is obviously the announcement of the AirPods Pro 2… just kidding!! Lovely though they are, this isn’t the one that we’ll be focusing on here!
iPhone
Clearly, the focus will be on the announced iPhone 14 devices.
The first thing to say is that these new devices fall firmly in the iterative release category for me. If you’re sitting there with your iPhone 13 wondering if you should upgrade, then the answer is probably no.
From an Enterprise perspective, this lack of change is always a good thing! Older devices that continue to ‘look’ like the new ones is useful. The biggest pain for Enterprise Admins is when the latest devices have a clear differentiator that ends users can easily see who has the latest and greatest. The last big one on Apple was probably when the Home Button disappeared with the iPhone X, but there is nothing really to worry the Admin this time like that.
So, what are the items that caught my eye then for Enterprise?
Ok, as with all phone launches, the majority of the presentation was taken up talking about Cameras, but we’re not especially interested in that!
The big item that was announced was around e-SIM. If you don’t know about e-SIM then please refer to a previous Byte or two where I’ve raved about it, but in summary, it’s the end of the physical SIM card.
For years I’ve noted that Carriers hate the idea of e-SIM as it makes it far too easy to change carriers and it also supports more than one SIM card at a time (something the UK carriers have worked hard to keep a lid on over the years). And I also noted that if anyone was going to force the change to e-SIM only, it was likely to be Apple.
Well, they’ve only gone and done it!! In the US, the iPhone 14 range will have no SIM Card Tray!! Note the US only, so we’re not directly impacted here in the UK… yet!! It’s not a massive leap to predict that the iPhone 15 will force e-SIM globally… and this is a MASSIVE positive change for Enterprise.
What else? Not a lot if I’m honest, the announcement that the iPhone 14 Max will have the longest battery life of any iPhone may be useful to some with extreme power demands, but that’s about it. Which isn’t a surprise given the iterative nature of the update.
iPhone 14 Pro
Having said all that, the iPhone 14 Pro has managed to incorporate a feature that really stood out.
The name of this feature literally made me groan – “Dynamic Island” is the ultimate in Apple branding of something that is basically a hole in the screen!
For years now, Apple has stuck with the notch at the top of the screen, whilst Android has had a range of devices with pill-shaped holes instead. Personally, I think the Pill is an improvement on the Notch, but it always seems to call out the fact that this is a flaw in the design… there is a hole in the display which is there because nobody has really managed to get cameras etc working behind the screen yet.
Classic Apple again though, despite being late to the party with a Pill in the screen, their designers have done an amazing job of turning that negative into a positive and incorporating the Pill into the UI.
When I saw it in action, I was instantly drawn in…. a bit of ‘Oh, that’s clever design’ to start with, but then the way it incorporates background tasks and switching made me think ‘Actually, that’s really useful!!’.
Despite there not being much announced, Apple has done it again… I want an iPhone 14 Pro! This probably means so will your users!!
iOS 16
Finally, a quick reminder also that iOS 16 will hit on Monday. And as with all major releases be prepared for things breaking. Beta testing has shown the majority of Apps working well, but there are also some issues with certain Apps on older devices. You need to be ready…
And if you need help with the rush of users demanding an upgrade then, as always, please do get in touch!
