subject: Ios 6: The Key Changes And What You Can Do With Them [print this page] It has been more than a month since the launch of iPhone 5 and Apples newest operating system iOS 6. While the response to the sales of the mobile device and upgradation to the OS platform has been phenomenal, crossing the 5 million mark in just a span of a week, mobile application developers from across the world have a different say on the subject. A section of app designers are of the opinion that individual developers will benefit from the changes introduced by Apple in iOS 6 since users have stopped embracing the major changes in iOS 6 after a couple of weeks post its release. Here we take a look at some prominent changes introduced in the latest Apple operating system and what they mean to users & developers.
1.Horizontal Scrolling This change has come across as one of the biggest challenges in the use of iOS 6 as it has brought about a distinct change in the way users will navigate through the App Store henceforth. In the redesigned form, every app gets a card and appears on the screen one at a time. Scrolling can get tedious for the users; abrupt end to the scrolling will mean that apps that are not featured high on the result list will be downloaded less. It could also mean a drop in the sales of apps which may have been useful.
2. Keyword Stuffing The stuffing of keywords in the new iOS 6 does not provide any help to the individual user or the app developer. If the app title is stuffed with keywords, it diminishes the chances of the app to feature high on the app search results page. However, the problem can be circumvented if developers use distinctly different wording & screenshots for apps with similar names.
3. The Description and Whats New Fields As soon as a user clicks the option More Info on the iOS 6, the fields Description and Whats New appear. Users will identify with this change of iOS 6 as it is highly familiar with the Google meta descriptions. It is a trick applied to attract users to view the search results, thus inspiring them to download & install a certain mobile app. The Whats New list must be prepared in such a way as will show the features & functionality of a mobile app instead of its bug fixes.
4. App Store SEO Also known as the ASO, it must be made complete use of as it is the quickest way to get a mobile app to feature at the top of the search results page in the new iOS 6 App Store. Major changes introduced in the search engine of the new app store; it is important for all mobile application developers to keep abreast with these changes so that the download rate of the apps manufactured by them is high. A developer can begin by testing their apps on the App Store SEO cheat sheets. These sheets keep track of the various methods which work towards enhancing the download & installing rate of mobile applications.
5. Less Exposure of New Releases The new released apps are picked by an algorithm or by hand. This means that they may never make it to the search result page. In this case, a developer must improve promotional & marketing techniques to ensure success of his/her app under the iOS 6 store.
Whether these changes in iOS 6 will help or hurt mobile app developers is a question that more time & usage can answer.
