Limitations on iPhone Application Development

iPhone is the second-largest selling smartphone brand, being superseded by Samsung in terms of sales. It continues to be one of the top contenders in terms of revenue generation. Apple sold 51 million iPhones and generated $13.1 billion in total during the 1^st quarter of 2014. Undoubtedly, customers of Apple are loyal to it and many of those do not use Apple devices crave to have one. The customer-centric and customer-oriented policies of the American incorporated company have played significant role its reputation. However, there is another side of the Apple that mainly frustrates iPhone app developers It may be a strategy of the company but it disappoints even the ardent Apple developer and user.

Apple has imposed certain restrictions on mobile application development for iOS. Anyone who signs the developer agreement with Apple is legally bound to meet the specifications.

Frustrating Restrictions

No simultaneously running applications – Apple does not allow 2 applications to run simultaneously. It may be the most non-comprehensible restriction of all for all but every iPhone and iPad app developer has to deal with it. It means that if users need to first close the application that they are working on to open another one, however interdependent the task may be. This restriction is applicable to internet surfing too. Thus, users get disconnected when they have to take an incoming call and have to sign-in again.

No third-party application in the background – A similar limitation is restriction on running third-party applications in the background. In other words, users chatting with someone are disconnected if they have to take an incoming call.

Other Limitations

s  Apple has necessitated that an application for a specific model of iPhone should support all lower versions of iOS. In other words, an application developed for iPhone 5C running iOS 6 should support all lower versions of iOS.

s  Apple prohibits use of code interpreter and downloading of code from the internet even though its own UIWebView includes JavaScript.

s  Apple is poor with Python, Perl, Flash and even java and JavaScript. So, application developers should try alternatives.

Additional advice

s  Developers should not access files outside application sandbox.

s  Developers should not link to private frameworks of Apple.

s  Developers should not reverse engineer iOS or the device.

While the restrictions and limitations may frustrate developers, they hardly seem to affect users as Apple continues to be a leading name in mobile device industry. Apple is the pioneer of smartphones and presently leads in the market in terms of revenue generated by sales of iPhones and iOS applications. It is not a hidden fact that iPhones are considered as a symbol of elite and luxury. Apple was supposed to be a hardware company and, as manufacturer iPhones, iPads and iPods, it is. However, many it competes in software front too. In fact, one of the reasons why exclusivity is associated with iPhones may be the fact that the hardware exclusively runs iOS. Apple’s strategy of being a hardware company but gaining benefits from both ends has been successful thus far.