With Apple content to hit the public with update after update to it’s hugely popular iOS software, some of these updates bring minor fixes to the mix while other’s can bring a whole new dimension of features to your iOS device. We recently discussed specific gesture features that could be found in iOS 4.3 but this time we are considering some other developments of iOS 4.3.
What Can We Expect
App Subscriptions
One feature you can expect to see Apple roll out in the 4.3 software update is the ability for app developers or publishers to charge by the day, week, month or year for the updates to their apps. Now we all know that there are currently in-app subscriptions available for news apps, such as News Week, but as of yet we are not sure how this is going to play out. Could apps like TomTom remove its ridiculously high asking price and make it a subscription based service to ease the pain in the pocket?
You may or may not have heard of the hype surrounding the eagerly anticipated iPad app, The Daily, brought to you by, the media kingpin, Rupert Murdoch. Well this I assume will be using the subscription based service provided by the 4.3 update, which points to why both 4.3 and the The Daily have both been delayed from their original touted pre-Christmas release dates.
All we know for sure is this. Anything that enables developers to make more money, subsequently pumps more cash into the hands of the folks at Apple HQ. And everyone’s happy! Except the paying public of course.
The Daily
Seeing as we briefly mentioned it above I will shed some more light on the whole subscription based iPad news app. Fronted by the most feared man in media and television. And quite possibly the most hated man in Liverpool, England. The Daily is said to cost in the region of 99 cents a week or $4.25 a month, though seeing how much Sky TV costs us a month in the UK I find this hard to believe. I have heard contradicting reports stating 99 cents per edition, and assuming it will be a daily this tends to make more sense as there will be no online or hard copy print to bring in other revenue sources.
One thing I do like, if the rumors are true, is that The Daily will be staffed by 100 ‘twentysomething’ talented writers technically making it a college paper when compared to the big hitters in the world such as the New York Times or The Daily Telegraph.
Find My Friends
In the developers build of iOS 4.3, settings have been found for a feature called Find My Friends. While no concrete evidence has been provided on what this is likely to be, there is a strong belief that it will be something similar to that of the service available on FaceBook allowing you to let your friends, or any potential criminal, know when you are having your hair cut at Guiseppe’s Salon, and not at home.
When all is said and done iOS 4.3 isn’t going to rock the world as much as 4.0.1 for the iPhone or 4.2.1 for iPad did. I suspect Apple are saving their fireworks for the release of iPad 2 and iPhone 5 when I assume we will be seeing iOS 5.
What would you like to have been added to this software release and looking even further into the future, what do you expect to happen when iOS 5 gets a release? Please leave your comments below and I will get back to you.
ipad 2 is going to be soooooooooo good!!! hopefully the new screen has a higher res!!!