2013 year was indeed a successful and great year for iOS and Apple. As usual like every other year, iOS had a great set or releases and sales. It was overall a good year with few striking and worthy milestones that was added to the iOS.
This year indeed saw several improvements and releases in almost all the domains viz. software, hardware, and even the API. This will be a review that will glance back and cover the amazing updates and changes in iOS in the year 2013.
iOS7: The major update that was made to the iOS was the release of the new OS version iOS7. The release of iOS 7 was the previous year’s special and best event for iOS developers without even an ounce of doubt. For the users, the User Interface and User Experience changes that came with the iOS 7 was the most important and note worthy changes that Apple had introduced. It is an undeniable truth that the visual redesign and visual changes made to the iOS is the most outstanding and prominent feature of iOS 7. However, the operating system has undergone a lot of changes in visual as well as under the hood aspects.
XCode 5: Although Xcode 5 isn’t strictly struck to iOS 7, it was introduced at WWDC 2013 and this should be considered as an important milestone for all the Cocoa developers out there. The UI of Apple’s IDE and it has received a lot of changes and lots of new features were also introduced. Some of the noteworthy features were Automatic Configuration, enhanced support for Auto Layout, improved integration, added support made for testing. Finally, there is continuous integration also.
iPhone 5S: iPhone was the iterative release of the iPhone product line and this had most of the changes under the hood unlike the previous releases. One of the most significant changes that were made was the unveiling of the brand new A7 processor and also the M7 motion co-processor. iPhone 5S was the first of its kind phone with A7 chip, this has an incredible performance. If you are worried that it might be not power-efficient due to incredible performances, then you are wrong since it is really power-efficient too. The best feature of iPhone 5S is that is the first time it came with a 64-bit mobile chip and that was a big surprise indeed. This will allow applications to be run and be written in the 64-bit. Having a 64-bit mobile chip has a great advantage and it is the better performance per watt, which is a boon especially for games and other computing intensive applications.
iPad: The iPad by Apple has received two updates. One of the update was known as iPad Air, this reflects its thin and really lightweight design. The other update was that of the iPad Mini, this now sports a unique retina display. The iPad Air and the iPad Mini now come with the brand new 64-bit A7 processor and it also has the M7 motion co-processor similar to iPhone5. One of the biggest drawbacks of iPad was the fact that both the iPad Air and Mini didn’t have the fingerprint recognition sensor like the iPhone 5.
This was the year 2013 for iOS it a glance. It did have some really big milestones and another worth mentioning thing was the introduction of Android 4.4 Kit Kat which was a potential competitor and threat to iOS 7 and Apple in the year 2013. Kit Kat was indeed a potential competitor and threat since it was a really well known and most expected OS of the year. As of iOS we can expect more milestones in 2014.