Developer insight: Exploring new iOS 14 features in online gambling

With its latest iOS 14 update, Apple continues to challenge the online gambling industry, as well as providing tools for innovation. Although the latest software update might not be ground-breaking, there are a few things that product developers can utilise to improve their gaming products.

Better app developer tools

Apple is rolling out the Universal app binary which will help developers create native apps that work across a number of devices – iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and macOS. This means that operators will no longer need to build separate apps for each device, and they’ll only need a single app in one codebase.

This will enable them to maintain products with more efficiency, providing cost savings and simpler processes with updates. However, this capability will only be available on iOS 14 and upwards.

This also goes hand-in-hand with new SwiftUI which enables developers to create apps with more efficiency and with a better user experience. Apple has put pressure on gaming developers to ensure their products meet their Design Guidelines to offer as many native features as possible. With the help of SwiftUI, operators can create fully native apps to meet these requirements much faster, offering an enhanced UX to their customers.

Moreover, Apple seems to be willing to work together with app developers, as it announced an update regarding the App Review process. Developers will be able to challenge Apple’s guidelines by suggesting changes to them if they believe their app meets its requirements.

Displaying content through widgets

Although it’s not a new concept for Android users, widgets that come with iOS 14 are a welcome feature for Apple fans. We see lots of great options for entertainment and there’s also the potential for gambling apps. For example, operators can display the latest odds, upcoming games or lottery draws and stats. They can present important content in a compact way so that customers wouldn’t miss it or wouldn’t need to open the app to find it.

Offering widget customisation and presenting content in a visual way would create a greater engagement opportunity. Widgets take a good amount of space on the Home Screen, so operators should capitalise on this and get creative with the services they can offer through them. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of options the industry comes up with.

Enhanced privacy settings

With iOS 14, Apple has enforced more governance around user privacy, data and event tracking. Users can now choose how much data each app can access and whether they can set their exact or approximate location. They are prompted upon launching an app for the first time. Moreover, apps are now required to be more transparent about how they use this data. It enables users to take control of their privacy and only share data if they choose to do so.

We all know that a lot of apps track events and data for advertising, and often share it with third parties. Apple’s new privacy settings could significantly impact how these networks operate. Advertising networks and sports betting rely on customer data, so if a big chunk of users opt out, it won’t be as valuable or useful to the brands that use them to market their products and customer services. So again, transparency is key to be able to continue collecting customer data.

While iOS 14 doesn’t have major changes, it still offers significant improvements and privacy changes to both developers and users. It’ll be interesting to see how they will impact apps going forward and how developers will embrace the new requirements.

Tunde Adegoroye is the lead app developer at Degree 53, a UX, design and software development company, specialising in online gambling products. Adegoroye graduated from university as a web developer before teaching himself iOS development and making a career switch. Since then, he has been fully involved in a range of mobile app development projects, which include sports betting, wellbeing, verification and many more. Nowadays, you can catch him managing and aligning both iOS and Android apps currently being developed or maintained by Degree 53 to the highest standards.