Why the iPhone X release is great for your SME

Why the iPhone X release is great for your SME

The iPhone X is released for preorder on October 27th, and will be the first phone to break down the barrier of the four figure price bracket. There has been much hype over the beauty of the phone, as well as its value, and the investment in the development of AR technology in the Apple phones. For big business, this step up of price bracket and the potential supply chain demand cost increase means an investment in future tech. However, the iPhone X also poses potential benefits for small or medium sized businesses.

Apple rely heavily on the iPhone to bring in their profit margin. With an ever-increasing amount of users choosing their phone as their main, or even only, source of digital access, we are moving beyond the use of desktop – and therefore beyond the main investment of the individual being their desktop.

Your Audience are Mobile.

The higher cost of smart phones reflects this; higher cost means more investment in supply chain and technology, and the potential increase in cost of smartphones overall, as they become the largest source of traffic for online. The percentage of mobile users has overtaken desktop; surpassing 90% in Indonesia, 61% in the UK and 71% in USA.

This will lead to increasing investment in developing the visual and processing tech, in order to ensure that everyone has the equivalent of a tiny laptop in their pocket thanks to improved processing power and speed. The iPhone X contains the new six-core bionic A11 processor, which includes a 3 core GPU to speed up graphics processing for mobile games. It also has the potential to be involved in a wealth of other dynamic professional apps that smartphones are not currently capable of.

What does that mean for the wider market?

More ability for smaller businesses to easily produce content and apps, and market them at a mobile audience – and potentially a more global audience.

For countries like Indonesia, who have a predominantly mobile source of web access, this affects how they interact with online content, and specifically increases demands for a certain type of content. Overall, since the move towards a reliance on mobile tech, audiences have been increasingly more accessible for businesses who can now track their infinitesimal movements and market to them accordingly. Developments in technology and mobile access have reflected this need for quick and digestible, yet information rich content.

Apple have encouraged the development of content for mobile technology with freely available ARKits for developers. Many were expecting that the iPhone X would herald a new development in AR technology in phones, reflective of the promotion of ARKits, but this seems to have been overlooked in favour of other tech boosts. However, this opens the door to future advances in iPhone technology.

Your business is portable.

The increased investment in mobile technology offers a business more opportunity to become portable. As laptops have encouraged a progression away from the standard desk set-up to a wealth of hot-desking and coworking arrangements, so too will the expanse of the mobile generation increase the area from which employees can work. Mobile and freelance workers can now frequently ‘check in’ via apps. There is a lack of need to carry paperwork etc, with the ability to quickly add and sync data to a main database. New mobile communication and productivity apps like Slack and Asana allow for remote workplace communication. The larger screen (super retina display with 1125 x 2436 pixels of resolution, the highest density screen on any iPhone) opens the technology up to a more user friendly experience for in-depth visual apps and interaction. This increasing ability to be productive with a smartphone alone has ramifications for the smartphone industry but also for the online industry as a whole.

What next?

Other phone creators will be keenly watching to measure Apple’s success at the new price point and can begin to construct an idea of the levels of investment in new components in accordance with a predicted consumer spend rate. Meanwhile digital content producers will be looking to concentrate their focus on the most profitable sphere; whilst mobile continues to dominate, web devs will increasingly build sites focussed on a mobile friendly platform with desktop becoming a secondary consideration.

Is it worth investing in the iPhone X?

If buying for business, it is worth considering that the iPhone 8 includes the same processing chip and similar functionality to the iPhone X without the esteem of the big purchase price tag. It’s the more affordable option for those who don’t rely on the prestige of a new tech purchase but would still like to investigate the technology.

Both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X are a symbol of the industry’s commitment to investing in mobile technology and demonstrate how significantly we are committing to a mobile dominated landscape.

If you are a small business and looking for a mobile app development company to  develop iOS apps for your iPhone 8 or iPhone X then please contact us to help improve any existing data collection process.