Apple’s New Announcements and FileMaker

With all the new hardware and software announced today at Apple’s press event, it’s interesting to note how they affect the FileMaker world. See the announcement live here http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2013/ and the individual videos here http://www.youtube.com/apple

iOS 7
FileMaker Go (the iOS client for FileMaker databases) will work on the new operating system. Possibly the FileMaker icon will look a bit different (flatter to match the new iOS look) and be easier to access with the new enhancements in iOS.

FileMaker has noted a couple of function behavior changes to look out for with iOS 7….specifically with how a device is identified with a unique ID and  Get (PersistentID) and Get (SystemNICAddress). http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12074

iPhone 5c The new colors make little difference to FileMaker, but the fact that the phone is less expensive means it will have the opportunity to reach even more people with custom FileMaker Go solutions.

iPhone 5S
The new A7 64-bit processor and its associated speed will make all database operations more crisp and responsive that do not depend heavily on network performance.

New features in iOS hardware and software will become available for FileMaker Go use IF FileMaker incorporates support into FileMaker Go or another developer creates an application that can be integrated with FileMaker Go through a URL so it acts similar to a plugin.

For example:

• The Touch ID Fingerprint sensor and identification may make new security options available. It may be easier to login to FileMaker databases in the future…with the touch of a finger instead of typing a password.
• The motion co-processor could be used to track additional information about the user, their movements, and position.
• The new iSight camera is simply amazing. It will take better photos that can be inserted into FileMaker container fields and shared. Existing FileMaker 12 container field functionality that stores images outside the actual database file helps with making backups more efficient. The thumbnail function released in FileMaker 12 can assist in keeping the photos to a manageable size for transfer over remote networks.

Apple also announced that its five mobile iWork/iLife apps — Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie — are going to be free downloads with any new iOS device! This will help increase the installed base for those apps and make them an even stronger competitor to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Google Apps.

I would argue that FileMaker is the database complement to the iWork/iLife suite of applications. FileMaker Go is also a free download for any iOS device. To date there have been 700,000 downloads of FileMaker Go for iOS making it the most popular database available in the app store.

FileMaker Go is a primary method for your business to get a custom iPad/iPhone mobile application to streamline internal operations. Compared to building a web app or Objective C Xcode native app, the FileMaker solution is less expensive to develop, faster to implement, and more flexible in many ways.

With these new releases, Apple has again strengthened its position in the market through continued innovation.

Overall, FileMaker has sold 18 million seats of FileMaker over 63 consecutive profitable quarters. With its cross-platform capabilities (Windows/Mac OS) and the iOS client FileMaker Go, FileMaker is in an extremely strong position to take advantage of the new hardware and software Apple announced today.