Last week’s announcement of iOS 7 really shook things up in silicon valley. And it may not be what you think.
Yes, people are excited to get to work on it. But app developers aren’t just putting a fresh face on their existing products. They’re rethinking their apps from the ground up, say a bunch of startups I’ve spoken with. They’re looking at this as a whole new platform, as they should, and they know that first movers have all the advantages.
Most people I’m talking to agree with Marco Arment, who says “iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards far beyond the extent of any previous UI changes.”
So how are startups responding to the news? They’re “tearing up their Q3 product roadmap” and “starting from scratch,” say a few of the startups I spoke to. “There are subtle but profound changes” says one.
Daniel Raffel, Snapguide CEO (a CrunchFund company), says Android likely took a big hit with the announcement of iOS 7. Leading up to WWDC there had never been a better time for developers to invest big in Android. Now that investment is on hold, he says, as teams repriortize resources to develop for the iOS 7 launch.
Another CEO I spoke to off the record today said that he’s leaving his Android client engineers on task (they’ve released both iOS and Android apps), but all UI/UX designers and engineers are focusing 100% on iOS 7.
And another startup founder: “Android is no longer on our 2013 product roadmap.”
And finally, the worst news of all from yet another mobile startup – they’re canceling all summer vacations.
Uncrunched 