Just hours away from the expected launch of Apple’s iPhone 6 and not surprisingly all the talk is centered on the actual device. Few doubt that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook will have something pretty cool to show off when he walks onto the stage at today’s event, but for developers and business users alike, it could be the software rather than the hardware that has a bigger impact.

Along with the iPhone 6 comes iOS 8, and it’s promising to transform the way documents are accessed and stored on iOS devices. At least, that’s according to Mika Javanainen, product development executive at M-Files, who says iOS 8 could be a game-changer for the enterprise.

The key development is Apple’s introduction of a new storage extension protocol called CloudKit which radically changes the way iOS handles content. In a nutshell, CloudKit is a highly asynchronous storage provider extension service that adds or modifies over 4,000 APIs and also introduces Swift, a new programming language.

Javanainen told CMS Wire that Apple is fundamentally reinventing document storage and access with this new development. The problem its solving is that currently, mobile apps don’t share a common file system. They all live in sandboxes with their own data, and that can be problematic when trying to share documents between different apps.

“If you wanted to edit an M-Files document with MS Word for iPad, users would need to access the file in M-Files app and then select the “Open in Word” feature that technically copies the file to MS Word sandbox,” explained Javanainen. “When edits are done in MS Word, users would have to “open” the file in M-Files App and M-Files app would need to have logic to understand that the file is supposed to replace the old version instead of creating a new document.”

All in all it’s a pretty cumbersome and long-winded process and it all amounts to a poor experience for the use. People hate jumping in and out of different apps, and not only that but it’s also wasteful of resources too. Add to the fact that the process also duplicates data between each app sandbox and it all amounts to a real headache for developers, said Javanainen.

So what benefits will CloudKit bring? Javanainen explained that developers will be able to add a feature that allows documents to be copied into a common area that can be accessed by all applications. This means apps can modify files stored with other apps without making duplicate copies, thereby freeing up some of the clutter on our devices. For developers it’ll save them lots of time and hassle, but the bigger benefit will be felt by the end users.

“The biggest winner is the end-user as these enhancements remove the duplication of files and hence free up storage,” Javanainen explained.

photo credit: Key Foster via photopin cc