On June 5th 2019, Apple sent shockwaves through the gaming industry with its sudden announcement that all real money gaming apps would need to be fully iOS native. For an industry in which almost every online casino was HTML5 and essentially an extension of the website, the work involved in remaining on the App Store would be time consuming and expensive. Despite the enormous amount of development involved in such a transition, Apple gave only until September 3rd of the same year to comply.
What followed was a mad scramble to develop native casino infrastructure and content that Apple would accept, including hundreds of native slots. But where many in the industry perceived a threat, the team being Jungle Spins, a fledgling entrant to the industry, saw an opportunity. Judging that outside of the world’s multi-billion dollar gaming companies, few would have the resources and ability for such changes, the management team behind decided to aggressively pursue the development of a fully native iOS gaming experience, and arrive first to market.
Deciding to go all-in, Jungle Spins set out on achieving the first truly world class, Apple-first casino experience, integrating multiple iOS features. Every part of the initial Jungle Spins online casino product had to be reimagined; from blackjack, roulette and slots to deposits withdrawals, and customer service, every facet needed to be redesigned, redeveloped, tested and implemented. While the work involved in achieving a native product was significant, the Jungle Spins team shared Apple’s vision that ensuring all casino content was native would ultimately lead to a better and safer player experience.
Keeping the foot on the accelerator, and despite being a relatively young company, Jungle Spins hired a team of over 10 developers and consultants from India, the UK and Gibraltar, including some of the greatest talent within the iOS development world, and worked around the clock to meet Apple’s deadlines. While some companies in the space took a casual approach and assumed Apple may take a long time to implement these changes, the Jungle Spins team saw this move as a positive development by Apple that would help ensure a better playing environment for operators and players alike.
Due to having underestimated the amount of work that would be involved and the scale of the transition required by operators, and likely great pressure from within the industry, Apple moved the deadline a number of times. What began as a short delay to enable more operators to be ready, turned into multiple delays, and as of time of writing, it appears many non-native apps remain on the App Store.
While the Jungle Spins team has taken these delays in their stride, they hope that ultimately non-native Apps will be kicked off the App Store, ensuring that the player protection that Apple strived for in coming to this decision is finally realized. They noted that in the meantime their competitors have not only been able to save on this development work but have marketed their non-compliant products without any real competition.
As self-professed “Apple geeks” the team behind Jungle Spins have no intention of letting up, and insist they’ll continue developing and improving their App to ensure it keeps it’s place as the most player friendly App on the App Store and Google Play.
Story by Hannah Madison
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