Lovers of high definition mobile gambling know that iOS powered casinos are some of the best on the market. The Apple operating system is a development marvel which ties together all the system resources to ensure a smooth, low powered, high fidelity gambling experience. Whether your preference is to play slots and table games, or to stream high definition Live Dealer casino games your iPhone or iPad will give you hours of entertainment.

Not many Apple fans enjoy the idea of installing casino apps from 3rd party websites, the advancements in mobile browsers (thanks to HTML5) means that you can now play all your favourite games simply by opening Chrome or Safari.

The casino games available to you on iOS enabled devices include:

• Classic, video and feature slots
• Multiple table game variants – roulette, craps etc.
• Multiple card game variants – blackjack, Baccarat etc.
• Live Dealer casino games
• Keno, Scratch and Arcade games
• Asian Games

In addition to accessing all of your favourite games, there are no restrictions on the types of bonuses available to real money gamblers on iOS devices.

Available bonuses and incentives include:

• free spins offers – welcome bonuses and Loyalty Offers
• no deposit bonuses – Welcome Bonuses and Loyalty Offers
• Deposit match bonuses – Welcome Bonuses and Loyalty Offers
• reload bonuses – Loyalty Offers
• Comp Points – generated by wagers on Welcome Bonuses and Loyalty Offers

A Topsy-Turvy Journey to Greatness

While the story of online casinos begins in 1994, when it comes to the origin story of playing casino games on devices powered by Apples iOS mobile operating system like the iPhone, iPad and more recently the MacBook or Mac Mini, you need to rewind all the way back to 1976!

A small start-up computer business saw the light of day on April 1st, 1976. Had you told the founders – Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne – that this garage enterprise would one day be a leader in mobile devices, wearable music and the reason tourists appear to be taking photographs with small books, they would have thought it an April Fools prank. History knows it to be a fact, on that day Apple was born.

“Never Finish First! Apple co-founder Ronald Wayne sold his shares back to Jobs and Wozniak within weeks of launching the business, and made his way into obscurity. The valuation of his 33% ownership of Apple? A whopping $800, before taxes. Ouch!”

While Apple went to battle with its arch nemesis Microsoft over who would rule the roost when it came to putting a computer in every home, another product was quietly making its way into the limelight that would change online gambling in a demonstrable way – the mobile phone.

In 2007, years after acceding the home computer war to Microsoft and other pc clones, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone Operating System (renamed iOS). This breakthrough in mobile computing was the power behind the throne and was the true reason for the success of Apple’s game changing iPhone. Far from following the trend of being just a mobile telephone the iPhone came replete with touch screen, virtual keyboard which opened up the screen for bigger displays, Wi-Fi to connect to this new internet technology, a built in camera (seriously a phone with a camera why?) and then to cap it all off it even played music!

If you look at old Nokia phones and others from that era they had small mono-colour screens, actual buttons (for answering calls, ending calls and dialling numbers) and basic microphone & speaker so you could hear and be heard. That was is it! The iPhone was the mobile device equivalent of discovering fire or making the wheel!

“Congratulations it’s a Phone? In 1973 the very first mobile handheld telephone was shown by Motorola – their new ‘portable’ device weighed a healthy 2kg (just over 4 lbs)! Imagine playing live dealer blackjack on that weight stack!”

One of the challenges Apple had faced in the computer wars was that Jobs refused to sacrifice build quality, engineering and technology for a lower price. The methodology that cost him the home computer would be the very thing that won him the mobile device community.

The framework within which iOS functioned was solid, dependable and excellent in every way. This meant that it ensured application (app) developers created great stable offerings. This new world of attractive, sophisticated and almost sci-fi like consumer products was able to capture a market that was willing to pay handsomely for the honour of being an iPhone owner.

It was this stable development environment, combined with a native user base that had been trained to spend money in the iStore (the home of Apples approved apps) which caught the interest of online casino Game developers.

Benefits of Gambling Apps

While the Android operating system was also in play from 2007 their approach to development followed more of an “open source” approach allowing developers more access to API’s and source code than Apple allowed.

When it came to developing with the iOS framework the end result was guaranteed to be optimised to run smoothly and efficiently, making full use of the hardware on offer without overworking it. This also meant that as Apple upgraded its hardware and optimised iOS existing applications could run even better – rather than needing it to be rebuilt.

With his love of being entertained on the go Jobs also ensured that Apple stayed ahead of the game in terms of both audio and visual technology. This meant video, games and even presentation software was able to deliver crisp sound and high definition graphics far ahead of what its competitors could manage.

UIEGA and the App Store

Apple had also created its own retail environment, where once again unlike any Android stores, the iFans had been trained that iOS products were superior and worth paying for. As you can imagine this was the perfect breeding ground for quality mobile casino games which had the added benefit of possibly paying out more than the user had put in!

While the USA had passed Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 this did not seem to deter casino game developers, and oddly enough did not initially raise any flags with the moderators of the iStore.

Presumably this was due to the recency of Apples mobile technology. They had not made the connection between old school computer and laptop gambling and this new-fangled mobile technology.

Sadly all good things come to a close and the large number of online casinos slots and table games that had filled the US iStore were removed leading to some additional creativity of the casino game vendors.

While real money gambling was persona non grata casino games themselves were not – as long as they were fun play or promoted as training programs. This led casino game developers to build a slew of fun play, demo play and training games.

These games had some interesting customer conversion initiatives behind their innocent façade:

1. In-game advertising would present play for real money offers which would be claimed by clicking the banner ad and installing the new app. The problem with this was not many users trusted 3rd party app installers.

2. The fun play app would have a time delayed real money section that would be “unlocked” once a user had had the app installed for predetermined period of time. Usually around 30 days to allow testers and fair weather casino game players a chance to uninstall.

The market found a modicum of balance when Apple determined that the UIEGA was only applicable to the US market and allowed select casino game developers to start offering their online casino apps in gambling friendly territories.

This was never a cut and dry solution as apps were constantly added to and then removed the store at the drop of a hat with no real explanation from Apple representatives.

“People Love Chatting! The patent for a then purely conceptual mobile telephonic device, a ‘pocket-size folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone’, was filed in 1917 by a Finnish inventor, Eric Tigerstedt.”

All Hail HTML5

One of the more recent developments that really moved the need in a positive sense for mobile gambling has been the major advancements in mobile browser capabilities and the online industry’s wide adoption of HTML5.

Since HTML5 allows the browser to handle the encoding and management of sound files and visual elements. This has allowed iOS mobile casinos to shift away from the need to install an application to simply being fully functional in your devices browser window!

HTML5’s ability to manage audio and visual files internally has also created a new level of online security as it bypasses the need for 3rd party controls which are very often targeted by hackers to access unsecured systems.

Wearable Technology!

Always on the forefront of new lifestyle products Apple launched another industry first, the Apple Watch! This smartwatch synced with your iPhone and allowed users to receive notifications, take calls, even read their emails all on their wrist – no need to haul out your phone and get lost in the apps.

Always up for a new challenge, and looking for new markets to attract, the industry’s top mobile casino developers like Microgaming & Playtech, have been developing modified slot games for smartwatches since 2015!