So your new iPhone is quite a bit more powerful than your last one — sharper graphics, better photos, faster processing — great, right?

It’s great for consumers, maybe, but not necessarily for software developers.

Consider Kofax, Irvine, Calif.-based makers of an enterprise imaging and analytics platform with many bank customers. Dave Caldeira, senior vice president of products and solutions, told Bank Innovation earlier this month that Kofax is close to hosting complete mobile capture transactions on the devices themselves, meaning smartphones. Currently, some processing is done in the cloud, which of course adds time — and a little bit of risk — to the process.

“Processing on the device is not totally end-to-end right now,” Caldeira said. The reason for this may be surprising. It’s not that Kofax isn’t up to the challenge, it’s that older devices are holding things back. How’s that?

“Take on-device OCR,” Caldeira said, referring to optical character recognition. “What may take 45 milliseconds on the iPhone 6 can take 7 or 8 seconds on the 4S.” So as processes advance and require the smartphone to do more, the question becomes, “What is acceptable on the 4S?”

Software, therefore, needs to be more adaptable to accommodate various devices — simple brute processing force will overwhelm older devices that may constitute a significant portion of a bank’s clients. And with more complex transactions, mortgages being the prime example, coming soon to a smartphone near you, it may be that your new iPhone 6+ can bear the load, but the process will be painful on your neighbor’s old iPhone 4.

That’s a problem. And if you think the iPhone is hard, Android is whole other world of hurt, with precious little uniformity across devices and OS releases.

Kofax is known for its enterprise platform for mobile imaging, but also sells analytical services to FIs. And though financial services is its largest vertical, it works in a number of other industries, including insurance and healthcare. And Kofax isn’t sitting still. In September, Kofax acquired the German e-signature and security firm Softpro, and the company announced on Nov. 19 that it received three new patents, bringing its total to 54.

Smartphones are getting more powerful, but the long tail dragging behind the newer units can’t be cut off and left behind. This is a challenge all mobile developers with processor-intensive application will have to negotiate.