Developers

Apple announced and opened up applications for its first Entrepreneur Camp for Black founders and developers back in October last year. Now the inaugural camp has launched and Apple has shared the 13 app companies to take part in the program.

Apple is now inviting iOS, iPadOS, and macOS app developers to join its engineers and designers in a special online event that will provide insights into improving app widgets — which are part of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and macOS Big Sur.

Widgets have become a mainstream hit and are only limited by the imagination of those developing them (okay and a few rules from Apple). Now a new app from Aaron Pearce called Barter brings some great functionality to the developer community to easily keep track of metrics with App Store sales widgets on iPhone and iPad.

Back in September Apple decided to stop charging its 30% commission for in-app purchases for certain online events. That was set to end at the end of December this year. Now Apple is extending it until June of 2021 to help developers and businesses amid the pandemic.

Apple has announced a variety of changes to the App Store Review Guidelines today after multiple major App Store controversies over the last several months. The new guidelines and updates relate to areas like in-app purchases, streaming game services, and personal lending applications.

After announcing new iOS privacy requirements back at WWDC in June, Apple has shared a new detailed document for developers as they prepare to create privacy “nutrition labels” for apps. The new iOS 14 feature will apply for all apps that are available in Apple’s App Stores with the goal to better inform consumers with a clear overview of an app’s privacy practices.

Apple has shared today that App Store prices in four countries will rise. The new prices will take effect in the coming days and are due to tax rate increases ranging from 7.5-19% in the affected countries.

Joining a wider industry shift, Apple announced that it is working to replace exclusionary language in its developer documentation and APIs with alternative terminology.

Renaming things takes time and effort as large parts of infrastructure have to migrate in response. For third-party developers in the App Store, Apple will be changing the names of APIs used in their code where appropriate, which will also necessitate engineering work to migrate.

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Apple developers have started receiving their Developer Transition Kit hardware, which Apple is distributing to developers to help them get their apps ready for the upcoming range of Apple Silicon Macs, which will replace Intel CPUs with Apple-designed ARM CPUs.

Despite the confidentiality clauses in the developer agreement, benchmarks for the Developer Transition Kit have already surfaced on Geekbench. Note that these tests are running under virtualization, using Apple’s Rosetta technology, as the Geekbench testing software has not yet been optimised for Apple Silicon.

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Following the Platforms State of the Union address this afternoon at WWDC20 Apple has shared some highlights on its new developer tech and tools to “foster the next generation of apps.” These include Xcode 12, new features in SwiftUI, App Clips and Widgets in iOS and iPadOS 14, improved access to Apple’s platforms like Find My and HomePod, as well as a new App Store Review process that gives developers a way to “challenge” guidelines.

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Right about a year ago, Apple began enforcing its enterprise certificate policy for developers more strictly. It all started with Facebook who was abusing its certificate but it didn’t end there. Google’s account was pulled temporarily among a wave of others. Now another developer who was found to be abusing Apple’s policies has seen its account disabled.

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Apple has expanded the ability for eligible organizations to apply for developer account fee waivers today to eight more countries, bringing the total to 13 that have the opportunity to get free developer memberships.

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Developers who make apps for Apple’s platforms are used to opening App Store Connect in a browser to manage their apps in the App Store. This portal provides access to edit an app’s description, screenshots, keywords, and also follow sales reports, analytics, and customer reviews. There’s also an official iOS app from Apple available in the App Store that gives access to some limited functionality.

During this year’s WWDC, Apple announced the launch of an official API for App Store Connect, to let developers create their own tools using an officially supported API rather than the hacks that were previously required. Indie developer Vadim Shpakovski announced NativeConnect, a native Mac app to access the same features offered by the web version of the portal. Today, NativeConnect is available on its website.

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