As is tradition, Apple has detailed the App Store Connect schedule during the holidays with developers needing to plan new app submissions and updates around the planned downtime.
Apple violated US sanctions as a result of a negligent approach to compliance, according to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The Cupertino company voluntarily disclosed that the App Store had inadvertently violated sanctions against a Slovenian developer for more than two years…
A Washington Post analysis of iOS chat app reviews found more than 1,500 reports of unwanted sexual behavior, some of it directed against children.
The paper says that Apple continues to make the apps available on the App Store because the company does not read or analyze customer reviews, and so remains unaware of the problems…
Apple is this morning removing all vaping apps from the App Store following yesterday’s CDC report that says that 42 people in the US have died from lung disease associated with e-cigarette use.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that there were a further 2,172 cases of severe respiratory illnesses among those who vaped either nicotine or cannabis products…
Update: More information at the bottom of the piece
Update: Apple has also shared a developer update about changes to age ratings in the App Store in Brazil. Find the details here.
Apple has shared a warning today to developers who use its Push Notification Service about upcoming changes and requirements.
On iOS, all apps must go through the App Store. On macOS, the Mac App Store is just one method of distribution and developers are free to publish their apps independently on their own website. This means app rejection policies on macOS are not as painful as with iPhone or iPad, but they are nevertheless significant.
Developers are reporting that apps made using Electron (which is a framework that allows companies to ship web apps in a native app wrapper) are now being rejected by the automated Mac App Store review process.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched two long-standing apps release new versions with business decisions that led to an outcry from many users. Pocket Casts went free but introduced Pocket Casts Pro as an optional subscription that included Desktop applications access to the web player. Customers who had previously paid $9 to unlock the web player were frustrated because they were awarded three years of Pocket Casts Pro but would need to subscribe after that to keep access to the web player. Weather Line 2 was also recently released with a new optional subscription to unlock new features. Users who choose not to subscribe will now have ads inside the app. Some customers were frustrated that an app that previously didn’t have ads now required a subscription to avoid them. Are app subscriptions fair to customers?
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Apple gave a heads up to developers today that there is planned downtime for the App Store Connect this weekend on October 20th.
Apple has made a second U-turn on a Hong Kong protest app. The company initially banned it from the App Store, then changed its mind and allowed it, and has now reversed course again, banning it once more.
We yesterday reported that Apple has also removed the Quartz news app, which has been reporting extensively on the protests. Quartz says Apple took this action at the request of the government.
Both moves follow vague threats about “consequences” from Chinese state media…
Chinese state media has warned Apple about the “consequences” of allowing a Hong Kong protest app into the App Store after earlier banning it.
The controversy surrounds the HKmap Live app, which was initially banned from the local App Store, a decision Apple reversed the following day…
Amazon’s Prime Video app became unavailable today from Apple’s App Store. While there was some speculation that the removal could have been due to a scuffle between the two companies, it sounds like it was just a technical issue.
Call of Duty Mobile has become the #1 iOS app in more than 100 countries after it exceeded 35M downloads across iOS and Android in its first three days…
There is controversy today after Apple removed a Hong Kong protest app from the App Store. The developers claim that the app helps people avoid trouble spots and comply with the law, while Apple says that it’s intended to circumvent the law.
It’s currently unclear whether Apple made its own decision to remove the HKmap Live app, or whether it acted at the request of the Chinese government…
Apple today announced to developers some upcoming App Store pricing changes in Japan as a result of higher taxes in the country. According to the company in a post to Apple’s Developer website, starting in October 2019, the Japan Consumption Tax (JCT) will increase from 8% to 10%. This will make apps and in-app purchases available on the App Store more expensive for Japanese customers, except for auto-renewable subscriptions.
Apple has introduced a new “billing grace period” feature that it hopes will improve the customer experience for subscriptions in the App Store. Announced on the Apple Developer website, the feature aims to help users affected by unsuccessful auto-renewals of subscriptions.
Apple has shared an update today on some of its new developer guidelines. The changes come to recent kids’ app rules and the new ‘Sign in with Apple’ feature.
In an interview with the New York Times, Apple executives Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue revealed that Apple has adjusted the App Store algorithm to ‘handicap’ its own apps from appearing too much in search results.
Following press attention from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Apple found that the App Store was deciding to show a lot of Apple apps for common search terms. For instance, a search for ‘music’ would show not only Apple Music but up to seven other first-party apps in the first ten spots.
Apple has shifted its focus to Services as part of its efforts to combat slowing iPhone sales. In a new investor note, Morgan Stanley now says the App Store could show better-than-expected revenue growth for the month of August, citing new data from app analytics platform Sensor Tower.
At WWDC this past June, Apple shared updates on its guidelines for HTML5 use in iOS apps. Now Apple has announced that developers will have an extra six months to prepare their apps to meet the new guidelines.
For the last several months, Apple has been cracking down on third-party kids apps, specifically in regards to analytics and advertising. A new report from The Washington Post today dives deeper into Apple’s policy change, and notes that the company plans to delay the change.
Apple has recently updated its App Store Preview pages for stories to allow users to view the full content of stories from inside their desktop web browser. App Store stories have always been shareable as links, but the web version was just a title and a navigation link to ‘open this story in the App Store’.
Between August 9th and August 11th, Apple has upgraded the experience and now includes full imagery, app lists and paragraphs copy in the web version. This means you can access the same content online as you would be ale to find in the native App Store experience.
A scam heart rate app that tried to con iPhone users out of $89/year is now back in the App Store under a new name, some eight months after Apple removed the original version.
The app specifically targets people who own iPhones with Touch ID…
There has been disagreement among analysts and experts as to how worried Apple and Google ought to be about the tech giant antitrust probe being carried out by the Justice Department.
We’ve so far seen everything from warnings to avoid investing in the stocks through to the view that nothing much is likely to change. Now investment bank Macquarie has put some numbers on one possible outcome …
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple consistently ranks its own applications above competitors in App Store search results. Apple, however, says it tested the same queries in response to the report’s findings, but yielded different results.