App Store

Apple this evening announced that it is expanding App Analytics in iTunes Connect to display new information related to how customers are discovering applications. The company made the announcement on its official developer blog…

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Update: The alternative pricing tiers, which are available to all countries which use the Euro, are confirmed in an Apple document.

Following Apple’s decision to increase the prices of App Store prices in Europe, Italian site iSpazio reports that the company appears to be allowing developers the option of more flexible pricing. Instead of having to choose one of the standard tiers, they would be free to select alternatives – including a starting-point of €0.49 …

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Apple today has sent out an email update to members of its affiliate program about launching improvements to the iTunes Affiliate Resource pages and also a change to the commission rates.

Apple is lowering affiliate payouts from apps and their in-app purchases to less than half of the original commission rate. For many, this means a negative impact to yet another revenue stream.

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Apple’s App Store Search Ads have expanded to other countries today alongside some new improvements for campaigns. Search Ads are now available for campaigns in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Apple has also introduced a new role for developers to help with Search Ads campaign management.

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Three months after the Chinese government forced Apple to remove the New York Times apps from the Chinese version of the App Store, it seems the government is now unhappy with some of the live streaming apps available. Reuters reports that a government agency plans to ‘summon Apple’ to a meeting to demand restrictions.

Internet regulators in China’s capital plan to summon Apple to urge the American firm to tighten its checks on software applications available in its Apple Store, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

It also appears that this won’t be the first time government agencies have raised the topic of live streaming apps with Apple …

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IFTTT, a popular automation tool that connects across services and devices, has announced new updates to their service today specifically for iOS. The updates today include support for both the iOS Calendar and App Store.

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Mobile app analytics firm App Annie is today out with its latest report. As usual, the data shows that Apple’s App Store has a significant lead in terms of revenue when compared to Google Play, but this report notes of a change. The firm estimates that Android will overtake iOS in terms of app revenue this year…

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Apple is apparently ramping up its efforts to clean up the App Store. According to a report from VentureBeat, Apple has started rejecting applications which tout their price in the name, icons, screenshots, or previews…

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Over a year ago, Apple removed an app called Metadata+ from the App Store. The app sent iPhone users alerts when a United States drone strike led to death. Apple’s reasoning at the time was that the app contained “content that many users would find objectionable.”

Fast forward to this week and Metadata+ is again in the news for being approved and removed, all in the span of less than 12 hours…

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Following the release of iOS 10.3 earlier today, Apple has offered up more details on support for developers engaging with users in the Reviews section of the App Store. Apple had previously announced that developers would be able to reply to app reviews, but now the company has offered up more details.

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Apple has been highlighting loads of iOS games created by independent developers this week on the App Store. The promotion includes a special section at the top of the App Store where new apps and updates are usually promoted, several new indie game launches, and even discounts on a handful of popular indie titles.

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As it continues to expand its reach, Snapchat today is rolling out a new widget to its iOS and Android applications. The new widget allows users to instantly start chatting with a Snapchat fried by simply tapping on their Bitmoji. The move comes as Snapchat puts an increased focus on private messaging, as noted by TechCrunch.

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Update: This change appears to have been reverted; editing of description and what’s new fields is now possible again outside of app review. As Apple never officially acknowledged the change, it is possible that this was a temporary bug that was never intended to go into effect in the first place. Original story below …

Overnight, developers have noticed a silent policy change to iTunes Connect interface which does not seem to have been formally announced by Apple.

Developers are no longer able to edit descriptions, update notes or any other metadata for their apps without making a new version, which must be submitted to App Review for approval …

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Yesterday evening, Apple started cracking down on apps that use third-party services to update without App Store approval. The majority of the affected apps seemed to use Rollout.io, an SDK that allows developers to modify their app in “real-time.”

Now, Rollout’s CEO and co-founder, Erez Rusovsky, has issued a statement on Apple’s policy shift…

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Update: Rollout has responded with a statement.

Apple today has started informing developers that use “hot code push” SDKs that it will soon start rejecting their applications. In a thread on the Apple Developer Forums, developers are reporting that they have started receiving messages from the company explaining that the code must be removed before any further updates will be approved.

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Apple has slowly been expanding mobile phone billing (or carrier billing) to additional countries, and three more have been added to the short list of supported countries this week. Customers in Austria, Italy, and Singapore can now use mobile phone billing with select carriers where available.

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The average U.S. iPhone user spent $40 on apps & in-app purchases last year, according to research by Sensor Tower. This was up from $35 the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, games account for by far the biggest chunk of this – some $27 of the $40 total – but it was another category that saw the largest percentage increase …

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When Apple released iOS 10 last September, they pushed in a small change when connecting to wireless networks. Tucked away under the Wi-Fi settings, iOS now warns users when connecting to insecure networks that it exposes a user’s network traffic. The easy answer to this is to simply not connect to public wireless networks, but that’s something that most people will just ignore. If users won’t stop connecting to insecure public networks, they could at least start using VPNs and Apple could make it easy to do that.

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Apple has allegedly started removing apps originating in Iran from the App Store. According to Techrasa, Apple removed the app of Digikala, the biggest Iranian e-commerce service, a few days ago. Apple has yet to comment on the procedure but it seems to stem from international trade laws (via TechCrunch).

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