Alongside releasing the second OS X 10.10.3 preview release and iOS 8.3 beta 2, Apple shared Xcode 6.3 beta 2 through the Mac and iOS Developer Center today. The latest beta version of Xcode, which developers use to build and manage software, includes a new crash log reporting system to show developers issues users may experience with their apps.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Dropbox for iPhone and iPad users is getting a lot more powerful today as the latest version includes a new action extension for iOS 8. This allows you to save information from various apps to Dropbox on iOS without having to open the cloud-syncing app.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Microsoft is today rolling out an update to its Office apps for iOS devices bringing the ability to save to iCloud and tap into storage from other services across all three apps.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple has been working with several third-party App Store developers at its Cupertino, California offices to assist developers in finishing up applications for the upcoming Apple Watch. Development and design representatives from dozens of different development firms have visited Apple last week, or are coming to Cupertino this week, to work with Apple engineers to finish up WatchKit-based applications. One source claims that Apple is holding workshops for over 100 different developers across February. Apple also met with a smaller number of developers to assist with WatchKit development and discuss future plans in early January…
iOS and Android are completely different worlds when it comes to apps. Android is pretty much the wild west, with little control over quality or even safety (malware is commonplace). iOS, on a non-jailbroken device, is a walled garden, where Apple decides what apps can and can’t do, and which ones get approved for sale.
Yet despite that carefully-controlled approach, the App Store can still feel like a bit of a jungle. Which is why I wonder whether the Pinterest tie-in announced yesterday may offer hope for the future.
But let’s start with the problem I think needs to be solved, and that problem begins with search. Results may vary by country, and you can try the searches for yourself to compare your results with mine, but here’s what I get for a few obvious app searches …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple has apparently been revising its app review strategy this week and has decided to reverse a previous decision that banned MassRoots, a marijuana-centric social app, from its software storefront. The application was booted from the App Store late last year (though it lasted much longer on the store than some other apps).
According to App Store guideline 2.18:
Apple has started enforcing a long-ignored rule in its App Store guidelines regarding what kinds of content can appear in app metadata. According to rule 3.6 in the guidelines document:
Apps with App icons, screenshots, and previews that do not adhere to the 4+ age rating will be rejected
This rule has been mostly unenforced since the App Store launched, but according to a new report from Pocket Gamer, some app developers are starting to see their apps rejected for depictions of violence in their screenshots.
Apple announced today that it’s rolling out a new feature for its TestFlight beta distribution service called TestFlight Groups to improve the experience of managing builds with multiple testers.
Apple noted the Groups feature will allow developers to “organize your testers into groups to quickly send specific builds”, provide separate instructions on where to focus, and apply an action to several testers at once in TestFlight.”
The new feature is available to those using Apple’s in beta TestFlight service through iTunes Connect.
Apple acquired the TestFlight beta app testing platform through its purchase of Burstly in February of last year and repositioned the service as a feature of its iTunes Connect developer portal.
As part of Apple’s weekly App Store refresh, the company is currently highlighting iOS games for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that are paid apps with no in-app purchases, MacStories points out. The featured section is notable as in-app purchases have been a source of confusion and frustration for many consumers since their introduction despite being an added revenue source for developers and Apple.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple today announced that it is increasing the size limit for apps submitted by developers to the App Store through its iTunes Connect service. Previously limited to 2GB, app packages can now be a maximum of 4GB in size. Apple made the announcement on its website for developers earlier today but some apps have been over the 2GB limit since at least January.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Like several other professional sports teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers will now be sending out location-aware notifications to iPhone users at its games using Apple’s Bluetooth beacon iBeacon tech. The team will send out the usual reminders, video content, and promos available to those at the game.
The team announced today that the notifications (pictured above) will be sent to fans through the official Cleveland Cavaliers app. YinzCam, Inc develops the app and is using Gimbal Bluetooth beacon hardware at the Cav’s Quicken Loans Arena to get the job done.
The opt-in notifications will include the following:
The MLB was one of the first professional sports team to adopt the tech for beaming location sensitive notifications to attendees at games, while the Golden State Warriors became the first NBA team to take advantage last year followed by several others.
The Cleveland Cavaliers app is available on the App Store now.
Reuters is today releasing a new app for iPhone called Reuters TV that offers access to on-demand video content and live feeds of Reuters’ live coverage of certain events.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Update 2/17: 73% iOS 8 adoption measured on February 16th, up 1% since February 2nd. Change shows 1% moving from iOS 7 to iOS 8 with ‘Earlier’ remaining at 3%.
Update 3/3: A month later, iOS 8 is now running on 3 out of 4 iOS devices according to Apple’s data. 75% of devices are now running iOS 8, with 22% still running iOS 7.
Apple released a new count today for the percentage of iOS devices accessing the App Store and running iOS 8. According to App Store Distribution data, 72% of iOS devices are now running iOS 8 with a quarter of devices running iOS 7 and a tiny 3% of users running iOS 6 or earlier versions using data “measured by the App Store on February 2, 2015.” That puts iOS 8 adoption up 3% since Apple last reported data two weeks ago with only 69% of devices running iOS 8 at the time.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Square Enix’s The World Ends With You
Buying an app from the App Store is designed to be as easy as possible. A large button with a price tag sits as close to the app’s icon and name as possible, while additional details linger below. You’re not supposed to think or worry too much about each purchase — the transaction is impulse-driven when the price is low — and the implication is that the app will work when you get it, and keep working for a long time thereafter.
But what happens when an app — marketed as compatible with current iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches — is never updated for the latest version of iOS, and either stops working after an iOS upgrade, or never works at all on new devices? That’s the situation buyers of Square Enix’s $18 The World Ends with You: Solo Remix (and $20 iPad version) have found themselves in since iOS 8 was released. The game’s description claims that it “requires iOS 4.3 or later” and is compatible with devices that shipped with iOS 8, but it wasn’t actually iOS 8-compatible. Yesterday, Square Enix publicly flip-flopped on whether it would leave the game unplayable or fix it. Before changing its tune, the company told customers that they’d need to continue to keep using iOS 7 in order to play the game — an unrealistic alternative, though one that’s faced by users of numerous iOS apps that aren’t being updated by their developers.
By considering abandonment of the 69% of iOS users who are currently on iOS 8, Square Enix wasn’t just making a business choice; it was also spotlighting the risk App Store customers take every time they purchase an app. And it also revealed how long-unsolved App Store listing ambiguities are subjecting users, developers, and Apple itself to unnecessary problems.
From 9to5Toys.com:
As usual, we’ve been tracking the best iOS price drops and freebies all week. About 48 hours ago we began to notice an influx of price drops for big name productivity apps. And now we know why. Apple has just unveiled its Get Productive App Store sale which features 19 insanely popular iOS productivity apps.
It’s rare to see so many all-time low prices from such a variety of top-tier developers. Here are our top picks:
On the Mac side of the sale there are twenty discounted productivity apps. Again, here are our favorites:
Check out our daily roundups for more of the best iOS apps sales.
iTunes Connect, Apple’s portal where developers manage software published on the App Store, is presenting many users with a widespread issue this morning. Several users are reporting logging in with their own credentials and being presented with both the name and apps of other iTunes Connect users, including upcoming, unreleased versions of apps. 9to5Mac has corroborated the errors with iTunes Connect.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Updated quote with WSJ correction:
https://twitter.com/daiwaka/status/560882525854121984
While few would expect the record-breaking surge in iPhone sales generated by the larger-screened models to continue into subsequent quarters, Tim Cook argued in a WSJ interview that the potential is there.
In an interview, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, not surprisingly, argued that the demand is more than temporary. He said fewer than 15% of older iPhone owners upgraded to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and that the majority of switchers to iPhone came from smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system.
“We certainly believe there are legs to it,” said Mr. Cook of the iPhone sales surge.
Cook noted during the Q1 earnings call that the current iPhone lineup had experienced “the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches.” With CIRP data suggesting that the US rate of switching from Android to iOS has remained broadly constant, that suggests the bulk of switchers have been outside the US–China in particular …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple’s annual Back to School sale in Australia and New Zealand has gone live with a promotion for qualifying students to receive Apple Store credit with the purchase of a Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Similar to last year, the Back to School sale includes the usual education pricing on Macs and iPads, but this year Apple is including Apple Store gift cards rather than App Store gift cards like last year.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The difference between Android and iOS hardware–Android having the market share, Apple making most of the profits–was mirrored in last year’s app downloads, reports mobile analytics firm App Annie. Its 2014 retrospective revealed that the Google Play Store saw 60% more downloads than the iOS App Store, but iOS apps made around 70% more money.
Re/code notes that this reflects data recently shared by Ustwogames for its best-selling Monument Valley game, which showed that of the $5.8M revenue generated by the game, 81.7% of it came from the iOS app.
App Annie’s data, which is generated by analytics from more than 700,000 apps, showed that just three countries generated more app revenue than the rest of the world combined–the USA, Japan and Korea–while the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, China and India) were not surprisingly the fastest-growing regions.
Apple recently announced that developers last year earned over $10B from the App Store, with a further $500M spent in the first week of this year. The company recently increased European app prices to reflect recent currency movements.
Apple today began informing legacy TestFlight users that the services on TestFlightApp.com will no longer be available after February 26th, 2015. Apple bought the popular software testing distribution service through its acquisition of Burstly almost a year ago, and announced plans at WWDC 2014 to roll out its own version of the service in the future. Since then, Apple has integrated TestFlight beta testing for app developers with iTunes Connect.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google is today rolling out Chrome 40 for iOS and with it introducing a redesigned UI, OS X Handoff support, and optimizations for iOS 8 and the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple has issued what will likely be the final reminder for developers building iOS software about the upcoming changes to requirements for new app submissions. Starting on February 1st, all new apps submitted to the App Store must include 64-bit support and be built using the iOS 8 SDK.
Existing apps already in the store won’t be removed if they don’t meet the standard, but starting in June, any further updates submitted for those apps will need to comply.
Microsoft today released a minor update for its Xbox One SmartGlass app with long overdue support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The latest version of the companion app for Xbox One now supports the native resolution of both smartphones alongside bug fixes.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Amazon has released an update to its Cloud Drive Photos app introducing a new name alongside iPhone 6/6 Plus support and new features. The updated, now called “Amazon Photo,” also includes support for full resolution photo downloads, iPad landscape support, and more.
Full resolution photo downloads – You can now download your photos to your device in full resolution so you no longer have to worry about losing details when you print your downloaded photos or display them on a larger screen… Improved iPad Landscape support – Navigate through the app without ever needing to switch back to Portrait mode.
In addition, version 3.3.0 of the app includes duplicate photo detection that will detect matches and avoid uploading duplicates, and a new “report problems” feature directly through the app.
The updated Amazon Photo app is available on the App Store now.