Category: Apple Developer News

Since February of this year, developers of dating apps on the App Store in the Netherlands have been able to use the StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement or the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement to enable the capability to sell services through a payment system other than Apple’s in-app purchase system. Apple established these entitlements as part of our plan to comply with a recent Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) order. Today we’ve introduced changes to these entitlements, which include:

• Removal of the Separate Binary Requirement: Apple is eliminating the requirement that developers of dating apps in the Netherlands who choose to use the above entitlements must create and use a separate binary. This change means that developers may include either entitlement in their existing dating app, but still must limit its use to the app in the Netherlands storefront and on devices running iOS or iPadOS.
• Payment Service Provider Criteria: Apple is providing updated and more-specific criteria to evaluate non-Apple payment service providers that developers of dating apps in the Netherlands may use.
• Consumer Disclosures: Apps that use either entitlement need to include an in-app modal sheet that explains to users that they’re going to make purchases through an external payment system, and the potential impact that choice could have on the user. Apple is adjusting the language on the modal sheet and reducing the number of times the sheet must be displayed.

Developers of dating apps who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system — which we believe is the safest and most secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services — may do so and no further action is needed.

As we have previously said, we disagree with the ACM’s original order and are appealing it. In the meantime, the changes we’ve made today demonstrate Apple’s ongoing commitment to fulfill its legal obligations in the Netherlands.

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You’ve made a great app and published it on the App Store. Now, it’s time to help people find out about it. We’ll review how you can use the App Store’s existing tools, promotional offers, and more to drive downloads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions for your app. Check out these five tips for promoting your apps and introducing new people to your ideas.

Highlight specific content with custom product pages

Custom product pages allow you to share additional versions of your product page on the App Store to highlight different features or content within your app. These are discoverable through unique URLs that you share and can have different screenshots, app previews, and promotional text — and they’re fully localizable, too. You can design custom product pages that focus on a particular sport, spotlight a specific character or show from your app’s content library, point to specific and unique gameplay features, and more. And you can publish up to 35 custom product pages per app, giving you the flexibility and freedom to market your app to multiple audiences.

Get started with custom product pages

Custom Product Pages Overview

Boost your content with custom assets and links

Help people download your app with the App Store Marketing Tools. Use the site to generate a content link, short link, or QR code that takes people directly to your product page on the App Store. You can also generate “Download on the App Store” badges — including localized versions of these assets — and embed them in your marketing communications to promote downloads of your app. You can even customize your marketing with banners and images and add preset messages in multiple languages to promote your apps in your advertising efforts.

To get started, simply find your app, then copy and embed the URL and add it on your website or other promotional efforts. Be sure to review the App Store Marketing and Identity Guidelines for information on proper badge use and graphic standards.

App Store Marketing Tools

Create Smart App Banners to promote your app from a website

Make it easy for people to download or open your app from your website on iOS and iPadOS. With Safari’s Smart App Banners, you can display an unobtrusive banner that provides a direct link to your app on the App Store or directly opens the app if it’s already installed.

Promoting Apps with Smart App Banners

Generate promo codes to raise awareness of your app

Give people, press, and influencers early access to your app or its in-app purchases with promo codes. These codes are configured in App Store Connect and can be created, distributed, and redeemed even before your app is live on the App Store. You can give away up to 100 promo codes per version of your app, per platform — and up to 100 promo codes per in-app purchase.

Manage promo codes

Submit your app for feature consideration on the App Store

The App Store editorial team helps shine a spotlight on App Store developers doing incredible work as well as the apps that impact the lives of people around the world. If your app, game, or development team has a unique story, the App Store’s editors would love to hear about it.

For best results, submit your story to the App Store editorial team at least six to eight weeks in advance of your launch or update.

Tell us about your app or game

Getting Featured on the App Store

Resources

Creating Your Product Page

Discovery on the App Store and Mac App Store

Optimizing for App Store search

March 15, 2022

There’s still time to connect with Apple experts through online sessions where you can learn about the latest App Store features and get your questions answered. Find out how to create product pages that resonate best with the people you’d like to reach, provide great subscription experiences, distribute custom offer codes, and promote your in-app events. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program.

View schedule

Starting April 25, 2022, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13, which includes the SDKs for iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8.

Make the most of the exciting features in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8 to offer even more intuitive and valuable user experiences. Improve your app’s performance by refactoring your code to take advantage of asynchronous functions in Swift. And with the latest updates to SwiftUI, you can enhance your apps with new features, such as improved list views, better search experiences, and support for control focus areas.

iPhone and iPad apps. iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 let you take advantage of Safari web extensions, SharePlay and the Group Activities API, Focus, ShazamKit, Create ML, and more. You can also publish custom product pages and in-app events, and run product page optimization tests on the App Store on these platforms.

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Apple Watch apps. New watchOS 8 features include the Always-On Retina Display so your apps always stay visible, Bluetooth connections from complications, region-based user notifications, and more.

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Family Sharing helps people share access to eligible auto-renewable subscriptions with up to five iCloud family members across their Apple devices. You can enable Family Sharing for your subscriptions to grow your subscription business, encourage paid memberships, and improve subscriber retention. Learn how you can set up Family Sharing for your subscriptions and discover some of the benefits of opting into this feature.

Family Sharing for in-app purchases

How to enable Family Sharing for your subscriptions

You can turn on Family Sharing for your subscription in App Store Connect. You can enable this feature on a per-subscription basis, and support either new or existing subscriptions. Please note that once you enable Family Sharing for a subscription, you won’t be able to turn this feature off.

1. Go to App Store Connect.
2. From the My Apps section, select your app.
3. Select In-App Purchases and pick the Manage option.
4. Select the auto-renewable subscription you’d like to enable Family Sharing for.
5. Click or tap “Turn On.”

To verify the purchase and provide access to subscribers and their family, make sure to perform purchase validation. If you choose to offer Family Sharing as a higher level of service, be sure to rank this subscription in the same level as the individual subscription in App Store Connect so customers can upgrade if they wish.

Leveraging server to server receipt validation

Explore default sharing behavior

Whether a Family Sharing-enabled subscription is shared automatically with a purchaser’s family depends on their subscription sharing settings and whether the subscription was purchased before or after you enabled Family Sharing.

By default, customers are opted in to share eligible new subscriptions with their family, and they can go to the Manage Subscriptions page under their App Store account or Apple ID settings to opt out at any time. To ensure user privacy, existing subscriptions that were purchased before Family Sharing was enabled are not shared by default.

Subscribers who don’t share their subscription by default will receive a push notification from Apple that their subscription can be shared with their Family Sharing members. This notification links to the Manage Subscriptions page, where subscribers can choose to share the subscription with their family group.

Highlight Family Sharing subscriptions in your app

To help people make a selection that best fits their needs, there are several different ways you can merchandise Family Sharing within your app.

Promote Family Sharing pre-purchase. When crafting a signup screen for your subscription, we recommend highlighting that Family Sharing is an included benefit. If you offer multiple subscription options including a higher-priced option that includes Family Sharing, consider noting this on your signup screen along with the incremental cost increase, so customers can distinguish their options.

Highlight the feature for existing subscribers. As a reminder, even if a subscription supports Family Sharing, it may not be shared by default depending on someone’s subscription sharing settings and whether they purchased the subscription prior to Family Sharing being enabled in App Store Connect. You can remind subscribers of this functionality — for example, as part of onboarding for new purchasers, or for existing subscribers via an in-app message — in order to help build awareness and encourage sharing. Consider including instructions on how they can make sure they’ve turned on Family Sharing for your subscription.

Offer Family Sharing as an upgrade. You can display in-app messaging to existing individual subscribers to let them know a subscription with Family Sharing is available and encourage them to upgrade. This can help customers upgrade their subscription without leaving your app. Be sure you’ve ranked the updated subscriptions within the same subscription level in App Store Connect to provide a smooth upgrade path.

You might also indicate that Family Sharing is available by including it in the subscription’s display name. This makes it easy for people to distinguish if a subscription offers this functionality when viewing their subscription options and managing their subscription.

Build awareness with family members. You can provide custom messaging within your app depending on who purchased the subscription. Use ownershipType to identify whether you’re providing information to the purchaser or another family member. For example, during onboarding you might ask the purchaser to verify their Family Sharing settings as well as provide opportunities for them to share the app through a share extension.

Resources

Learn more about Family Sharing subscriptions

Learn more about designing subscriptions

Supporting Family Sharing in Your App

February 8, 2022

Connect with Apple experts through online sessions February 15 to March 29 to learn about the latest App Store features and get your questions answered. Find out how to create product pages that resonate best with the people you’d like to reach, provide great subscription experiences, distribute custom offer codes, and promote your in-app events. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program.

View schedule

Throughout its history, Apple’s App Store has helped drive innovation in the Netherlands. Today, the iOS app economy supports over 184,000 Dutch jobs, and we have helped Dutch developers access markets and customers in 175 regions around the world through the App Store.

A key reason for this success is that users have come to trust the App Store as the safest and most secure way to purchase digital goods and services. Apple’s in-app purchase system, an integral part of our world-class commerce platform, offers people a private and secure user experience across apps and Apple devices, and makes it easy for them to manage their purchases and subscriptions.

A recent order from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) will allow developers of dating apps on the Netherlands App Store to use alternate payment processing options. These changes will compromise the user experience, and create new threats to user privacy and data security. We have appealed the ACM’s decision. In the meantime, we are required to make the mandated changes and are providing further details today which satisfy our legal obligations in the Netherlands while helping to protect users from these increased risks.

Developers of dating apps who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system, which we believe is the safest and most secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services, may do so and no further action is needed. Developers of dating apps on the Netherlands App Store who would like to offer an alternate payment method can complete a request for one of two optional entitlements. The entitlements provide the capability to sell services through a payment system other than Apple’s in-app purchase system.

Before considering using one of these entitlements, it’s important to understand that some App Store features that you may use won’t be available to your customers, in part because we cannot validate the security and safety of payments that take place outside of the App Store’s private and secure payment system. Because Apple will not be aware of purchases made using alternative methods, Apple will not be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription management, and other issues encountered when purchasing digital goods and services through these alternative purchasing methods. You will be responsible for addressing such issues with customers.

If you’re interested in using one of these entitlements with your dating app distributed in the Netherlands, we’ve provided more information on requesting the entitlement, usage guidelines, and implementation details.

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As a reminder, the intermediate certificate updates are now available for the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Developer ID.

Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate (G4)

APNs SSL certificates are now issued from a new intermediate certificate (Worldwide Developer Relations G4 sub CA) exclusively focused on APNs. Use this certificate to send push notifications to apps (including VoIP), complications, websites on Safari, and Apple Wallet passes.

Apple Developer ID Intermediate Certificate (G2)

The digital certificates you use to sign your software and installer packages on macOS are now issued from a new Developer ID Intermediate Certificate that expires on September 16, 2031. Newly issued Developer ID certificates associated with the new intermediate certificate can be used to sign software on Xcode 11.4.1 and later. If you’re running Xcode 13.2 or later, the updated certificate will download automatically when you sign software after January 28, 2022. If you’re using an earlier version of Xcode, download the certificate manually or create certificates compatible with previous versions of Xcode.

Your existing certificates will continue to function until expiration or revocation, whichever comes first.

Download the updated certificates

With custom product pages, you can create up to 35 additional versions of your App Store product page to showcase different app features, content, or promotions. And now, new seamless integration with Apple Search Ads lets you easily use these pages to create tailored ad variations on the App Store.

Learn about custom product pages

Learn about Apple Search Ads

In order to provide more time for you to update your apps, we’ve changed the following requirement deadlines to June 30, 2022.

Online group event in-app purchases

In 2020, we chose to support apps and developers that needed to adapt services from in-person to digital as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we deferred App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1, which requires apps offering paid online group services to do so via in-app purchase.

Given the recent resurgence of COVID and its continued impact on in-person services, we’ve extended the most recent deadline to June 30, 2022.

As a reminder, guideline 3.1.3(d) allows apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase.

Account deletion within apps

App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1 provides people with greater control over their personal data by stating that all apps that allow for account creation must also allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app. This requirement was set to apply to all app submissions by January 31, 2022. Due to the complexity of implementing this requirement, we’ve extended the deadline to June 30, 2022 to give you more time.

Please keep these requirements in mind when updating your app:

• The account deletion option should be easy to find in your app.
• It’s insufficient to only provide the ability to temporarily disable or deactivate an account. People should be able to delete the account along with their personal data.
• Apps in highly-regulated industries may need to provide additional support flows to confirm and facilitate the account deletion process.
• Follow applicable legal requirements for storing and retaining user account information. This includes complying with local laws in different countries or regions. As always, check with your legal counsel.

Learn more about account deletion in the Human Interface Guidelines:

iOS and iPadOS apps

macOS apps

tvOS apps