Apple Developer News and Updates feed provided by Apple, Inc.
November 8, 2021
This year, we’re pleased to continue accepting submissions in App Store Connect throughout the upcoming holidays. Make sure your apps are up to date and ready for the busiest season on the App Store. Due to anticipated high volume, plan to send time-sensitive submissions early. Please note that reviews may take longer to complete from November 24 to 28 and December 23 to 27.
Last year, to support apps that adapted services from in-person to digital, we temporarily deferred the requirement to offer paid online group event services (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime services) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1.
In November 2020 we extended the deadline to June 2021, and in April 2021 we extended it again to December 31, 2021. These extensions were granted to support businesses and provide time for you to update your apps to comply with long standing in-app payment rules.
As a reminder, new apps and updates offering these realtime one-to-few and one-to-many services must use in-app purchase by December 31, 2021, or they won’t be approved per guideline 3.1.1. Apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) can continue using purchase methods other than in-app purchase.
November 3, 2021
You can now invite people to try out beta versions of your Mac apps and provide valuable feedback before release. Invite up to 10,000 external testers using their email address or by sharing a public link, create multiple groups of internal testers and configure build access for each one, and more.
Andrés Ugarte is the type of person who’s always on the lookout for the perfect app to help him navigate life, but he never found one for managing his money. “I lost count of how many I tried,” he says.
So in 2018 he quit his job as a software engineer and started working on Copilot. This privacy-first app lets you view details across all your accounts with a clear, colorful interface. Machine learning automatically categorizes spending to help you budget, while elegant charts make financial data — not always the zingiest of topics — easy to make sense of.
We caught up with the New York–based founder to chat about when he knew Copilot was an idea he could bank on and why a CEO should always code.
*Copilot* categorizes your transactions using machine learning (on your device, not in the cloud) to help you stick to a budget.
How long did it take to launch Copilot?
Roughly a year and a half. For the first six months, it was just me designing, prototyping, and building. We had seven users, and each week I would launch new features and send out an email.
How did you persuade people to trust Copilot with their financial information? I’m wary of sharing my personal data, and that was one thing that bugged me with other apps: They’re free, but since the company has to make money, they’re selling your data. In the early days users told us, “Please don’t sell my data or put in ads. I’m willing to pay a few bucks for this service.” That was when we decided to charge a subscription, even though nobody really charges in this category. We can cover the cost of growing the business and building new features.
What’s been your biggest challenge?
In the early days, it was fundraising. I thought I was going to be able to fundraise with just an idea, honestly, but I got a lot of pushback: “People have done this. You’re wasting your time. Do you have any other ideas?” That’s why we started fully bootstrapped. But once we had a product — and with the type of love we get from users — the dynamic changed.
From a technical standpoint, what else is key to the Copilot experience?
We want you to open Copilot and feel like it’s a first-class app. I believe that having a native Swift app makes a difference the moment you start interacting with it. We invest a lot of engineering resources in crafting an experience you want to come back to.
What’s it been like to go from software engineer to CEO?
I still code. Not as much as I used to, but I believe that to be an effective leader, I need to stay close to that. Engineers and designers are often told they should focus on the technical aspects or the design and leave the rest to businesspeople. I believe that’s fundamentally wrong. We have a little bit of a superpower when it comes to understanding what goes into crafting a product that people want to use. At the end of the day, users can tell if you’re doing something with passion and love.
Tech Talks 2021 features live online sessions and office hours through December 17, so you can connect with Apple experts to learn how to create best-in-class apps. We’ve updated the schedule with new content, and will post more every two weeks.
Based on your overwhelming response, we’re increasing capacity for all sessions and repeating our most-attended sessions. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
Welcome to the second Tech Talks Digest. After a fantastic start last week, we’re adding more sessions, more office hours, and — you asked for it! — more capacity.
Check out our latest activities, which run through November 19. These sessions and office hours are designed to help you learn more about our latest technologies, get your questions answered, and offer one-on-one guidance.
Due to popular demand, we’re re-presenting several of our most-attended sessions from last week. We’ve also increased the capacity of our sessions, and we’re offering two chances to sign up: We’re releasing half of the available spots today at 9 a.m., and the remaining half will be released at 11:59 p.m. PT to support developers worldwide.
Did you miss a session, or want a recap of some of the highlights from week one? Read on to learn helpful tips from the SwiftUI team, find out the latest updates to App Clips, and answer the question: just how old is AVFoundation?
We’ll publish a new digest every two weeks highlighting updates to the sessions schedule, new office hours signups, and more — so stay tuned!
You can currently browse and register for all Tech Talks activities taking place through November 19. We release new sessions and appointments for one-to-one office hours every two weeks, so check back on November 15 for the next round of activities.
Note: To register for sessions or request office hour appointments, you must be a current member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
Get notified about new activities and your appointment requests by opting in to push notifications in the Apple Developer app or signing up for email notifications. To enable push notifications, visit the Account tab in the Apple Developer app. To enable email notifications, sign in to your developer account, open the top-right menu, and click Email Settings.
Our SwiftUI engineers enjoyed answering your questions so much that they’re returning for another round! Technology Evangelist Betsy Langowski joins members of the SwiftUI engineering team to showcase some of the latest improvements to SwiftUI, explore the life cycle of a bug report, and answer your questions.
This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on November 16.
One of the first sessions we hosted was Design Evangelist Doug LeMoine’s “Design delightful App Clips,” which took developers and designers through some of the latest changes to App Clips. Doug covered October’s update to the App Store Connect API, exploring the new automated registration and maintenance process for both default and advanced App Clip experiences and the metadata requirements for creating an App Clip card. He also showed attendees how they could create multiple App Clip experiences using the bulk upload functionality.
Doug also covered one of the most common questions we get around App Clips: What do I need to do to make my App Clip invocable from Maps? There are a few steps to follow, including using the Apple Business Registry to create a place association and releasing your App Clip on the App Store. For more details, check out the “Places on Maps“ page on apple.com.
Missed “Design delightful App Clips“? We’ll present this session again live from Cupertino on November 16. We’ll also host this presentation in Japanese live from Tokyo on November 1, in English live from Tel Aviv on November 2, and in English live from Singapore on November 16.
Our Technology Evangelists and engineers came together on Wednesday with attendees from Bangladesh, Belarus, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ukraine, and the United States to explore the Center Stage, Portrait mode, and Mic mode features available in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. During the session, Evangelists Eric Hanson and Charlyn Keating explained how to best incorporate these features into your app, build in direct UI controls, and disable options when not appropriate for your experience.
We also learned a fun fact about AVFoundation during the Q&A, when an attendee asked about the venerable framework’s history. Did you know: AVFoundation premiered in 2008 with iOS 2.2 and came to the Mac in 2011 with OS X Lion! Its origins, however, lie in the QuickTime framework, QTKit, which launched as part of OS X Tiger back in 2005.
We’ll present this session again in Japanese and Mandarin live from Tokyo and Shanghai on November 8 and November 15.
Want to improve your app’s notification experience on iOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8? We’ll help you learn how to craft meaningful moments through interruption levels and Time Sensitive notifications. And we’ll also introduce you to Focus and Focus status, which allows your app to convey someone’s availability to others.
To get the most out of this session, we recommend having some experience with creating local and remote notifications.
This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on November 9, and presented in Japanese live from Tokyo on November 15.
Have thoughts about Tech Talks? We’d love to know what’s on your mind.
SharePlay is now available in iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, giving people the ability to share synchronized experiences right inside their FaceTime calls. You can submit your apps that support SharePlay today.
It’s also enabled in macOS 12.1 beta, so you can now build SharePlay experiences across Apple platforms using the GroupActivities entitlement, without the need for the SharePlay Development Profile.
iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 introduced the Record App Activity feature, allowing people to save a summary of sensor, data, and internet access from apps on their device. This activity can be exported in JSON format by tapping Save App Activity. For an overview of recorded app activity, watch the WWDC21 session “Apple’s privacy pillars in focus”.
In iOS 15.2 beta and iPadOS 15.2 beta, this activity will be presented in a new UI called App Privacy Report. This is a great opportunity to review your app’s sensor, data, and internet usage. To view your app’s activity in the report, install the beta releases, then go to Settings > Privacy > App Privacy Report > Turn On App Privacy Report. Activity will show once you use your app.
Built in collaboration with a team of child-development experts, OK Play’s interactive stories do more than entertain, says the app’s chief scientist, Colleen Russo Johnson: They give kids a space to express what they want and need.
To do so, the inventive app makes children the stars. As they discover pirate treasure and encounter planet-size smoothies, they’ll record their own dialogue, color in scenery, and snap selfies to make each story character as unique as they are.
We spoke with Russo Johnson and founder Travis Chen about the importance of emotional learning, why building a responsive development team is key, and how the app has helped families through difficult times.
*OK Play* puts kids in the middle of the action (sometimes with a giant robot).
How is OK Play different from other education apps for children?
Russo Johnson: Starting with social-emotional learning was very intentional for us. As parents, we saw something missing in the apps our kids use. There’s a lot of ABCs and 123s and not a lot of focus on social-emotional learning. The way OK Play uses interactive technology lets kids place themselves in the stories — not just read about what it feels like to be mad or sad or happy, but actually act it out. They can see themselves making those faces.
What learning curve did you have to overcome to launch the app?
Chen: Well, Colleen wasn’t part of the group back when we first had the idea for OK Play. We all had our superpowers across product and play design, the business side and fundraising, but we didn’t have the skill set on the science of how kids build confidence, empathy, kindness. As soon as we met Colleen, there was no question that she was the superhero we were missing: someone who’d devoted their entire life — academically, professionally, and personally — to child development.
What’s been the most rewarding feedback from OK Play’s audience?
Russo Johnson: In our very early days of beta testing, a mother of two brought us to tears sharing what OK Play did for her children. This pandemic has been hard on all of us, and our stories were helping her daughters understand it’s OK to feel emotions in very real ways. She also shared how their faces light up when they see themselves as the stars of our stories, since, as an African American family, they rarely see characters who look like them onscreen.
What’s a technical achievement that you’re particularly proud of?
Chen: We’ve built our team and technical infrastructure to be able to update the app really quickly. In one story, a character falls down a well, and we got feedback from a parent that their kid was very scared when that happened. We updated the story so the character pops back up out of the hole, and we pushed it live within the day. To be able to respond so quickly and make our stories as inclusive as possible is something I’m really proud of.
Any advice for fellow app developers?
Chen: I think you need two very important things. One is to create ways to listen to and interact with your users, specifically to aid the development of your app. You don’t want it to be totally open-ended, because you could get flooded with feedback that can be hard to make sense of. Then second, you need a team and fundamental technical infrastructure that allows you to quickly adapt. These two go hand in hand. Once you get that user feedback, you need to move quick.
Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology.
Apply now for one of three newly announced online cohorts for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, or female founders starting late January 2022. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on November 28, 2021.
