Category: Apple Developer News

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a critical security protocol used to protect web traffic. It provides confidentiality and integrity of data in transit between clients and servers exchanging information. As part of ongoing efforts to modernize platforms, and to improve security and reliability, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 have been deprecated by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as of March 25, 2021. These versions have been deprecated on Apple platforms as of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15, and support will be removed in future releases.

If your app has enabled App Transport Security (ATS) on all connections, no changes are required. If your app continues to use legacy TLS 1.0 or 1.1, please make plans to transition to TLS 1.2 or later. We recommend supporting TLS 1.3, as it’s faster and more secure. Make sure your web servers support the later versions and remove the following deprecated Security.framework symbols from your app:

September 16, 2021

You can now easily create custom marketing assets — such as banners and images — to promote your apps on social media and more. Simply select your app, choose a template, customize your design, and add preset messages in multiple languages. Your assets will be available instantly in all the right sizes, making sharing easier than ever. You can also continue to use these App Store marketing tools to create short links or embeddable code that lead to your App Store product page and display your app icon, a QR code, or an App Store badge.

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iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, the world’s most advanced mobile operating systems, will soon be available to customers worldwide. Improve your app’s performance by refactoring your code to take advantage of asynchronous functions in Swift. Use SwiftUI to enhance your apps with new features, such as improved list views, better search experiences, and support for control focus areas. Take advantage of new notification APIs, offer Safari Web Extensions, and much more.

Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 Release Candidates, and submit them for review. Starting April 2022, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13 and the iOS 15 SDK.

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Deliver even more powerful and personal apps for Apple Watch with the new capabilities of watchOS 8. With the Always-On Retina Display, your apps are always available at a quick glance. Gather HealthKit data and connect to Bluetooth peripherals in the background, delivering up-to-date information to your complications. AssistiveTouch makes your apps more accessible than ever. And the powerful new SwiftUI Canvas API lets you take advantage of the GPU in Apple Watch for rich programmatic drawing.

Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on devices running watchOS 8 Release Candidate and submit them for review. Starting April 2022, all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13 and the watchOS 8 SDK.

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With the tvOS 15 SDK, you can let people sign in to your app and authorize purchases using Face ID or Touch ID on their iPhone or iPad. A redesigned playback UI provides users with convenient access to relevant controls and information while always focusing on the content. MusicKit makes it easy to integrate Apple Music into your tvOS apps using Swift. And the App Attest API helps validate the integrity of your app before your server provides access to sensitive data.

Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on Apple TV running tvOS 15 Release Candidate, and submit them for review.

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It wasn’t long after Prêt-à-Template founder and CEO Roberta Weiand launched her app in 2014 that it became a darling among fashion designers around the world.

With its library of templates, textures, and patterns, the app lets anyone sketch their dream outfit. Start with the outline of a model (there are dozens of body types to choose from). Add an article of clothing—whether a cropped jacket or an A-line dress. Then let your imagination run wild by using true-to-life brushes, textile patterns, and more to bring the details of your vision to life.

We spoke to Weiand about her inspiration and how users are finding their creativity in the app.

What inspired you to create Prêt-à-Template?
I went to university for fashion design, and after graduation I taught at a university in my hometown. But I always had a problem: I didn’t know how to design on a big scale on the big whiteboards. I started to download many design apps, but I couldn’t find any related to fashion. So I thought, why not create one?

What has the response been like? Many people don’t take fashion courses because they don’t know how to draw, but they tell us that the app makes it much easier to develop an idea. It streamlines the prototyping process as well.

How has the app evolved since launch? We have many body templates. We heard from a student who was passionate about dwarfism and she asked us why we didn’t have those templates in the app. We started to research, and with her help we created them.

What’s next for Prêt-à-Template?
We’re working to make it feel more alive. We also develop Prêt-à-Makeup, and in that app we have a lot of realism in the brushes; if you turn the iPad, you can see the light changing. We’re going to borrow the realism we started in that app for Prêt-à-Template’s textures.

What advice do you have for aspiring developers?
Look for something that has meaning in your life, that solves a problem. Form a good team that believes in the same things as you. Always be open and listen to your users — nothing is more valuable than what they have to contribute.

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Download Prêt-à-Template from the App Store

Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

August 26, 2021

Enrollment is now open for the News Partner Program, designed for subscription news publications that provide their content to Apple News in Apple News Format. Publishers that work with Apple News may qualify for a commission rate of 15% on qualifying in-app purchase subscriptions from day one. The program is available to Apple Developer Program members globally.

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If Loki the sheepdog hadn’t been so smart — or if his owners had a backyard — the dog-training app Puppr might not exist.

Developers Michael Gao and Alice Mongkongllite got their first dog when they were newlyweds living in a Los Angeles apartment. “A good way to keep him engaged was to teach him tricks,” Gao says. “Loki’s supersmart and would pick up things quickly.”

But training Loki to behave in their pet-friendly offices was more challenging. They didn’t want to have to lug around a book or a clicker, explains Gao. “We thought we could solve our own problem by making something with videos, a community, and the ability to track our progress.”

Puppr’s lessons, created with celebrity dog trainer Sara Carson, range from basics to circus tricks. There are community photo challenges (because who doesn’t like to share dog pics?), and subscribers can turn to Carson for answers and advice.

We spoke to Gao and Mongkongllite about the power of cold-calling and taking things one step at a time.

How much experience with apps did you have before Puppr?
Gao: Alice and I met in college at UCLA, where I majored in computer science and she studied design and media arts. We’d published two games when we were traveling around China for a few years after college. We would spend half the day working out of coffee shops and the rest of the day exploring the city.

How did you connect with celebrity dog trainer Sara Carson?
Mongkongllite: When I searched for tags like “dog training” and “dog tricks,” Sara’s videos came up. The things her dogs could do blew my mind. So we DMed her.

Gao: She said, “I’m actually headed up to L.A. this weekend.” Later we found out she was there to audition for America’s Got Talent. The deadline for Puppr’s release ended up being defined by the airdate for her episode.

What was your biggest challenge in building Puppr? Mongkongllite: The photography and the editing took a lot of time. We bought this really cheap green screen, and I ended up having to take the green out of Sara’s hair. And the fur—the fur!

What’s your biggest challenge today? Mongkongllite: Balancing mom life and work life. Time management is difficult.

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to your younger selves?
Gao: Build momentum. One of my early goals was to work on Puppr every single day, even if it was just writing one line of code. Without that, I think we wouldn’t have been able to ship when we did.

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Download Puppr from the App Store

Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

Due to changes in local regulations, the bank account holder’s address is now required if you have bank account information in App Store Connect. Account Holders, Admins, and Finance roles can now provide a valid address in the Agreements, Tax, and Banking section. Please provide this information by October 22, 2021, in order to avoid a potential interruption of your payments.

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Sarah Smith, an avid camper and cofounder of The Dyrt, was frustrated by how hard it was to find details on a campsite before you booked. She wanted to know that, say, site 2 was next to a busy road, while site 7 was along a river.

She wondered why nobody seemed to be solving the problem. Then she had a thought that changed everything: “Why can’t I do it?” she says.

Four years later she launched The Dyrt to help nature lovers find and review campsites all over the country. Last year members planned more than 55 million miles of trips.

We caught up with Smith to chat about transitioning from education to technology, the importance of starting slow, and why it pays to learn on the fly.

Before creating The Dyrt, did you have any tech background? None whatsoever! I was in education. My cofounder and husband has a background in tech and apps, but he didn’t come on board until I had already built something.

Were any of your skills from your career in education transferable? I did have one skill from my 10 years of living abroad and helping students study abroad: adaptability. When I think of every job I’ve done for The Dyrt — from scribbling out wireframes to figuring out a payroll system to creating more strategic partnerships — it’s always about being flexible while keeping the end goal in mind.

How long did it take to bring The Dyrt into the world? We did it pretty slowly at the beginning. I built a rudimentary beta version of the website in WordPress in 2014, and a better beta the next year. In 2015, we started raising money and hiring people. But our first app didn’t come out until March 2017. It took years for something I thought would take not that long.

What was the trickiest part? It’s not hard to create a directory of campgrounds, but it is hard to create a platform that people want to contribute to. We did it by incentivizing people through contests: We choose the top reviewer from each region and work with brands to give prizes. But getting brands involved was challenging at first; we started talking to them before we had a website launched, so they had to believe in the dream.

What advice would you give to other aspiring developers? Start small and iterate. I can’t say I knew that when I started — I couldn’t afford to do it any other way at the time. But I did have a hunch that I shouldn’t put my life savings into this until I had an idea that other people wanted this problem solved too.

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Download The Dyrt from the App Store

Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program