Apple Developer News and Updates feed provided by Apple, Inc.
January 9, 2020
Create an intuitive and engaging onboarding experience that makes a great first impression and helps keep players coming back. Onboarding teaches basic gameplay, how to purchase items, the benefits of returning, and more. A successful experience is fast, fun, and helpful so players can learn the essentials and jump right in.
If your app still embeds web content using the deprecated UIWebView API, we strongly encourage you to update to WKWebView as soon as possible for improved security and reliability. WKWebView ensures that compromised web content doesn’t affect the rest of an app by limiting web processing to the app’s web view. And it’s supported in iOS and macOS, and by Mac Catalyst.
The App Store will no longer accept new apps using UIWebView as of April 2020 and app updates using UIWebView as of December 2020.
In June, we announced that all Mac software distributed outside the Mac App Store must be notarized by Apple in order to run by default on macOS Catalina. In September, we temporarily adjusted the notarization prerequisites to make this transition easier and to protect users on macOS Catalina who continue to use older versions of software. Starting February 3, 2020, all submitted software must meet the original notarization prerequisites.
If you haven’t yet done so, upload your software to the notary service and review the developer log for warnings. These warnings will become errors starting February 3 and must be fixed in order to have your software notarized. Software notarized before February 3 will continue to run by default on macOS Catalina.
As a reminder, all installer packages must be signed since they may contain executable code. Disk images do not need to be signed, although signing them can help your users verify their contents.
As part of Apple’s commitment to security, we reward researchers who share critical issues with us through the Apple Security Bounty. You can now earn up to $1,500,000 and report issues on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and iCloud. In addition, Apple offers public recognition for those who submit valid reports and will match donations of the bounty payment to qualifying charities.
Apple is taking a major step in its approach to the smart home by joining a new industry effort with Amazon, Google, Zigbee Alliance, and others. The initiative aims to develop an open standard that will increase the compatibility of smart home products across multiple platforms, with security and privacy as fundamental design tenets. The new standard will make it even simpler for developers to build one device that is compatible with smart home services and voice assistants, while ensuring consumers can easily choose smart home products that seamlessly work together.
December 17, 2019
Now it’s simpler than ever for developers based in China mainland to enroll in the Apple Developer Program. The Apple Developer app now supports enrollment in China mainland, allowing developers to start and finish their membership purchase with local payment methods on iPhone or iPad. And since membership is provided as an auto-renewable subscription, keeping your account active is easy.
With iOS, users can browse in-app purchases directly on the App Store and start a purchase even before downloading your app. Promoted in-app purchases appear on your product page, can display in search results, and may be featured on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs.
Learn how to effectively increase discoverability for content previously only found inside your app.
December 10, 2019
Offer customers extra content and features using in-app purchases — including premium content, digital goods, and subscriptions — directly within your app. You can even promote and offer in-app purchases directly on the App Store.
December 6, 2019
Live events encourage player engagement by offering new ways of interacting with your game and receiving rewards. Learn how to plan, present, and promote live events in your game to help grow your business.
Adding Live Events to Your Game
December 2, 2019
Every year, the App Store’s Best Of celebration honors a select group of innovative, beautifully designed, culturally interesting apps and games with exceptional production quality. Congratulations to the 2019 winning developers!
