You can now create subscription offer codes to acquire, retain, and win back subscribers. Offer codes are unique, alphanumeric codes that provide auto-renewable subscriptions at a discounted price or for free for a specific duration. Provide your one-time use codes digitally or offline at physical events, alongside products, and more. Users on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and later can redeem offer codes on the App Store through a one-time code redemption URL, or within your app if you’ve implemented the presentCodeRedemptionSheet API. Sales and Trends reports will be updated later this year to include information on the performance of your subscription offer codes.
Category: Apple Developer News
Apple Developer News and Updates feed provided by Apple, Inc.
New features available in Transporter 1.2
November 16, 2020
You can now use Transporter for Mac to upload metadata, view a history of delivered builds for each app version, and filter that history by time period. This latest version also includes support for 29 additional languages.
iPhone and iPad apps are coming to Mac
November 11, 2020
As announced at WWDC20, we’re excited to bring iPhone and iPad apps to the Mac App Store on Apple silicon Macs — so your apps can reach even more users worldwide. By default, your apps will be published automatically on the Mac App Store. To make sure that Mac users have a great experience, confirm that your apps work well on this platform and don’t rely on iPhone or iPad features not available on Mac. If needed, update their availability on Mac in App Store Connect.
Submit your Mac apps to the Mac App Store
November 10, 2020
Submit your apps built for macOS Big Sur today. You can submit Universal apps built with Xcode 12.2 that take full advantage of Apple silicon Macs. Your apps will look better than ever on macOS Big Sur, thanks to an all-new interface that’s been finely tuned for the powerful features that make a Mac a Mac. New widget features and the new widget gallery can make your app visible at a glance. And much more. Build your apps with Xcode 12.2 Release Candidate, update your product pages, and submit your apps for review today.
Custom apps for Mac now supported
Custom apps let you meet the unique needs of organizations and schools. And now, you can distribute custom Mac apps. Provide a tailored look and feel, security features for sensitive data, special functionality for workflows, and much more, then distribute privately on Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager.
App privacy questions available in App Store Connect
Later this year, the App Store will help users understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. You can now enter your app’s privacy information in App Store Connect. This information will be required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store starting December 8, 2020.
Learn more about the details you’ll need to provide
Learn how to provide app privacy information in App Store Connect
New subscription server notifications available in production
App Store server notifications provide real-time updates on a subscriber’s status, so you can create customized user experiences. The following new notifications are now available in production:
DID_RENEWlets you know when a subscriber successfully auto-renews.PRICE_INCREASE_CONSENTlets you know when the App Store starts asking users to agree to your subscription’s new price, so you can remind them of your service’s value as encouragement to stay subscribed.
In addition, the following will be deprecated in production in March 2021: RENEWAL notifications and these top-level objects: latest_receipt, latest_receipt_info, latest_expired_receipt, and latest_expired_receipt_info. Update your code to continue providing a seamless user experience.
Use SF Symbols to enhance your interface design
Symbols are visual guides that help us navigate experiences without words. Whether people are viewing an image on a road sign or an icon within your app, people count on familiar, easy-to-understand symbols to provide contextual information and help them find their way.
SF Symbols provides designers and developers with consistent and customizable symbols that seamlessly integrate with the system font, San Francisco. These symbols are a great resource whether you’re a veteran designer or working primarily in Xcode. The library removes the need to reimagine, resize, and reinvent graphic assets, providing a flexible range of weights and scales and automatic vertical alignment when adapting interfaces to different screen sizes.
Find the right symbol
With more than 2,400 symbols — each available in nine weights and three scales — SF Symbols offers a large variety of options to suit your needs. You can easily browse or quickly search for and copy any of the vector-based icons from the SF Symbols app and paste them inside popular apps like Sketch, Adobe XD, or Figma, where they automatically align with text.
Symbols come in a variety of colors, outlines and filled variants.
Use the SF Symbols app to browse and preview selections before placing them in your project. Many symbols exist in both outline and filled variants which can be used in different contexts. Outlined symbols feature similar characteristics to text, whereas filled symbols provide additional contrast and emphasis.
Tip: When it comes to symbol styles, less is more. Try to stick with a single style to help unify your design within a particular component or context.
Symbols bring a cohesive, familiar look to each part of your interface. As you select and incorporate them, it’s worth considering context — how they appear when next to text and harmonize with the other words and images on the screen.
Aim for symbols that achieve immediate recognition; go for design clarity over creativity. What message do you want that symbol to convey? Would someone new to your app be familiar with it? If not, is there a different symbol that is more in tune with what someone might expect from this icon?
Design custom symbols
If you need to create a custom symbol for your app, the SF Symbols app can help you get started. Search for a symbol that’s similar to what you want to represent, then export it as customizable, vector-based template.
Using a vector editing tool like Illustrator or Sketch, make the changes you need while maintaining a consistent scale and weight to the symbol you’re modifying. Strive to create a symbol that is simple, recognizable, and clearly relates to the action or content it represents. Be mindful of how the SVG layer tree is named and organized; custom symbols must match the structure of the original file.
Creating Custom Symbol Images for Your App
Design with SF Symbols
Working solo or in collaboration, designers and developers will appreciate the simplicity and adaptability of SF Symbols. You can use SF Symbols in apps running in iOS 13 and later, watchOS 6 and later, and tvOS 13 and later, and you’ll be able to use SF Symbols on macOS Big Sur this fall.
Resources
Introducing SF Symbols
SF Symbols introduces a comprehensive library of vector-based symbols that you can incorporate into your app to simplify the layout of user interface elements through automatic alignment with surrounding text, and support for multiple weights and sizes. Learn how easy it is to adapt to different…
SF Symbols 2
SF Symbols make it easy to adopt high-quality, Apple-designed symbols created to look great with San Francisco, the system font for all Apple platforms. Discover how you can use SF Symbols in AppKit, UIKit, and SwiftUI. Learn how to work with SF Symbols in common design tools and how to use them in…
Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications open for Black founders and developers
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. Applications are now open for the first cohort for Black founders and developers, which runs online from February 16 to 25, 2021. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on November 20, 2020.
Offer your apps for pre-order even earlier
October 15, 2020
Now you can let customers pre-order your app up to 180 days before it’s released for download on the App Store. Take advantage of this longer lead time to build more excitement for your app’s features, services, and content, and to encourage more pre-orders. Once your app is released, customers will be notified and it will automatically download to their device within 24 hours.