In this edition: Dive deep into the big announcements from WWDC24, check out the first installment of the 2024 Behind the Design series, and more.
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Hello Developer: July 2024
Category: Apple Developer News
Apple Developer News and Updates feed provided by Apple, Inc.
Behind the Design: How Gentler Streak approaches fitness with “humanity“
Gentler Streak is a different kind of fitness tracker. In fact, to hear cofounder and CEO Katarina Lotrič tell it, it’s not really a fitness tracker at all.
“We think of it more as a lifestyle app,” says Lotrič, from the team’s home office in Kranj, Slovenia. “We want it to feel like a compass, a reminder to get moving, no matter what that means for you,” she says.
ADA FACT SHEET
The app’s “Go Gentler” page suggests optimal workouts for a user’s day.
Gentler Streak
- Winner: Social Impact
- Team: Gentler Stories d.o.o., Slovenia
- Available on: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
- Team size: 8
- Previous accolades: Apple Watch App of the Year (2022), Apple Design Award finalist (Visuals and graphics, 2023)
Download Gentler Streak from the App Store
Learn more about Gentler Streak
Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners
That last part is key. True to its name, the Apple Design Award-winning Gentler Streak takes a friendlier approach to fitness. Instead of focusing on performance — on the bigger, faster, and stronger — Gentler Streak meets people where they are, presenting workout suggestions, statistics, and encouragement for all skill levels.
“A lot of mainstream fitness apps can seem to be about pushing all the time,” Lotrič says. “But for a lot of people, that isn’t the reality. Everyone has different demands and capabilities on different days. We thought, ‘Can we create a tool to help anyone know where they’re at on any given day, and guide them to a sustainably active lifestyle?’”
If a 15-minute walk is what your body can do at that moment, that’s great.
Katarina Lotrič, CEO and cofounder of Gentler Stories
To reach those goals, Lotrič and her Gentler Stories cofounders — UI/UX designer Andrej Mihelič, senior developer Luka Orešnik, and CTO and iOS developer Jasna Krmelj — created an app powered by an optimistic and encouraging vibe that considers physical fitness and mental well-being equally.
Fitness and workout data (collected from HealthKit) is presented in a colorful, approachable design. The app’s core functions are available for free; a subscription unlocks premium features. And an abstract mascot named Yorhart (sound it out) adds to the light touch. “Yorhart helps you establish a relationship with the app and with yourself, because it’s what your heart would be telling you,” Lotrič says.
Good news from Yorhart: This user’s needs and capabilities are being met perfectly.
It’s working: In addition to the 2024 Apple Design Award for Social Impact, Gentler Streak was named 2022 Apple Watch App of the Year. What’s more, it has an award-winning ancestor: Lotrič and Orešnik won an Apple Design Award in 2017 for Lake: Coloring Book for Adults.
The trio used the success of Lake to learn more about navigating the industry. But something else was happening during that time: The team, all athletes, began revisiting their own relationships with fitness. Lotrič suffered an injury that kept her from running for months and affected her mental health; she writes about her experiences in Gentler Streak’s editorial section. Mihelič had a different issue. “My problem wasn’t that I lacked motivation,” he says. “It was that I worked out too much. I needed something that let me know when it was enough.”
Statistics are just numbers. Without knowing how to interpret them, they are meaningless.
Katarina Lotrič, CEO and cofounder of Gentler Stories
As a way to reset, Mihelič put together an internal app, a simple utility that encouraged him to move but also allowed time for recuperation. “It wasn’t very gentle,” he laughs. “But the core idea was more or less the same. It guided but it didn’t push. And it wasn’t based on numbers; it was more explanatory.”
Over time, the group began using Mihelič’s app. “We saw right away that it was sticky,” says Lotrič. “I came back to it daily, and it was just this basic prototype. After a while, we realized, ‘Well, this works and is built, to an extent. Why don’t we see if there’s anything here?’”
Gentler Streak pulls workout information from HealthKit and presents it in simple, easy-to-understand charts.
That’s when Lotrič, Orešnik, and Krmelj split from Lake to create Gentler Stories with Mihelič. “I wanted in because I loved the idea behind the whole company,” Krmelj says. “It wasn’t just about the app. I really like the app. But I really believed in this idea about mental well-being.”
Early users believed it too: The team found that initial TestFlight audience members returned at a stronger rate than expected. “Our open and return rates were high enough that we kept thinking, “Are these numbers even real?’” laughs Lotrič. The team found that those early users responded strongly to the “gentler” side, the approachable repositioning of statistics.
“We weren’t primarily addressing the audience that most fitness apps seemed to target,” says Lotrič. “We focused on everyone else, the people who maybe didn’t feel like they belonged in a gym. Statistics are just numbers. Without knowing how to interpret them, they are meaningless. We wanted to change that and focus on the humanity.” By fall of 2021, Gentler Streak was ready for prime time.
Gentler Streak on Apple Watch brings encouragement closer than ever before.
Today’s version of the app follows the same strategy of Mihelič’s original prototype. Built largely in UIKit, its health data is smartly organized, the design is friendly and consistent, and features like its Monthly Summary view — which shows how you’re doing in relation to your history — focus less on comparison and more on progress, whatever that may mean. “If a 15-minute walk is what your body can do at that moment, that’s great,” Lotrič says. “That how we make people feel represented.”
The app’s social impact continues to grow. In the spring of 2024, Gentler Streak added support for Japanese, Korean, and traditional and simplified Chinese languages; previous updates added support for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.
And those crucial features — fitness tracking, workout suggestions, metrics, and activity recaps — will remain available to everyone. “That goes with the Gentler Stories philosophy,” says Lotrič. “We’re bootstrapped, but at the same time we know that not everyone is in a position to support us. We still want to be a tool that helps people stay healthy not just for the first two weeks of the year or the summer, but all year long.”
Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners
Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
Changes for apps in the EU now available in iPadOS 18 beta 2
The changes for apps in the European Union (EU), currently available to iOS users in the 27 EU member countries, can now be tested in iPadOS 18 beta 2 with Xcode 16 beta 2.
Also, the Web Browser Engine Entitlement Addendum for Apps in the EU and Embedded Browser Engine Entitlement Addendum for Apps in the EU now include iPadOS. If you’ve already entered into either of these addendums, be sure to sign the updated terms.
Learn more about the recent changes:
The App Store on Apple Vision Pro expands to new markets
Apple Vision Pro will launch in China mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore on June 28 and in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on July 12. Your apps and games will be automatically available on the App Store in regions you’ve selected in App Store Connect.
If you’d like, you can:
You can also learn how to build native apps to fully take advantage of exciting visionOS features.
Upcoming regional age ratings in Australia and South Korea
Apple is committed to making sure that the App Store is a safe place for everyone — especially kids. Within the next few months, you’ll need to indicate in App Store Connect if your app includes loot boxes available for purchase. In addition, a regional age rating based on local laws will automatically appear on the product page of the apps listed below on the App Store in Australia and South Korea. No other action is needed. Regional age ratings appear in addition to Apple global age ratings.
Australia
A regional age rating is shown if Games is selected as the primary or secondary category in App Store Connect.
- 15+ regional age rating: Games with loot boxes available for purchase.
- 18+ regional age rating: Games with Frequent/Intense instances of Simulated Gambling indicated in App Store Connect.
South Korea
A regional age rating is shown if either Games or Entertainment is selected as the primary or secondary category in App Store Connect, or if the app has Frequent/Intense instances of Simulated Gambling in any category.
- KR-All regional age rating: Apps and games with an Apple global age rating of 4+ or 9+.
- KR-12 regional age rating: Apps and games with an Apple global age rating of 12+. Certain apps and games in this group may receive a KR-15 regional age rating from the South Korean Games Ratings and Administration Committee (GRAC). If this happens, App Review will reach out to impacted developers.
- Certain apps and games may receive a KR-19 regional age rating from the GRAC. Instead of a pictogram, text will indicate this rating.
WWDC24 resources and survey
Thank you to everyone who joined us for an amazing week. We hope you found value, connection, and fun. You can continue to:
We’d love to know what you thought of this year’s conference. If you’d like to tell us about your experience, please complete the WWDC24 survey.
“Small but mighty”: How Plex serves its global community
The team behind Plex has a brilliant strategy for dealing with bugs and addressing potential issues: Find them first.
“We’ve got a pretty good process in place,” says Steve Barnegren, Plex senior software engineer on Apple platforms, “and when that’s the case, things don’t go wrong.”
Launched in 2009, Plex is designed to serve as a “global community for streaming content,” says engineering manager Alex Stevenson-Price, who’s been with Plex for more than seven years. A combination streaming service and media server, Plex aims to cover the full range of the streaming experience — everything from discovery to content management to organizing watchlists.
This allows us more time to investigate the right solutions.
Ami Bakhai, Plex product manager for platforms and partners
To make it all run smoothly, the Plex team operates on a six-week sprint, offering regular opportunities to think in blocks, define stop points in their workflow, and assess what’s next. “I’ve noticed that it provides more momentum when it comes to finalizing features or moving something forward,” says Ami Bakhai, product manager for platforms and partners. “Every team has their own commitments. This allows us more time to investigate the right solutions.”
The Plex team iterates, distributes, and releases quickly — so testing features and catching issues can be a tall order. (Plex releases regular updates during their sprints for its tvOS flagship, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS apps.)
Though Plex boasts a massive reach across all the platforms, it’s not powered by a massive number of people. The fully remote team relies on a well-honed mix of developer tools (like Xcode Cloud and TestFlight), clever internal organization, Slack integration, and a thriving community of loyal beta testers that stretches back more than a decade. “We’re relatively small,” says Danni Hemberger, Plex director of product marketing, “but we’re mighty.”
Over the summer, the Plex team made a major change to their QA process: Rather than bringing in their QA teams right before the release, they shifted QA to a continuous process that unfolds over every pull request. “The QA team would find something right at the end, which is when they’d start trying to break everything,” laughs Barnegren. “Now we can say, ‘OK, ten features have gone in, and all of them have had QA eyes on them, so we’re ready to press the button.’”
Now we can say, ‘OK, ten features have gone in, and all of them have had QA eyes on them, so we’re ready to press the button.’
Steve Barnegren, Plex senior software engineer on Apple platforms
The continuous QA process is a convenient mirror to the continuous delivery process. Previously, Plex tested before a new build was released to the public. Now, through Xcode Cloud, Plex sends nightly builds to all their employees, ensuring that everyone has access to the latest version of the app.
Once the release has been hammered out internally, it moves on to Plex’s beta testing community, which might be more accurately described as a beta testing city. It numbers about 8,000 people, some of whom date back to Plex’s earliest days. “That constant feedback loop is super valuable, especially when you have power users that understand your core product,” says Stevenson-Price.
All this feedback and communication is powered by TestFlight and Plex’s customer forums. “This is especially key because we have users supplying personal media for parts of the application, and that can be in all kinds of rare or esoteric formats,” says Barnegren.
(CI) is a safety net. Whenever you push code, your app is being tested and built in a consistent way. That’s so valuable, especially for a multi-platform app like ours.
Alex Stevenson-Price, Plex engineering manager
To top it all off, this entire process is automated with every new feature and every new bug fix. Without any extra work or manual delivery, the Plex team can jump right on the latest version — an especially handy feature for a company that’s dispersed all over the globe. “It’s a great reminder of ‘Hey, this is what’s going out,’ and allows my marketing team to stay in the loop,” says Hemberger.
It’s also a great use of a continuous integration system (CI). “I’m biased from my time spent as an indie dev, but I think all indie devs should try a CI like Xcode Cloud,” says Stevenson-Price. “I think some indies don’t always see the benefit on paper, and they’ll say, ‘Well, I build the app myself, so why do I need a CI to build it for me?’ But it’s a safety net. Whenever you push code, your app is being tested and built in a consistent way. That’s so valuable, especially for a multi-platform app like ours. And there are so many tools at your disposal. Once you get used to that, you can’t go back.”
The gorgeous gadgets of Automatoys
Steffan Glynn’s Automatoys is a mix between a Rube Goldberg machine and a boardwalk arcade game — and there’s a very good reason why.
In 2018, the Cardiff-based developer visited the Musée Mécanique, a vintage San Francisco arcade packed with old-timey games, pinball machines, fortune tellers, and assorted gizmos. On that same trip, he stopped by an exhibit of Rube Goldberg sketches that showcased page after page of wildly intricate machines. “It was all about the delight of the pointless and captivating,” Glynn says. “There was a lot of crazy inspiration on that trip.”
That inspiration turned into Automatoys, an Apple Design Award finalist for Interaction in games. Automatoys is a single-touch puzzler in which players roll their marble from point A to point B by navigating a maze of ramps, elevators, catapults, switches, and more. True to its roots, the game is incredibly tactile; every switch and button feels lifelike, and players even insert a virtual coin to launch each level. And it unfolds to a relaxing and jazzy lo-fi soundtrack. “My brief to the sound designer was, ‘Please make this game less annoying,’” Glynn laughs.
While Automatoys’ machines may be intricate, its controls are anything but. Every button, claw, and catapult is controlled by a single tap. “And it doesn’t matter where you tap — the whole machine moves at once,” Glynn says. The mechanic doesn’t just make the game remarkably simple to learn; it also creates a sense of discovery. “I like that moment when the player is left thinking, ‘OK, well, I guess I’ll just start tapping and find out what happens.’”
To design each of the game’s 12 levels, Glynn first sketched his convoluted contraptions in Procreate. The ideas came fast and furious, but he found that building what he’d envisioned in his sketches proved elusive — so he changed his strategy. “I started playing with shapes directly in 3D space,” he says. “Once a level had a satisfying form, I’d then try to imagine what sort of obstacle each part could be. One cylinder would become a ferris wheel, another would become a spinning helix for the ball to climb, a square panel would become a maze, and so on.”
The game was a four-year passion project for Glynn, a seasoned designer who in 2018 left his gig with State of Play (where he contributed to such titles as Lumino City and Apple Design Award winner INKS.) to focus on creating “short, bespoke” games. There was just one catch: Though he had years of design experience, he’d never written a single line of code. To get up to speed, he threw himself into video tutorials and hands-on practice.
In short order, Glynn was creating Unity prototypes of what would become Automatoys. “As a designer, being able to prototype and test ideas is incredibly liberating. When you have those tools, you can quickly try things out and see for yourself what works.”
Download Automatoys from the App Store
Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the winners and finalists of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
Meet with Apple Experts
Join us around the world for a variety of sessions, consultations, labs, and more — tailored for you.
Apple developer activities are for everyone, no matter where you are on your development journey. Activities take place all year long, both online and in person around the world. Whether you’re looking to enhance your existing app or game, refine your design, or launch a new project, there’s something for you.
Pre-orders by region now available
Offering your app or game for pre-order is a great way to build awareness and excitement for your upcoming releases on the App Store. And now you can offer pre-orders on a regional basis. People can pre-order your app in a set of regions that you choose, even while it’s available for download in other regions at the same time. With this new flexibility, you can expand your app to new regions by offering it for pre-order and set different release dates for each region.