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.
WWDC24 highlights
June 14, 2024
Browse the biggest moments from an incredible week of sessions.
Machine Learning & AI
Explore machine learning on Apple platforms
Bring expression to your app with Genmoji
Get started with Writing Tools
Bring your app to Siri
Design App Intents for system experiences
Swift
What’s new in Swift
Meet Swift Testing
Migrate your app to Swift 6
Go small with Embedded Swift
SwiftUI & UI Frameworks
What’s new in SwiftUI
SwiftUI essentials
Enhance your UI animations and transitions
Evolve your document launch experience
Squeeze the most out of Apple Pencil
Developer Tools
What’s new in Xcode 16
Extend your Xcode Cloud workflows
Spatial Computing
Design great visionOS apps
Design interactive experiences for visionOS
Explore game input in visionOS
Bring your iOS or iPadOS game to visionOS
Create custom hover effects in visionOS
Work with windows in SwiftUI
Dive deep into volumes and immersive spaces
Customize spatial Persona templates in SharePlay
Design
Design great visionOS apps
Design interactive experiences for visionOS
Design App Intents for system experiences
Design Live Activities for Apple Watch
Say hello to the next generation of CarPlay design system
Add personality to your app through UX writing
Graphics & Games
Port advanced games to Apple platforms
Design advanced games for Apple platforms
Bring your iOS or iPadOS game to visionOS
Meet TabletopKit for visionOS
App Store Distribution and Marketing
What’s new in StoreKit and In-App Purchase
What’s new in App Store Connect
Implement App Store Offers
Privacy & Security
Streamline sign-in with passkey upgrades and credential managers
What’s new in privacy
App and System Services
Meet the Contact Access Button
Use CloudKit Console to monitor and optimize database activity
Extend your app’s controls across the system
Safari & Web
Optimize for the spatial web
Build immersive web experiences with WebXR
Accessibility & Inclusion
Catch up on accessibility in SwiftUI
Get started with Dynamic Type
Build multilingual-ready apps
Photos & Camera
Build a great Lock Screen camera capture experience
Build compelling spatial photo and video experiences
Keep colors consistent across captures
Use HDR for dynamic image experiences in your app
Audio & Video
Enhance the immersion of media viewing in custom environments
Explore multiview video playback in visionOS
Build compelling spatial photo and video experiences
Business & Education
Introducing enterprise APIs for visionOS
What’s new in device management
Health & Fitness
Explore wellbeing APIs in HealthKit
Build custom swimming workouts with WorkoutKit
Get started with HealthKit in visionOS
Today @ WWDC24: Day 5
Revisit the biggest moments from WWDC24
Explore the highlights.
WWDC24 highlights
Catch WWDC24 recaps around the world
Join us for special in-person activities at Apple locations worldwide this summer.
Explore apps and games from the Keynote
Check out all the incredible featured titles.
How’d we do?
We’d love to know your thoughts about this year’s conference.
Today’s WWDC24 playlist: Power Up
Get ready for one last day.
And that’s a wrap!
Thanks for being part of another incredible WWDC. It’s been a fantastic week of celebrating, connecting, and exploring, and we appreciate the opportunity to share it all with you.
Today @ WWDC24: Day 4
Plan for platforms
Find out what’s new across Apple platforms.
Design great visionOS apps
Bring your iOS or iPadOS game to visionOS
Design App Intents for system experiences
Explore all platforms sessions
Guides
Sessions, labs, documentation, and sample code — all in one place.
WWDC24 iOS & iPadOS guide
WWDC24 Games guide
WWDC24 visionOS guide
WWDC24 watchOS guide
Today’s WWDC24 playlist: Coffee Shop
Comfy acoustic sounds for quieter moments.
One more to go
What a week! But we’re not done yet — we’ll be back tomorrow for a big Friday. #WWDC24
Today @ WWDC24: Day 3
All Swift, all day
Explore new Swift and SwiftUI sessions.
What’s new in Swift
What’s new in SwiftUI
Meet Swift Testing
Explore all Swift sessions
Guides
Sessions, labs, documentation, and sample code — all in one place.
WWDC24 Swift guide
WWDC24 Developer Tools guide
WWDC24 SwiftUI & UI Frameworks guide
Go further with Swift
Connect with Apple experts and the worldwide developer community.
- Request a consultation in the WWDC labs.
- Explore the Apple Developer Forums.
- Connect with developers all over the world.
Today’s WWDC24 playlist: A jazz thing
Cutting-edge sounds from the global frontiers of jazz.
More to come
Thanks for being a part of #WWDC24. We’ll be back tomorrow with even more.