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WWDC 2023: New FaceTime Features Coming This Fall

FaceTime is getting more attention in iOS 17 than it’s seen in quite a while, with a number of new features announced at yesterday’s WWDC keynote. All of these changes are coming to the iPad and Mac as well, and even tvOS has been shown some love.

tvOS 17 will include a brand-new FaceTime app, which will connect with an iPhone running iOS 17 to use as a camera. All you’ll have to do is place your iPhone in front of the TV, with the camera facing your couch, then sit back and take your FaceTime calls on your TV screen. The iPhone will use Apple’s Center Stage technology to keep the frame centered and focused on you, or expand it if someone else joins you on the couch. This feature also integrates with Apple SharePlay to enable you to watch a movie or TV show simultaneously with those on your FaceTime call.

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Distribute Your App to More Users With Setapp [WWDC Sponsor]

Developers have been clamoring for alternatives for the App Store since the beginning, frustrated by the commissions they pay Apple, shifting app review standards, and the lack of trial versions. The thing is, developers already have another fantastic way to distribute their apps.  It’s Setapp.

Check out Setapp today. Developed by the team at MacPaw and released in 2017, Setapp has been offering Mac, iOS, and web apps to users for one flat subscription price for five years. It’s a fantastic way to sell your apps and a terrific source of predictable monthly income for developers with a monthly commission that’s as low as 10%.

Everybody wins with Setapp. Developers have a simple, efficient way to distribute their apps, and users get hassle-free access to a hand-picked selection of over 240 of the very best apps made for macOS, iOS, and the web, including recent additions like Craft, Curio, VicCap, Replica, and PopClip.

For developers, Setapp makes it easy to get up and running quickly. They take care of payment processing, update mechanism, marketing, and support. When you offer your app through Setapp, you also get the benefit of their machine learning-based personalized app recommendation system, smart search, and curated collections, like Lifestyle, Creativity, Developer Tools, and Writing & Blogging.

With Setapp, developers enjoy 90% of the proceeds of user subscriptions. 70% is paid out based on how many people use a developer’s app, with the other 20% paid out based on which developers brought subscribers to Setapp. Moreover, developers can sell their apps anywhere else they’d like, including the App Store or their own website.

So, visit Setapp today to learn more about how it can expand your audience with customers who are looking for the best new ways to power their projects.

Our thanks to Setapp for sponsoring our WWDC coverage this year.

2023 Apple Design Award Winners Revealed

Two weeks ago, Apple announced the finalists for the 2023 Apple Design Awards: 36 apps and games in six categories: Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation.

Last evening, at an outdoor event on the stage built outside Caffè Macs for yesterday’s WWDC Keynote, the company announced two winners (one app and one game) in each category for a total of twelve 2023 Apple Design Award winners. Following the announcements, developers gathered in Caffè Macs for a reception and had a chance to see the Vision Pro for themselves at the Steve Jobs Theater.

Congratulations to all of this year’s Apple Design Award winners:

Inclusivity

Delight and Fun

Interaction

Social Impact

Visuals and Graphics

Innovation

We’ll have more 2023 Apple Design Award coverage soon, so stay tuned.

You can follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2023 hub or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2023 RSS feed.

WWDC 2023: StandBy for iPhone

This fall, iOS 17 will introduce a brand new viewing mode for iPhone, but it will be quite familiar to most Apple Watch users. StandBy is enabled automatically when you turn your iPhone on its side while it’s charging, and functions nearly identically to Nightstand mode on the Apple Watch.

Nightstand mode has been around since all the way back in watchOS 2 (I covered it in my very first watchOS review in 2015), and exists as a way to view the time in the middle of the night just by bumping your nightstand while an Apple Watch is charging on it. Just like the new StandBy mode, the Apple Watch must be charging on its side, thus placing the screen at an ideal angle to be read from your bed without having to sit up or search for your device in the dark.

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WWDC 2023: A First Look at Messages in iOS 17

iOS 17 is coming this fall, and Apple has once again directed a significant amount of attention to one of the iPhone’s most popular apps: Messages. This year we’re getting another round of minor UI tweaks, most notably shifting the positioning of iMessage apps again: they will now pop up in a new full-screen overlay. The two-page overlay starts with your most frequently used iMessage apps, which is where you’ll find Camera and Photos. Swiping the first page up will reveal any further apps you have installed beyond your top six.

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WWDC 2023: Apple Publishes Keynote Video

Craig's form is even better this year.

Craig’s form is even better this year.

In a packed WWDC keynote, Apple raced through many impressive additions to their hardware and software lineup, including a new 15” MacBook Air, an upgraded Mac Studio, and an all-new Apple Silicon Mac Pro. Significant changes are coming to watchOS 10, and Widgets are getting super-powered across all major platforms. But the star of show came in a rare One More Thing-style announcement: the Apple Vision Pro.

We’ll be posting coverage on all this and more in the coming hours and days, but in the meantime you can see it all for yourself in the keynote video on Apple’s Events site or on YouTube.

Apple is also hosting the keynote presentation in higher quality on Apple Podcasts, where you can choose between video or audio versions.

You can follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2023 hub or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2023 RSS feed.

Last Week, on Club MacStories: Our WWDC Travel Home and Lock Screens and Ben McCarthy’s Development Desk Setup

Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings:

MacStories Weekly: Issue 371

Ben McCarthy's Desk Setup.

Ben McCarthy’s Desk Setup.

MacStories Unwind: Travel Stories and Games

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This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico and I share our preparations for traveling to California for WWDC, I recommend Laya’s Horizon, an iPhone game, and Federico has more thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

John’s Pick:

MacStories Unwind+

We deliver MacStories Unwind+ to Club MacStories subscribers ad-free and early with high bitrate audio every week.

To learn more about the benefits of a Club MacStories subscription, visit our Plans page.

Economist Group Concludes Apple’s App Store Ecosystem Is Responsible for Facilitating $1.1 Trillion in Commerce

Today, Apple released the results of an independent study of the App Store economy by the economists at Analysis Group. According to the report, it was supported by Apple, but the conclusions and opinions expressed in it are those of the Analysis Group alone.

If you’re thinking, ‘Wait, I thought Apple just issued a press release about the app economy,’ you’re mostly right. That was the same group of economists reporting specifically on the success of small app developers, whereas this report extends beyond apps to other transactions facilitated by apps.

What the report shows is that the App Store economy is far larger than just apps. Along with app sales and subscriptions, the Analysis Group looked at the sale of physical goods, services, and advertising through apps downloaded from the App Store. What the results of the study show is that this more broadly-defined market accounted for about $1.1 trillion in sales in 2022, an enormous number by any measure.

The study includes some interesting insights into the App Store and the economy surrounding it:

  • The broader App Store ecosystem grew 29%, but digital goods and services, which is a category that includes more than just App Store sales, only grew 2% in 2022
  • Over 90% of billings connected to the App Store occurred outside of it
  • Ride-sharing and travel sales accounted for a big part of the App Store ecosystem’s growth in 2022
  • Other categories that saw big increases are grocery sales, food delivery and pickup services, and general retail sales

It’s worth considering the broader purpose of this study and the results that Apple has highlighted. The message of the report is that the impact of the App Store extends beyond apps, which is accurate. From that broader perspective the fees paid to Apple as a percentage of overall sales are lower, which is an argument the company will surely make to regulators and in antitrust disputes. Whether that perspective is relevant or persuasive in those contexts remains to be seen.

In any event, the App Store drives a remarkably large engine of commerce, the likes of which are reminiscent of the Internet itself. That’s an enormous accomplishment, of which Apple is understandably proud. However, it’s also important to remember that it’s an engine to which just one company holds the keys.