Today, Apple announced the official release date of macOS Sierra will be Tuesday, September 20th.
As detailed at WWDC in June, macOS Sierra features Siri integration with search results that can be pinned in Notification Center for easy access, the addition of Memories, intelligent search, and Places and People albums to Photos, Apple Pay in Safari, Apple Watch unlocking of your Mac, a universal clipboard that works across macOS and iOS, syncing of your Desktop and Documents folders via iCloud Drive, picture-in-picture video, among other things.
Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of macOS Sierra yet, but it should be released to developers soon. The GM seed gives developers a chance to prepare their apps for, and submit them to, the Mac App Store before the public launch of macOS.
As widely expected, Apple confirmed the official release date of iOS 10 at a media event held today at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. iOS 10 will be released on Tuesday, September 13th.
Announced at WWDC in June, iOS 10 includes new and updated built-in apps with a major focus on the iPhone. With iOS 10, Apple has rethought widgets and notifications, created an entire new app ecosystem within Messages, which also supports stickers and other fun touches, redesigned the Music app, added a new Home app, let third-party developers into Apple apps like Maps, Messages, and Siri for the first time, added Memories and other enhancements to Photos, and made a myriad of other changes big and small.
Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of iOS 10 yet, but it will presumably be released to developers later today. Typically the last developer release before a public launch, the GM seed will allow developers to make final preparations to submit their iOS 10 apps to the App Store.
Apple confirmed the official release date of watchOS 3 at a media event held today at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. watchOS 3 will be released on Tuesday, September 13th.
Announced at WWDC in June, watchOS 3 features a new dock for faster launching of your favorite apps, new watch faces, fitness sharing and competition, a new Breathe app to help manage stress, HomeKit integration, stickers and some of the other features found in Messages for iOS, the ability to unlock your Mac, and more.
Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of watchOS 3 yet, but it will presumably be released to developers later today. Usually the last developer release before a public launch, the GM seed will allow developers to make finalize their watchOS 3 apps and submit them to the App Store.
This week Fraser and Federico take a look at a leisure activity on iOS: watching video.
On the latest episode of Canvas, Fraser and I covered the best options for watching video on iOS. Whether you want to watch movies, TV shows, online video, or something else, there are plenty of options on iOS. You can listen here.
Sponsored by:
Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer CANVAS for 20% off.
Information is coming from everywhere: email, files, chat, the 30+ cloud-based apps we use every day — it’s getting harder to keep things simple. Igloo is a modern intranet that makes sense of the modern world.
Stay connected with people by using newsfeeds and integrated chat apps; get the information you need with (easy to navigate and secure) file storage and apps you already use like Zendesk and Salesforce; and keep work moving with instant notifications and document controls.
The modern workplace is anywhere with an internet-connected device — and a modern intranet like Igloo works wherever you do.
It’s been a busy year for Italian indie studio Bloop. Airmail for OS X has been around for a while, but Airmail for iOS was introduced just seven months ago as an iPhone-only app. A couple months later, Bloop brought Airmail to the iPad with extensive keyboard support and great new features like smart folders and saved searches, which was enough for Federico to switch to Airmail full time. Today, Bloop released version 1.2 of Airmail for iOS, which picks up where version 1.1 left off with some great new functionality.
One of my favorite features of Airmail is its integration with other apps and services. Airmail makes it simple to get information out of my email and into the apps where I need it whether that’s sending an attachment to Dropbox or the text of an email to 2Do. Version 1.2 adds additional integrations including the ability to send attachments to iCloud Drive and emails to Day One or Ulysses. Bloop’s expansion of integrations into even more apps and services is smart and should make the app appeal to an even wider audience.
Notifications have also gained new functionality. You can now turn on ‘Do Not Disturb’ on an account-by-account basis, which should be a great help to people who manage multiple email accounts. Notifications can also be tied to a location. I can imagine this coming in handy if you’re on vacation and don’t want to get notifications until you get home. Email senders can be muted, which eliminates notifications from those senders. Blocking senders is similar, but in addition to muting the sender it automatically archives the email you receive.
In addition to the foregoing, Airmail 1.2 adds:
Undo send, a feature that already existed in Airmail for OS X and that can be set to delay the sending of an email 5 or 10 seconds to allow you to prevent its sending;
Email Label sync when your iOS device is connected to a power source;
An Apple Watch complication that launches Airmail’s Watch app from certain Apple Watch faces;
Dynamic Type support;
Preview support for EML and Win.dat email file formats; and
MDM server support to configure and manage Airmail for teams.
Bloop has covered a lot of ground since the beginning of 2016. After having seen so many free email alternatives come and go, it’s reassuring to see Bloop continue to innovate and refine Airmail on iOS and the Mac and charge a fair price for an excellent app.
David Smith is an independent developer who launched his first iOS app in 2008. He’s seen a lot of change in the App Store since then, which he chronicles in an insightful post on his blog. Smith examines the revenue his apps have generated since 2012 and the pattern is unmistakable. Around 2013, the majority of his revenue flipped from being primarily from paid sales to advertising.
Looking back, Smith concludes that:
…the change is mostly been in the App Store market, rather than in my own attitudes. In many cases adding advertising to my apps has been something I’ve fought and resisted as long as possible. But in the end the pragmatic answer has been to not swim upstream and instead follow where my customers have moved to.
The market has been pulling me along towards advertising based apps, and I’ve found that the less I fight back with anachronistic ideas about how software “should” be sold, the more sustainable a business I have.
Smith readily acknowledges his experience is just one data point in a large App Store. If you’ve followed the fortunes of independent app developers over this period though, his conclusion rings true.
Be sure to visit Smith’s website to see the charts breaking down the components of his apps’ revenue. The short-term impact of app launches on overall revenue is an interesting footnote to the post’s main focus.
Some games are as much about art and the experience they create as they are about gameplay. Monument Valley comes to mind for instance. Gemini – A Journey of Two Stars is a beautiful new game from Echostone Games that falls into the same category and succeeds by being simultaneously stunning and engrossing.
As you start Gemini, two stars have fallen from the sky. You play as the larger star. There are no instructions or tutorials, just subtle visual hints about what you are supposed to do. Tapping the left and right sides of the screen guides your star in those directions.
As you approach the smaller star, the two interact and begin to rise. Get too far away from the smaller star and both start to fall from the sky. This makes for an interesting tension as you try to stay close to the smaller star, which can have a mind of its own, while also completing the game’s tasks.
As you rise through a gorgeous abstract landscape, the sky darkens. If it gets too dark, your stars will fall. To avoid that you need to light beacons by steering your star over them. Lighting up the sky has the added advantage of revealing more of your surroundings. The stunning artwork of Gemini is paired with an equally impressive and soothing soundtrack that sets the tone for the game.
As you lose yourself in Gemini, the game is more about the interaction of the stars than anything else. The dance between the stars and making sure you bring the little star along become the focus. This is a very different game, but the feeling of a connection with the small star that Gemini created as I played reminded me a lot of playing Journey last Summer on my PS4.
Gemini is relatively short. The six stages of the game should take most people no more than 1-2 hours to complete. If you evaluate games by the numbers of levels per dollar you spend, you may be disappointed with Gemini, but as a piece of interactive art, I suspect many people, myself included, will return to Gemini over and over just to enjoy the visuals and soundtrack.
Gemini is available on the App Store at an introductory price of $2.99.
On the heels of Apple’s announcement of an impending App Store cleanup, it has updated its App Review Guidelines to cover app subscriptions, stickers, and SiriKit apps. Among other guidelines, Section 3.1.2(a) states that:
While the following list is not exhaustive, examples of appropriate subscriptions include: new game levels; episodic content; multi-player support; apps that offer consistent, substantive updates; access to large collections of, or continually updated, media content; software as a service (“SAAS”); and cloud support.
The availability of subscriptions for apps that are ‘continually updated’ provides additional clarity to an issue that was hotly debated and discussed among developers since subscriptions were announced shortly before WWDC.
The App Review Guidelines also include an entire section on stickers.
Whether your app contains a sticker extension or you’re creating free-standing sticker packs, its content shouldn’t offend users, create a negative experience, or violate the law.
Section 4.4.3 includes a link for making infringement claims and states that if you cannot back up your rights to content contained in stickers with documentation, your sticker packs and extensions will be removed from the App Store. Repeat violators risk having their developer accounts revoked.
With respect to SiriKit, section 2.5.11 of the Guidelines provides:
Apps integrating SiriKit should only sign up for intents they can handle without the support of an additional app and that users would expect from the stated functionality. For example, if your app is a meal planning app, you should not incorporate an intent to start a workout, even if the app shares integration with a fitness app.
This guideline seems to be designed to avoid confusion that could be created by an app without clear SiriKit functionality accessing SiriKit.
