Indie App Sales is back with excellent deals on apps from many of your favorite developers. With over 300 apps to choose from, the complete list is full of gems like:
The sale periods vary by app, but most are offering discounts today and tomorrow, so check it out to grab a great deal on these excellent apps and support indie development.
Today, the European Commission informed Apple that based on its preliminary investigation it has determined that the company is in violation of the Digital Markets Act. The EC has also opened a separate non-compliance procedure against Apple over the Core Technology Fee and other changes instituted earlier this year as part of its response to the DMA.
In particular, the EC’s preliminary findings take issue with Apple’s response to the DMA’s anti-steering provisions:
Apple currently has three sets of business terms governing its relationship with app developers, including the App Store’s steering rules. The Commission preliminarily finds that:
- None of these business terms allow developers to freely steer their customers. For example, developers cannot provide pricing information within the app or communicate in any other way with their customers to promote offers available on alternative distribution channels.
- Under most of the business terms available to app developers, Apple allows steering only through “link-outs”, i.e., app developers can include a link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer can conclude a contract. The link-out process is subject to several restrictions imposed by Apple that prevent app developers from communicating, promoting offers and concluding contracts through the distribution channel of their choice.
- Whilst Apple can receive a fee for facilitating via the AppStore the initial acquisition of a new customer by developers, the fees charged by Apple go beyond what is strictly necessary for such remuneration. For example, Apple charges developers a fee for every purchase of digital goods or services a user makes within seven days after a link-out from the app.
Apple may respond to the EC’s preliminary findings in writing. A final decision regarding compliance with the law is due by March 25, 2025, the one year anniversary of the beginning of DMA proceedings against Apple.
The EC has also opened a separate investigation regarding Apple’s compliance with Section 6(4) of the DMA, which provides that:
The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.
The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures to ensure that third-party software applications or software application stores do not endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall not be prevented from applying, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures and settings other than default settings, enabling end users to effectively protect security in relation to third-party software applications or software application stores, provided that such measures and settings other than default settings are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
Specifically, the EC says it will investigate whether the Core Technology Fee, the multi-step process for downloading apps from alternative app marketplaces, and the eligibility requirements for running an alternative app marketplace are ‘necessary and proportionate’ under the DMA. The EC also notes that it is continuing to investigate Apple’s process for validating apps and alternative app marketplaces.
None of this is particularly surprising, given the complexities of the provisions Apple put into place in the wake of the DMA. The ‘necessity and proportionality’ of Apple’s changes are, by their nature, subjective determinations. That makes the DMA hard to comply with, but it also leaves ample room for the EC and Apple to negotiate a resolution of their dispute over the DMA. It’s time for the parties to put this dispute to rest.
Today, Apple announced that this fall, the company will offer a new curriculum for its Developer Academy students focused on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Beginning this fall, every Apple Developer Academy student will benefit from custom-built curriculum that teaches them how to build, train, and deploy machine learning models across Apple devices. Courses will include the fundamentals of AI technologies and frameworks; Core ML and its ability to deliver fast performance on Apple devices; and guidance on how to build and train AI models from the ground up. Students will learn from guided curriculum and project-based assignments that include assistance from hundreds of mentors and more than 12,000 academy alumni worldwide.
The new curriculum will be offered at 18 academies in Brazil, Indonesia, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United States. With the company’s emphasis on Apple Intelligence at WWDC, it’s not surprising that the skills needed to implement those new features are being added to its educational efforts.
To wrap up our week of WWDC coverage, we just published a special episode of AppStories that was recorded in the Apple Podcasts Studio at Apple Park. Federico and I interviewed three of this year’s Apple Design Award winners:
- Katarina Lotrič, CEO and co-founder, and Jasna Krmelj, CTO and co-founder, of Gentler Streak, which won an ADA in the Social Impact category
- James Cuda, CEO, and Michael Shaw, CTO of Procreate, which won an ADA for (Procreate Dreams) in the Innovation category
We also interviewed two of the Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winners:
In addition to being available as always in your favorite podcast app as an audio-only podcast, This special episode of AppStories is available on our new MacStories YouTube channel, which is also the home of Comfort Zone, one of the two podcasts we launched last week and other video projects.
We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.
To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page or read the AppStories+ FAQ.
Every year, Apple recaps the programs and other services it has launched for developers. Ever since I started covering Apple, there’s been a certain amount of tension between it and its developers. This year, that strain is running higher than I’ve ever seen, at least among the solo and small developer teams we typically cover.
However, it can simultaneously be true that Apple provides valuable resources for developers that are constantly changing. In a press release today, Apple highlights the following developer programs from 2023:
This year, Apple has also updated the Apple Developer Forums in advance of WWDC and rolled out Pathways, a collection of videos, documentation, and other resources focused on core topics like Design, Swift, SwiftUI, Games, visionOS, and App Store distribution.
There are a lot of great resources here. Far more than when I was learning to code around 2015. I’m particularly intrigued by Pathways, which looks as though it does an excellent job of pulling together materials that would otherwise require developers to consult multiple sources.
As WWDC approaches, Apple has announced the finalists in the running for its annual Apple Design Awards. The awards ceremony revealing the winners will be held during WWDC.
This year, there are seven categories, and each category has six finalists. That’s one more than last year, with Spatial Computing joining the categories for the first time. The 2024 ADA finalists are:
The selections include a broad range of games and apps, including some apps from smaller developers like Devin Davies, the maker of the wonderful recipe app Crouton, the team behind Gentler Streaks, one of my favorite fitness apps, and SmartGym by Mateus Abras, as well as titles from bigger publishers.
I’m glad that Apple announces the finalists in advance. Winning an ADA is a big achievement for any developer, but it’s also nice to know who the finalists are because it’s quite an honor among the many apps that could have been chosen too. Plus as a fan of apps, Apple’s list of finalists always reminds me of an app or two that I haven’t tried yet.
Today, Apple announced that WWDC 2024 will run from June 10th through the 14th. As has been the case for the past several years, the event will be predominantly online, with over 100 sessions for developers, opportunities for developers to consult with Apple’s engineers, and more.
WWDC will begin on June 10th at 10 AM Pacific time, with the annual keynote and the Platforms State of the Union to follow at 1:00 PM Pacific. Throughout WWDC, Apple will also offer online labs and consultation sessions with the company’s engineers and designers, who will be available to provide guidance on developers’ apps and games.
The over 100 sessions Apple is producing will be available in the Developer app, apple.com, and YouTube. Apple says developers will also have access to curated guides:
…to walk them through the conference’s biggest announcements, from new documentation to sessions and more.
In addition to the learning experiences available at WWDC, Apple has invited 50 Distinguished Winners of the Swift Student Challenge who will visit Apple Park for the event. As always, Apple will also celebrate the Apple Design Award winners.
I love attending WWDC. Getting to see the developers we cover at MacStories is a treat, and Apple’s announcements will be the fuel that takes the MacStories team into the fall and beyond. If you see me around, be sure to stop me and say ‘hi.’
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the poor performance of TestFlight, the app that App Store developers rely on for beta testing their own apps. Today, thanks to a couple rounds of Feedback submissions, TestFlight is working better than before, but it’s not fixed. With WWDC around the corner, I thought I’d provide a quick update and share a few suggestions for fixes and features I’d like to see Apple implement.
One of the benefits of writing about TestFlight last year was that it became clear to me that, although my use of the app was unique, I wasn’t alone. Other writers who test a lot of apps and super fans who love trying the latest versions of their favorite apps got in touch sharing similar experiences, which convinced me that the issue was related to the number of betas I had in TestFlight. My experience was one of the worst, but with others in a similar boat, I took the time to file a Feedback report to see if there was anything that could be done to improve TestFlight.
That initial Feedback attempt ultimately went nowhere. Then, I got busy and resigned myself to getting by as best I could. However, getting by was no longer an option as the Vision Pro’s release date approached. That added a significant number of new betas to my TestFlight collection. By March, the Mac version of TestFlight had stopped working entirely. With apps lined up in my review queue, that posed a problem I couldn’t work around.
I removed inactive betas using my iPhone and removed myself from testing as many active betas as I could bear. However, nothing worked, so I filed another report with the black box known as Feedback. Fortunately, this time, it worked. After some back-and-forth sharing logs and screen recordings of TestFlight failing to load any content, I received a message that something had been adjusted on Apple’s end to shake things loose. Just like that, TestFlight was working again, although sluggishly.
My immediate problem is fixed, and I’ve been managing old betas more carefully to avoid a repeat of what happened on the Mac before. However, it’s clear that TestFlight needs more than just the quick fix that solved the worst of my problems. First of all, although TestFlight works again on my Mac, it’s slow to load on all OSes and clearly in need of work to allow it to handle larger beta collections more gracefully. And there’s a lot of other low-hanging fruit that would make managing large beta collections better on every OS, including:
It’s time for Apple to spend some time updating TestFlight beyond the band-aid fix that got it working again for me. It’s been a full decade since Apple acquired TestFlight. Today, the app is crucial to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and visionOS development, and while it’s not as critical to macOS development, it’s used more often than not by Mac developers, too. Apple has gone to great lengths to explain the benefits of its developer program to justify its App Store commissions generally and the Core Technology Fee in the EU specifically. TestFlight is just one piece of that program, but it’s an important one that has been neglected for too long and no longer squares with the company’s professed commitment to developers.
There are so many parts of Steve’s iPad Pro manifesto I would quote here on MacStories, but I’m going to limit myself to just a couple of excerpts.
What I like about this story is that it’s a balanced take on the limitations of iPadOS from the perspective of a developer, laid out in a comprehensive roundup. It serves as a great companion piece to my story, but from a more technical angle.
Here, for instance, is a well-reasoned assessment of why Stage Manager isn’t ideal for developers of iPad apps:
Stage Manager was such a missed opportunity: it tried to bolt-on a windowing model onto iPadOS without providing developers any way to optimize for it, and has had virtually no meaningful improvements in two years. What I really want to see are APIs. APIs to know when an app is running in Stage Manager and give it an opportunity to enable extra functionality to accommodate that — like having an ‘open in New Window’ context menu option that it would otherwise hide. APIs to set window size/shape, minimum and maximum size. APIs to open a window in split view if possible, with a preferred screen side. APIs to drag a window on mouse-down. Auxiliary views or inspector panels that can be floated on/near a primary window, like visionOS’ ornaments.
Many of these features are available as APIs to apps using the iOS SDK… on macOS and visionOS. Which is why it boggles the mind that iPad’s own Stage Manager spec completely shunned them, and ignored the explicit intent provided by developers as to how they want their apps to work. Stage Manager wasn’t provided as an opportunity to make our apps better, it was inflicted on developers in a way that harmed the developer, and user, experience. Which is why today you can very quickly stumble upon apps that don’t quite resize correctly, or have important parts of the UI covered by the virtual keyboard, or toolbars floating in strange places.
To this day, developers have no way to fine-tune their apps so that they behave differently (and better!) when Stage Manager is active. This part about JIT is also worth calling out:
Just-in-time compilation is essential to power things like web browsers, console and PC emulators, and language-based virtual machines. It is used by Apple’s own apps, like Playgrounds, to empower key functionality that no third party app can match. And it is provided in a very limited way (with a ton of asterisks) to Alternative Web Browsers in the EU under the DMA, so they can implement their own JavaScript engines. The DolphiniOS project, which emulates Nintendo’s GameCube, recently posted a video that perfectly encapsulates the problem and demonstrates why emulators for newer consoles just can’t come to iPadOS. Other app stores, like Microsoft’s Windows Store, offer a JIT entitlement as standard, and I think Apple should, too.
It’s not like JIT cannot exist on iPadOS; it’s that Apple has chosen not to offer it as an entitlement for third-party developers.
I also want to point out two more aspects of Steve’s manifesto. It’s almost a 1:1 match of a story he wrote for us in 2019, which is quite sad as it tells you a lot about iPadOS’ state of affairs. Five years later, and we’re still asking for the same changes. Additionally, it should be noted that Steve is not asking for Apple to call it a day and put macOS on iPad. Claiming that someone who criticizes iPadOS does so because “they just want the iPad to turn into a Mac” has become the de rigueur dismissal for some reply guys these days, and it completely misses the point.
I highly recommend reading Steve’s full story here.
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