Posts tagged with "iOS 9"

Apple Announces iOS 9, watchOS 2 Launching on Wednesday, September 16

As widely expected, Apple has today confirmed the official release date of iOS 9 and watchOS 2 at a media event held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. iOS 9 and watchOS 2 will be released on Wednesday, September 16th, for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Announced at WWDC in June, iOS 9 includes new and updated built-in apps, a major focus on improving the experience and capability of the iPad, and better performance, security and battery life. Apple significantly improved the functionality of the built-in Notes app, adding support for sketches, checklists, and a share extension. Apple Maps now has support for Transit directions (in limited locations) and there’s a new News app. iPad users with one of the more recent models can now use multiple apps at the same time with the introduction of Slide Over, Split View, and Picture in Picture modes. Siri and Spotlight also got a little smarter and can now answer more questions whilst attempting to proactively surfacing information and content that is relevant to you.

Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of iOS 9 yet, but it will presumably be released to developers today. Typically the last developer release before a public launch, the GM seed will allow developers to make final preparations to their iOS 9-ready apps and submit them to the App Store.

You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today’s Apple’s keynote through our September 9 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 9 Keynote RSS feed.

Apple’s App Search API Validation Tool→

I haven’t seen this linked before – and I certainly didn’t see it when I first wrote about iOS 9 search – but Apple has a new validation tool to test websites for App Search, coming with iOS 9 in Spotlight.

Apple writes:

Test your webpage for iOS 9 Search APIs. Enter a URL and Applebot will crawl your webpage and show how you can optimize for best results.

As I wrote, iOS 9 won’t be limited to searching for local app content:

To enhance web crawling with structured data and, again, give developers control of indexed content, Apple has announced support for various types of web markup. Developers who own websites with content related to an app will be able to use Smart App Banners to describe deep links to an app (more on this in a bit) as well as open standards such as schema.org and Open Graph.

Apple calls these “rich results”: by reading metadata based on existing standards, Apple’s web crawler can have a better understanding of key information called out on a webpage and do more than simply parsing a title and a link. With support for schema.org, for instance, Applebot will be able to recognize tagged prices, ratings, and currencies for individual listings on Airbnb, while the Open Graph image tag could be used as the image thumbnail in iOS search results. An app like Songkick could implement structured data to tag concert dates and prices in their related website, and popular concerts could show up for users with rich descriptions in the iOS 9 search page.

The validation tool does indeed analyze information that will be used to power iOS 9 search results – such as thumbnails, descriptions, and deep links to apps. You can try it out here.

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Twitterrific Update Brings Early iOS 9 Features

San Francisco, Safari View Controller, and Safari Reader in Twitterrific 5.13.

San Francisco, Safari View Controller, and Safari Reader in Twitterrific 5.13.

The latest version of Twitterrific, released today on the App Store, brings a number of nice improvements such as hashtag autocompletion, better support for Handoff, and some welcome fixes for quoted tweets and the media viewer. What’s even nicer is that, if you’re running the iOS 9 beta, Twitterrific for iOS 8 already supports Safari View Controller and the San Francisco font thanks to some clever coding by The Iconfactory.

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Apple Updates TestFlight with Support for iOS 9 and watchOS 2 Betas, App Thinning

Apple has updated its official TestFlight app for iOS today, bringing support for iOS 9 and watchOS 2 betas, plus a new App Thinning feature that will allow developers to deliver slimmer apps in iOS 9.

Version 1.2 of TestFlight supports, according to Apple, “upcoming iOS 9 features”. The first beta of iOS 9 was first released in June, and, following the launch of the fourth developer beta, several members of the developer community were wondering when Apple would start allowing developers to distribute iOS 9 app betas to external testers. The release notes of the update don’t mention external testers, so it’s still fair to wonder when Apple will actually let developers expand their beta pools beyond internal testers.

Update: As confirmed in an email by Apple, TestFlight’s iOS 9 features are currently limited to watchOS 2 apps and App Thinning for internal testers only.

In addition to iOS 9 and watchOS 2 support, the TestFlight app has been updated with new notification settings. You can now turn off email and notification updates on a per-app basis – a welcome addition for those testing dozens of different apps.

TestFlight 1.2 is available on the App Store.

The Ad Blocker Debate→

Jean-Louis Gassée, on ad-blocking tools coming with iOS 9 thanks to Safari Content Blockers:

Publishers who rise to condemn new (and still unproven) ad-blocking features on iOS and OS X ought to ask themselves one question: Who needs whom the most?

Apple’s move answers the question. No need to think it’s building ad-blocking technology to monopolize the field to the benefit of its iAd platform whose revenue can’t “move the needle” for a company where revenue and profits mostly come from hardware (see the last 10-Q report page 25). Apple’s “ulterior” motive is making everyday use of its products more pleasant, resulting in more sales: the usual ecosystem play.

With MacStories, we’re pretty fortunate to be in the position of running a publication that doesn’t depend on heavy user tracking and programmatic ads (we do native advertising with sponsors, affiliate links, and, soon, something else). The few JavaScript code that is left on our pages (Google Analytics) could go away if I find something that works better and is lighter than Google’s solution. As publishers, we won’t be particularly affected by Content Blockers. I relate to those who run sites based on a different model, but I’m not so shortsighted to blame Safari for the slow nature of a mobile web infested with ads and creepy trackers.

I also believe that a lot of this comes down to how much you respect your readers. This was our single most important goal with MacStories 4.0 last year. It won’t change anytime soon. It’s important for us that anyone – no matter their browser or Internet speed or data cap – can read our website comfortably and quickly.

As a user, I’m ecstatic about Content Blockers. Some might say it’s not morally acceptable to block ads, but when publishers reach the point where a single 80 KB article weighs 6 MB, maybe it is time for a wake up call.

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Apple Prevents App Store Reviews From Users on iOS 9 Betas

Within the last 12 hours Apple has modified the App Store to prevent users running “prerelease” software from leaving app reviews on the App Store. Now when a user running a beta version of iOS 9 tries to leave an app review, they will get the following error message:

This feature isn’t available.
You can’t write reviews while using a pre-release version of iOS.

However it appears that the change only applies to iOS 9, because users running OS X El Capitan can still post reviews on the Mac App Store.

The change should help end the annual frustration experienced by app developers when users running beta versions of iOS discovered a third party app wasn’t compatible with the beta software and then left a 1-star rating on the App Store. Poor reviews on the App Store can hurt sales, and developers often can’t do anything to fix the problem because they can’t submit software built for the new versions of iOS whilst it remains in beta, and the bug could be one for Apple to fix, not the developer.

As Federico wrote earlier this month:

In this day and age of high competition and over 1.5 million apps available, having negative reviews displayed on the app’s product page is a problem for developers. But it gets worse when those negative reviews cite problems that developers can’t fix yet. At that point, developers feel that it’s not fair to receive a negative review for something that’s completely out of their control. And when the livelihood of independent app markers is at stake, it’s hard to argue aganst their sentiment of frustration and disappointment. There’s nothing they can do to fix their app issues on betas of iOS and OS X and they can’t respond directly to reviews on the App Store – and yet they’re taking all the blame. This, every year, repeatedly for every beta of iOS and OS X, and it’s possibly becoming more of a problem now that Apple has two public betas.

The problem of permitting app reviews from users on beta software was always a problem, but it risked being a much bigger issue this year because it is the first year that Apple has begun offering public betas of a major iOS release.

Safari View Controller as Onboarding Tool→

Cluster’s Rizwan Sattar has been playing around with Safari View Controller on iOS 9, and he discovered that it can be used as an onboarding tool to make users sign up for web accounts in apps more easily:

In the past I always worried about building a seamless first-time experience for our users. None of the “magic” solutions felt elegant.

Using a hidden Safari View Controller to help identify your user removes user confusion and makes your app feel magical when users use it for the first time.

The videos show how much of a difference using Safari View Controller for authentication in the background makes compared to existing solutions. Even if the background method used by Sattar stopped working, the automatic login and dismissal flow (second video) seems magic compared to shared web credentials with iCloud Keychain, which is already very useful (I love it, for instance, in Junecloud’s Deliveries). Yet another reason why we should keep an eye on Safari View Controller and hope it’ll be widely adopted on iOS 9.

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Apple Launching iOS 9, OS X El Capitan Public Betas Today

Following the official introduction at WWDC last month, Apple is launching the first public betas of iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan today. According to Ars Technica, betas for the general public will be available later today; both iOS 9 and El Capitan public betas should be available to any user with an Apple ID interested in installing them.

The public betas will soon be available from Apple’s Beta Software Program website and they follow the launch of the third developer beta seeded to registered iOS and OS X developers yesterday. With the public betas, Apple aims to offer a larger pool of users the possibility of testing the upcoming versions of the operating systems for Mac and iOS devices, with built-in tools to provide feedback and report issues during the beta testing period. As usual, Apple recommends to keep a backup of a stable version of iOS and OS X before installing the public beta.

It’s worth pointing out that, at this stage, third-party apps from the App Store can’t be updated to take advantage of the new features in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, which could limit the potential benefit of trying a public beta for some users. On iPad, for instance, only Apple’s pre-installed apps can use the new multitasking features in iOS 9. For this reason, users interested in installing the public betas should also keep in mind that developers can’t submit apps and updates with iOS 9 and El Capitan features to the App Store – therefore, it’d be best not to leave negative reviews for features missing in apps that can’t be updated to take advantage of them yet.

Apple’s public beta website with more information will be updated at this link later today. You can read our overviews of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan here and here.

Apple Details Two-Factor Authentication in iOS 9 and El Capitan→

New webpage published by Apple today detailing the new two-factor authentication that will be directly built into iOS 9 and El Capitan. Most notably, Apple is using six-digit verification codes and passcodes by default, and the feature will be rolled out alongside the public betas of iOS 9 and El Capitan. “During the iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan public betas, enrollment in two-factor authentication will be limited”, according to Apple.

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