developers

Apple Has Locked Guilherme Rambo Out of His Developer Account →

November 20, 2019 · 18:50

Guilherme Rambo:

I’ve been unable to access my Apple developer account since August. When I try to access any part of the developer portal, like the beta downloads page or the certificates control panel, I get redirected to a contact form that reads “Need assistance with accessing your developer account?”. My developer team doesn’t show up in Xcode anymore. I’m also unable to manage certificates or send builds of my employer’s developer team apps while logged in to my developer account in Xcode because it says it’s “disabled for security reasons”. The push notification service denies any requests I make to it. Back when the issue first began, I filled out that form and got a case number (20000057023991), with the promise that support would get back to me “in one to two business days”.

No explanation given since August and this situation has started to affect his income and his users. Stuff like this should not take place.

Update

Apple has resolved Gui’s issues.

Translating an ARM iOS App to Intel macOS Using Bitcode →

May 18, 2019 · 12:22

Steven Troughton-Smith, on High Caffeine Content:

Of course, the specter of macOS on ARM has been in the public psyche for many years now, and many have pondered whether Bitcode will make this transition more straightforward. The commonly held belief is that Bitcode is not suited to massive architectural changes like moving between Intel and ARM.

I was unconvinced, so I decided to test the theory!

Of course he did. Since this is Steve, the results are predictable.

That was easy!

This means, in theory, that if Apple wanted every iOS app on the App Store to run on the Mac, today or in the future, they have a mechanism to do so transparently and without needing developers to update or recompile their apps.

Bringing iOS Apps to macOS Using Marzipanify →

March 4, 2019 · 09:46

Steve Troughton-Smith:

marzipanify is a tool I created to statically convert an iOS app built for the iOS Simulator to macOS. It means you can continue working on and building your existing iOS app from its existing project, using the existing iOS SDK, and just run the tool against the Simulator build to create a functioning Mac app. As a bonus, marzipanify will yell at you when you’re linking against a framework or library that doesn’t currently exist in the iOSMac runtime. It trivializes the process so you can focus on adapting your app rather than managing a build environment.

Curious to see what people will come up with before the expected Marzipan-for-developers announcement during this year’s WWDC. Having said that, I’m still partially horrified at the potential flood of poor Marzipan apps coming to the Mac, and how they’ll affect developers actually catering to the feature set and strengths of MacOS.

David Barnard Explains How to Game the App Store →

November 29, 2018 · 09:09

David Barnard:

I’ve been pestering Apple for years publicly and privately about the manipulation and outright scams going on in the App Store. Apple has made some progress here and there, but overall Apple’s strictness in some areas and hands off approach in others has disproportionately rewarded bad actors while stifling conscientious developers.

First of all, read the whole thing — some parts might shock you. These issues won’t be problematic to users aware of which developers are the good guys — there are quite a few out there — but the average consumer will have no clue which ones to trust. Apple really needs to crack down hard on the bad actors, cleaning out their own store of the garbage that has accumulated over the years.

What Happens to the Traffic You Send to the App Store? →

January 19, 2018 · 10:42

From Information Architects’ blog:

No matter how good your product is, you need to be found. We send all our traffic to the stores. In return, we get higher sales and higher rankings. Recently, some of the numbers left us guessing. The more traffic we get the higher the sales. But, somehow, our ranking suffers.

This insightful post from iA details surprising behaviour from the App Store algorithms. They also mention skipping the Windows Store for their Writer début on Windows 10, which I’m guessing signifies that they’re considering leaving the Mac App Store. While developers have no such choice in terms of iOS apps, I’ve been recently reconsidering my stance that this is a good thing. Perhaps the option to install apps directly from trustworthy developers would be a net win, even at the risk of less security for less tech-savvy users…

Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User Experience →

December 20, 2017 · 17:01

Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg:

The Mac App Store is a ghost town of limited selection and rarely updated programs. Now Apple plans to change that by giving people a way to use a single set of apps that work equally well across its family of devices: iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Starting as early as next year, software developers will be able to design a single application that works with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it’s running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on Mac hardware, according to people familiar with the matter.

If this is true, I’m guessing the road will be rocky for developers, but the benefit for users could be huge, especially those that use the same apps on both iOS and macOS, relying on iCloud or other services for the syncing of data. I do wonder how this will influence pricing, however.

Overcast Trying Ads →

September 10, 2016 · 10:07

Marco Arment:

A lot of indie developers struggle to make sustainable income in the App Store. I’ve experimented with many models over the years, and I’ll be happy to share the results of this change to hopefully be useful to other developers.

I honestly don’t know if this will work long-term, but I think it probably will. If it does, it will solve a lot of problems and let me do quite a bit more, better and faster than before, and truly make the best app for everyone, rather than only 3% of my customers.

It honestly makes me sad that developers are having a harder and harder time supporting themselves from good software. Take Tweetbot as an example — an app I use a few hours every single day — it’s really cheap right now but the value it gives me in return is immense. I would gladly pay much more, but at the same time I realise most wouldn’t.

App Store Name Lengths →

September 10, 2016 · 10:06

David Smith:

Starting tomorrow Apple will start enforcing a new rule limiting the length of an app’s name to 50 characters. Additionally, they will start disallowing apps from including “terms or descriptions that are not the name of the app”.

The latter of these rules is probably the most actually impactful and important in terms of cleaning up the App Store. As the length of the names hasn’t really been the problem, it is keyword spamming at the end of the name.

But the 50 character limit is still interesting to consider, so I dug through my App Store metadata cache to see just how many apps would be affected. It looks like only around 9% of apps currently have names that are longer than 50 characters (around 200k).

David Smith’s Indie Life in the App Store →

September 6, 2016 · 08:33

David Smith:

I am living proof that it is still quite possible to make a solid and reliable income from the App Store. The way in which I have been able to do that, however, has been to change with the times and constantly adapt to the changes in the market.

David’s apps aren’t perfect, but what he doesn’t mention is that he’s a nice guy and very respectable online — I unfortunately haven’t met him in real life. I buy his apps because, while not perfect, they’re solid problem solvers and appeal to my needs. I know that the fact that he has an online presence makes a difference for me — he won’t disappear tomorrow and leave me looking for alternatives.

Good luck on another eight, David!

Apple: ‘We Have Lots of Serious Developers Who Don’t Want Their Quality Apps to be Surrounded by Amateur Hour’ →

September 5, 2016 · 06:33

Updated App submission guidelines:

  • If your app looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice app into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.
  • We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.

Surprising, strong wording.

Amirali Rajan Goes Into Detail How His iOS Game Went Viral →

April 19, 2016 · 21:32

Amirali Rajan’s TL;DR summary:

Made a little over $700k selling a premium mobile game with no IAP or Ads as a one man shop. It is possible to create sustainable income from apps (albeit very difficult). Made a little over $700k selling a premium mobile game with no IAP or Ads as a one man shop. It is possible to create sustainable income from apps (albeit very difficult).

A few things from his story surprised me, including the fact that Amirali doesn’t know why his game went viral.

The Chrome Distortion: How Chrome Negatively Alters Our Expectations →

March 26, 2016 · 09:29

Chris Thoburn:

Chrome has taught us to idealize features for so long that we’ve become blind to its many glaring faults (…)

I’ve learned the hard way that Chrome is the new IE. I’ve learned that you have to architect an application well from the beginning for it to work well on all platforms. I’ve learned you can ship large ambitious JS apps to mobile, but it takes dedication and experience, and every trick you know to do it well for Android. I’ve learned that Apple loves the web, probably more than Google, and has invested heavily in ensuring we have a high quality platform upon which to build apps.

But most of all, I’ve learned that we’re wasting a ton of effort right now trying to fix Chrome from the outside. We’re dancing around the issue; pretending that universal rendering, service workers, app-shell architecture, and keeping more of our applications on servers (where they don’t belong) is more than just a workaround for how bad Chrome is. Yes, these ideas have uses, merits, and probably are the future; however, our need and love of them right now is because our performance expectations have been badly distorted by the situation Chrome has left us in.

American Game Developer Freed From Iranian Custody After Four Years →

January 19, 2016 · 22:23

Kyle Orland:

Hekmati, who was born and raised in the US, was first imprisoned in August 2011 after he purportedly confessed to high-level espionage for the US government. According to the confession, Hekmati’s company, Kuma Reality Games, was working with the CIA to release “games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. The goal of the company in question was to convince the people of Iran and the people of the entire world that whatever the US does in other countries is a good measure.”

This isn’t a movie plot. Sounds like one though. There’s so much we don’t know…

Craig Federighi Also Spoke to Ars Technica About Swift and Objective-C →

December 4, 2015 · 08:53

Andrew Cunningham:

“Objective-C is not going away. We still love Objective-C as a language; we still very much depend on Objective-C and do a tremendous amount of work in Objective-C here internally at Apple,” Federighi told Ars. “We’ll be supporting Objective-C and continuing to evolve it as necessary to fit into this evolving world. We do think that Swift is the language that we recommend for new developers to our platform who are investing for the future and building new apps. We think Swift is absolutely the right place to start. But we’ll continue to maintain, advance, and support Objective-C for as far as we can see.”

Craig Federighi Talks to The Next Web About Swift →

December 4, 2015 · 08:00

Nate Swanner:

Craig Federighi: We think Swift is the next major programming language; the one people are going to be programming in for the coming several decades. We think it’s a combination of it being a great systems and apps programming language that’s fast and safe, but also being really expressive and easy to learn.

It’s the perfect programming language for anyone who is learning to program all the way to writing systems. We want everyone to learn Swift as their primary language, and we want — when developers invest in Swift — to be able to use it everywhere from scripting to apps for mobile down to writing code in the cloud.

Apple Open Sources Swift →

December 3, 2015 · 21:34

Apple:

The Swift open source code is available via GitHub and includes support for all Apple software platforms — iOS, OS X®, watchOS and tvOS™ — as well as for Linux. Components available include the Swift compiler, debugger, standard library, foundation libraries, package manager and REPL. Swift is licensed under the popular Apache 2.0 open source license with a runtime library exception, enabling users to easily incorporate Swift into their own software and port the language to new platforms. For more information about Swift, and access to community resources visit the new Swift.org

Dan Counsell: ‘They Basically Re-Built the Entire Thing for Android, Right Down to Copying the Levels’ →

November 27, 2015 · 11:15

Dan Counsell:

I didn’t release Almost Impossible! on Android because I’m an Apple kinda guy, and this was a “fun” side-project. While Almost Impossible! hasn’t been a block-buster hit, someone assumed it must have been and ripped it off anyway. They basically re-built the entire thing for android, right down to copying the levels. How crazy is that?

I’m quite surprised Dan isn’t doing anything about this — the least that I would do is let Google know about the copyright infringement.

Mac App Store: Single Point of Failure →

November 17, 2015 · 18:22

Michael Tsai:

The Mac App Store is supposed to make things easier, but it’s also a single point of failure. Not only is it neglected, but sometimes even the existing functionality stops working. Mac OS X 10.9 introduced a code signing bug that prevented me from submitting updates for several months. In June 2015, there was a month-long iTunes Connect bug that prevented my uploaded build from entering the review queue. And I currently have a bug fix update that Apple has been reviewing for 33 days (with 8 days of waiting before that). When I inquired about the status, Apple told me that everything was normal and that I should just keep waiting. In short, the system is broken on multiple levels, and there is no evidence to suggest that things will get better.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Mac App Store as a user—it just makes things so easy—but what Michael mentions is completely unacceptable. It has been getting worse and worse over the past two years or so, and today I will actually actively spend time looking if an app is also available straight from the developer. The purchase procedure is usually much more irritating, I have to store the license information in 1Password, but ultimately it’s been worth it thus far.

Make sure to read the comments below Michael’s post too.

Charles Perry about the Patronage Model →

November 15, 2015 · 22:22

Charles Perry:

Proponents of this model call it “patronage,” but it has little in common with the historical concept of patronage where a well-off patron paid an artist an amount to commission a work of art. This new model, in fact, is the opposite of patronage. Instead of requiring a patron to provide money up front in exchange for an item of value, this new model gives away all the value in advance and requires nothing from those who receive it. It less resembles patronage, or even commerce, than it does begging, or busking if you’re feeling generous.

Interesting point of view, although I personally have a different take on the subject—set a high enough price to make your useful product sustainable and market the hell out of it. There is a tiny flaw with my theory: most people don’t want to pay for software, even when it’s really well done.

Not So New →

November 15, 2015 · 01:17

Samantha Bielefeld:

The patronage-only model is so new, and very experimental, but has that stopped others from replicating it?

Technically, the patronage model that Marco Arment adopted isn’t especially new. I first saw it many years ago on David Smith’s Pedometer++ [App Store]—he’s a unique developer in terms of experimenting in the App Store, choosing different monetisation options between his many apps, and adapting extremely well to current trends. In fact, I wrote about his tip jar a while ago. To my knowledge, which isn’t especially impressive when it comes to this subject, Marek Moi’s PointOut [App Store] followed suit with a unique system of buying him coffees as a thank you.

The problem with the App Store is that a select few developers with unique ideas are able to price their apps accordingly, while the rest have to compete with many free apps that are good enough. Quite frankly, I want to pay for quality software for the sole reason of supporting the team behind it, and so that they continue to maintain their products and hopefully add new features too.

Sadly, I realise I’m in the minority…