Latest News - Apple Developer
Learn about the latest technologies, events, and policies for developers.
It’s an ice-cold late winter’s morning in Canada, but the offices of Ubisoft Quebec are ablaze with excitement. The Ubisoft team is preparing the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the 14th main entry in the series and an evolution for the franchise in nearly every detail. It’s set in feudal 16th-century Japan, a rich and elegant period that’s been long sought-after by fans and Ubisoft team members alike. It introduces a pair of fierce protagonists: Yasuke, a powerful warrior of African origin, and Naoe, an agile Shinobi assassin, both brought to life with attention to historical accuracy. Its world feels alive with an ever-changing dynamism that’s apparent in everything from the shifting weather to the rotating seasons to the magical interplay of light and shadow. And what’s more, it’s set to release on Mac the same day it arrives on PCs and consoles. “It’s been a longtime dream to bring the game to Mac,” says Ubisoft executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté, who debuted the game on Mac during the WWDC24 Keynote. “It’s incredible that I can now open a MacBook Pro and get this level of immersion.” Shadows will also be coming to iPad with M-series chips. Naoe, one of the game’s two protagonists, is an agile assassin who’s at her best when striking from the shadows. Today marks one of the first times that the gaming community will get its hands on Shadows, and to celebrate the occasion, the Ubisoft offices — a mix of cozy chalet-worthy reclaimed wood and wide-open windows that afford a view of snowy Quebec City rooftops — have been reskinned with an Assassin’s Creed theme, including a display that emphasizes the heft of Yasuke’s weapons, especially an imposing-looking 13-pound model of the character’s sword. (On this day, the display is hosted by associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois, who appears quite capable of wielding it.) Pre-order Assassin's Creed Shadows from the Mac App Store Côté calls Shadows his team’s “most ambitious” game. In crafting the game’s expansive world, Ubisoft’s development team took advantage of an array of advanced Mac technologies: Metal 3 (working in concert with Ubisoft’s next-generation Anvil engine), Apple silicon, and a mix of HDR support and real-time ray tracing on Macs with M3 and M4 that Côté says was “transformative” in creating the game’s immersion. It’s been a longtime dream to bring the game to Mac. Marc-Alexis Côté, Ubisoft executive producer “Seeing those millions of lines of code work natively on a Mac was a feeling that’s hard to describe,” Côté says. “When you look at the game’s performance, the curve Apple is on with successive improvements to the M-series chips year after year, and the way the game looks on an HDR screen, you’re like, ‘Is this real?’” Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a balance of the technical and creative. For the former, associate technical director Mathieu Belanger says the capabilities of Mac laid the groundwork for technical success. “The architecture of the hardware is so well done, thanks in part to the unified memory between the GPU and CPU. That made us think the future is bright for gaming on the platform. So many things about doing this on Mac were great right out of the box.” Naoe’s counterpart, Yasuke, prefers the use of brute force. On the creative side, Ubisoft creative director Jonathan Dumont focused on a different opportunity. “The important thing was: Does this feel right? Is it what we want to send to players? And the answer was yes.” The creative team’s goal was nothing short of “making this world feel alive,” says Martin Bedard, a 20-year Ubisoft veteran who served as the game’s technology director (and is very good at playing as Naoe). “You’re put into a moment that really existed,” he says. “This story is your playground.” There are also fluffy kittens. We’ll get to those. The ever-changing seasons lend an incredible variety to the game’s environments. And there’s tremendous power behind the beauty, because the game’s biomes, seasons, weather, and lighting are all dynamic creations. The sunset hour bathes the mountains in soft purple light; the sun’s rays float in through leaves and temple roofs. Pretty much every room has a candle in it, which means the light is always changing. “Look at the clouds here,” says Bedard, pointing at the screen. “That’s not a rendering. These are all fluid-based cloud simulations.” “Japan feels like it’s 80 percent trees and mountains,” says Dumont. “If you’re building this world without the rain, and the winds, and the mountains, it doesn’t feel right.” Wherever you are, wherever you go, everything is beautiful and alive. Mathieu Belanger, associate technical director And those winds? “We developed a lot of features that were barely possible before, and one of them was a full simulation of the wind, not just an animation,” says Belanger. “We even built a humidity simulation that gathers clouds together.” For the in-game seasons, Ubisoft developed an engine that depicted houses, markets, and temples, in ever-changing conditions. “This was all done along the way over the past four years,” he says. To pursue historical accuracy, Dumont and the creative team visited Japan to study every detail, including big-picture details (like town maps) to very specific ones (like the varnish that would have been applied to 16th-century wood). It wasn’t always a slam dunk, says Côté: In one visit, their Japanese hosts recommended a revision to the light splashing against the mountains. “We want to get all those little details right,” he says. (A “full-immersion version,” entirely in Japanese with English subtitles, is available.) To recreate the world of 16th-century Japan, the Ubisoft creative visited Japan to study every detail. Ubisoft’s decision to split the protagonist into two distinct characters with different identities, skill sets, origin stories, and class backgrounds came early in the process. (“That was a fun day,” laughs Belanger.) Ubisoft team members emphasize that choosing between Naoe and Yasuke is a matter of personal preference — lethal subtlety vs. brute force. Players can switch between characters at any time, and, as you might suspect, the pair grows stronger together as the story goes on. Much of Naoe’s advantage comes from her ability to linger in the game’s shadows — not just behind big buildings, but wherever the scene creates a space for her to hide. “The masterclass is clearing out a board without being spotted once,” says Bedard. (The Hideout is) peaceful. You can say, ‘I feel like putting some trees down, seeing what I collected, upgrading my buildings, and petting the cats.’ Jonathan Dumont, Ubisoft creative director Which brings us to the Hideout, Naoe and Yasuke’s home base and a bucolic rural village that acts as a zen-infused respite from the ferocity of battle. “It’s a place that welcomes you back,” says Dumont. It’s eminently customizable, both from a game-progression standpoint but also in terms of aesthetics. Where the battle scenes are a frenzy of bruising combat or stealth attacks, the Hideout is a refuge for supplies, artwork, found objects, and even a furry menagerie of cats, dogs, deer, and other calming influences. “There are progressions, of course,” says Dumont, “but it’s peaceful. You can say, ‘I feel like putting some trees down, seeing what I collected, upgrading my buildings, and petting the cats.” “The kittens were a P1 feature,” laughs associate game director Dany St-Laurent. Yasuke prepares to face off against an opponent in what will likely be a fruitful battle. Yet for all those big numbers, Dumont says the game boils down to something much simpler. “I just think the characters work super-well together,” he says. “It’s an open-world game, yes. But at its core, it features two characters you’ll like. And the game is really about following their journey, connecting with them, exploring their unique mysteries, and seeing how they flow together. And I think the way in which they join forces is one of the best moments in the franchise.” And if the Ubisoft team has its way, there will be plenty more moments to come. “I think the game will scale for years to come on the Mac platform,” says Côté. “Games can be more and more immersive with each new hardware release. We’re trying to create something here where more people can come with day-one games on the Mac, because I think it’s a beautiful platform.” Pre-order Assassin's Creed Shadows from the Mac App Store
In this edition: An incredible AAA game comes to Mac. Plus, the latest on International Women’s Day activities, WeChat, and more. Read the full article
Check out the official Apple Developer WeChat account to find news, announcements, and upcoming activities for the developer community. Learn more in Simplified Chinese
The beta versions of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, visionOS 2.4, and watchOS 11.4 are now available. Get your apps ready by confirming they work as expected on these releases. And to take advantage of the advancements in the latest SDKs, make sure to build and test with Xcode 16.3. As previewed last year, iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 include support for default translation apps for all users worldwide, and default navigation apps for EU users. Beginning April 24, 2025, apps uploaded to App Store Connect must be built with Xcode 16 or later using an SDK for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, or watchOS 11. View downloads and release notes
As of today, apps without trader status have been removed from the App Store in the European Union (EU) until trader status is provided and verified by Apple. Account Holders or Admins in the Apple Developer Program will need to enter this status in App Store Connect to comply with the Digital Services Act. Learn what a trader is and how to enter your status
You can now take advantage of upgraded security options when creating new token authentication keys for the Apple Push Notification service (APNs). Team-scoped keys enable you to restrict your token authentication keys to either development or production environments, providing an additional layer of security and ensuring that keys are used only in their intended environments. Topic-specific keys provide more granular control by enabling you to associate each key with a specific bundle ID, allowing for more streamlined and organized key management. This is particularly beneficial for large organizations that manage multiple apps across different teams. Your existing keys will continue to work for all push topics and environments. At this time, you don’t have to update your keys unless you want to take advantage of the new capabilities. For detailed instructions on how to secure your communications with APNs, read Establishing a token-based connection to APNs.
Starting February 14, 2025, new regulatory requirements in South Korea will apply to all apps with offers and trials for auto-renewing subscriptions. To comply, if you offer trials or offers for auto-renewing subscriptions to your app or game, additional consent must be obtained for your trial or offer after the initial transaction. The App Store will help to get consent by informing the affected subscribers with an email, push notification, and in-app price consent sheet, and asking your subscribers to agree to the new price. This additional consent must be obtained from customers within 30 days from the payment or conversion date for: Free to paid trials Discounted subscription offers to standard-price subscriptions Apps that do not offer a free trial or discounted offer before a subscription converts to the regular price are not affected. Learn more about this regulation
The App Store is designed to make it easy to sell your digital goods and services globally, with support for 44 currencies across 175 storefronts. From time to time, we may need to adjust prices or your proceeds due to changes in tax regulations or foreign exchange rates. These adjustments are made using publicly available exchange rate information from financial data providers to help make sure prices for apps and In-App Purchases stay consistent across all storefronts. Tax and pricing updates for February As of February 6: Your proceeds from the sale of eligible apps and In‑App Purchases have been modified in: Azerbaijan: value-added tax (VAT) introduction of 18% Peru: VAT introduction of 18% Slovakia: Standard VAT rate increase from 20% to 23% Slovakia: Reduced VAT rate introduction of 5% for ebooks Estonia: Reduced VAT rate increase from 5% to 9% for news publications, magazines, and other periodicals Finland: Reduced VAT rate increase from 10% to 14% for ebooks Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement has been updated to indicate that Apple collects and remits applicable taxes in Azerbaijan and Peru.¹ As of February 24: Pricing for apps and In-App Purchases will be updated for the Azerbaijan and Peru storefronts if you haven’t selected one of these as the base for your app or In‑App Purchase.² These updates also consider VAT introductions listed in the tax updates section above. If you’ve selected the Azerbaijan or Peru storefront as the base for your app or In-App Purchase, prices won’t change. On other storefronts, prices will be updated to maintain equalization with your chosen base price. Prices won’t change in any region if your In‑App Purchase is an auto‑renewable subscription. Prices also won’t change on the storefronts where you manually manage prices instead of using the automated equalized prices. The Pricing and Availability section of Apps has been updated in App Store Connect to display these upcoming price changes. As always, you can change the prices of your apps, In‑App Purchases, and auto‑renewable subscriptions at any time. Learn more about managing your prices View or edit upcoming price changes Edit your app’s base country or region Pricing and availability start times by country or region Set a price for an In-App Purchase Beginning April 1: As a result of last year’s change in Japan’s tax regulations, Apple (through iTunes K.K. in Japan) is now designated as a Specified Platform Operator by the Japan tax authority. All paid apps and In-App Purchases, (including game items, such as coins) sold by non-Japan-based developers on the App Store in Japan will be subject to the platform tax regime. Apple will collect and remit a 10% Japanese consumption tax (JCT) to the National Tax Agency JAPAN on such transactions at the time of purchase. Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly. Please note any prepaid payment instruments (such as coins) sold prior to April 1, 2025, will not be subject to platform taxation, and the relevant JCT compliance should continue to be managed by the developer. For specific information on how the JCT affects in-game items, see Question 7 in the Tax Agency of Japan’s Q&A about Platform Taxation of Consumption Tax. Learn more about your proceeds View payments and proceeds Download financial reports ¹ Translations of the updated agreement are available on the Apple Developer website today. ² Excludes auto-renewable subscriptions.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) requires games to be licensed to remain available on the App Store in Vietnam. To learn more and apply for a game license, review the regulations. Once you have obtained your license: Sign in to App Store Connect. Enter the license number and the associated URL in the description section of your game’s product page. Note that you only need to provide this information for the App Store localization displayed on the Vietnam storefront. Submit an update to App Review. If you have questions on how to comply with these requirements, please contact the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (ABEI) under the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications. View the full law
In this edition: The latest on developer activities, the Swift Student Challenge, the team behind Bears Gratitude, and more. Read the full article
Here’s the story of how a few little bears led their creators right to an Apple Design Award. Bears Gratitude is a warm and welcoming title developed by the Australian husband-and-wife team of Isuru Wanasinghe and Nayomi Hettiarachchi. Journaling apps just don’t get much cuter: Through prompts like “Today isn’t over yet,” “I’m literally a new me,” and “Compliment someone,” the Swift-built app and its simple hand-drawn mascots encourage people to get in the habit of celebrating accomplishments, fostering introspection, and building gratitude. “And gratitude doesn’t have to be about big moments like birthdays or anniversaries,” says Wanasinghe. “It can be as simple as having a hot cup of coffee in the morning.” ADA FACT SHEET Bears Gratitude Winner: Delight and Fun Available on: iOS, iPadOS, macOS Team size: 2 Download Bears Gratitude from the App Store Wanasinghe is a longtime programmer who’s run an afterschool tutoring center in Sydney, Australia, for nearly a decade. But the true spark for Bears Gratitude and its predecessor, Bears Countdown, came from Hettiarachchi, a Sri Lankan-born illustrator who concentrated on her drawing hobby during the Covid-19 lockdown. Wanasinghe is more direct. “The art is the heart of everything we do,” he says. In fact, the art is the whole reason the app exists. As the pandemic months and drawings stacked up, Hettiarachchi and Wanasinghe found themselves increasingly attached to her cartoon creations, enough that they began to consider how to share them with the world. The usual social media routes beckoned, but given Wanasinghe’s background, the idea of an app offered a stronger pull. “In many cases, you get an idea, put together a design, and then do the actual development,” he says. “In our case, it’s the other way around. The art drives everything.” The art is the heart of everything we do. Isuru Wanasinghe, Bears Gratitude cofounder With hundreds of drawings at their disposal, the couple began thinking about the kinds of apps that could host them. Their first release was Bears Countdown, which employed the drawings to help people look ahead to birthdays, vacations, and other marquee moments. Countdown was never intended to be a mass-market app; the pair didn’t even check its launch stats on App Store Connect. “We’d have been excited to have 100 people enjoy what Nayomi had drawn,” says Wanasinghe. “That’s where our heads were at.” But Countdown caught on with a few influencers and become enough of a success that the pair began thinking of next steps. “We thought, well, we’ve given people a way to look forward,” says Wanasinghe. “What about reflecting on the day you just had?’” Gratitude keeps the cuddly cast from Countdown, but otherwise the app is an entirely different beast. It was also designed in what Wanasinghe says was a deliberately unusual manner. “Our design approach was almost bizarrely linear,” says Wanasinghe. “We purposely didn’t map out the app. We designed it in the same order that users experience it.” Other unorthodox decisions followed, including the absence of a sign-in screen. “We wanted people to go straight into the experience and start writing,” he says. The home-screen journaling prompts are presented via cards that users flip through by tapping left and right. “It’s definitely a nonstandard UX,” says Wanasinghe, “but we found over and over again that the first thing users did was flip through the cards.” Our design approach was almost bizarrely linear. We purposely didn’t map out the app. We designed it in the same order that users experience it. Isuru Wanasinghe, Bears Gratitude cofounder Another twist: The app’s prompts are written in the voice of the user, which Wanasinghe says was done to emphasize the personal nature of the app. “We wrote the app as if we were the only ones using it, which made it more relatable,” he says. Then there are the bears, which serve not only as a distinguishing hook in a busy field, but also as a design anchor for its creators. “We’re always thinking: ‘Instead of trying to set our app apart, how do we make it ours?’ We use apps all the time, and we know how they behave. But here we tried to detach ourselves from all that, think of it as a blank canvas, and ask, ‘What do we want this experience to be?’” Bears Gratitude isn’t a mindfulness app — Wanasinghe is careful to clarify that neither he nor Hettiarachchi are therapists or mental health professionals. “All we know about are the trials and tribulations of life,” he says. But those trials and tribulations have reached a greater world. “People have said, ‘This is just something I visit every day that brings me comfort,’” says Wanasinghe. “We’re so grateful this is the way we chose to share the art. We’re plugged into people’s lives in a meaningful way.” Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
Submissions for the Swift Student Challenge 2025 are now open through February 23. You have three more weeks to design, test, refine, and submit your app playground for consideration to be named one of 350 winners. What to know: The Challenge is free to enter — you just need access to an iPad or Mac with Swift Playground or Xcode. The best app ideas are personal — let your passion shine through your work. No formal coding experience required — the Challenge is open to students of all levels. Your app playground doesn’t need to be intricate — it should be experienced within 3 minutes or less. Where to start: Explore tools and tutorials to build an incredible app playground. Get inspired by last year’s Distinguished Winners, learn about their winning apps, and read about their experiences at Apple Park. Learn more about the Challenge
The App Store facilitates billions of transactions annually to help developers grow their businesses and provide a world-class customer experience. To further support developers’ evolving business models — such as exceptionally large content catalogs, creator experiences, and subscriptions with optional add-ons — we’re introducing the Advanced Commerce API. Developers can apply to use the Advanced Commerce API to support eligible App Store business models and more flexibly manage their In-App Purchases within their app. These purchases leverage the power of the trusted App Store commerce system, including end-to-end payment processing, tax support, customer service, and more, so developers can focus on providing great app experiences. Learn about eligibility requirements and how to apply
Starting February 17, 2025: Due to the European Union’s Digital Services Act, apps without trader status will be removed from the App Store in the European Union until trader status is provided and verified, if necessary. As a reminder, Account Holders or Admins in the Apple Developer Program need to enter trader status in App Store Connect for apps on the App Store in the European Union in order to comply with the Digital Services Act. Learn what a trader is and how to enter your status
As part of ongoing efforts to improve security and privacy on Apple platforms, the App Store receipt signing intermediate certificate is being updated to use the SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm. This certificate is used to sign App Store receipts, which are the proof of purchase for apps and In-App Purchases. This update is being completed in multiple phases and some existing apps on the App Store may be impacted by the next update, depending on how they verify receipts. Starting January 24, 2025, if your app performs on-device receipt validation and doesn’t support the SHA-256 algorithm, your app will fail to validate the receipt. If your app prevents customers from accessing the app or premium content when receipt validation fails, your customers may lose access to their content. If your app performs on-device receipt validation, update your app to support certificates that use the SHA-256 algorithm; alternatively, use the AppTransaction and Transaction APIs to verify App Store transactions. For more details, view TN3138: Handling App Store receipt signing certificate changes.
Starting next month, Apple will change the supported algorithms that secure server connections for Apple Pay on the Web. In order to maintain uninterrupted service, you’ll need to ensure that your production servers support one or more of the designated six ciphers before February 4, 2025. These algorithm changes will affect any secure connection you’ve established as part of your Apple Pay integration, including the following touchpoints: Requesting an Apple Pay payment session (Apple Pay on the Web only) Renewing your domain verification (Apple Pay on the Web only) Receiving and handling merchant token notifications for recurring, deferred, and automatic-reload transactions (Apple Pay on the Web and in app) Creating and updating Wallet Orders (Apple Pay on the Web and in app) Managing merchant onboarding via the Apple Pay Web Merchant Registration API (payment service provider (PSP) and e-commerce platforms only)
In the first edition of the new year: Bring SwiftUI to your app in Cupertino, get ready for the Swift Student Challenge, meet the team behind Oko, and more. Read the full article
Oko is a testament to the power of simplicity. The 2024 Apple Design Award winner for Inclusivity and 2024 App Store Award winner for Cultural Impact leverages Artificial Intelligence to help blind or low-vision people navigate pedestrian walkways by alerting them to the state of signals — “Walk,” “Don’t Walk,” and the like — through haptic, audio, and visual feedback. The app instantly affords more confidence to its users. Its bare-bones UI masks a powerful blend of visual and AI tools under the hood. And it’s an especially impressive achievement for a team that had no iOS or Swift development experience before launch. “The biggest feedback we get is, ‘It’s so simple, there’s nothing complex about it,’ and that’s great to hear,” says Vincent Janssen, one of Oko’s three Belgium-based founders. “But we designed it that way because that’s what we knew how to do. It just happened to also be the right thing.” ADA FACT SHEET Oko Winner: Inclusivity Team: AYES BV Available on: iPhone Team size: 6 Previous accolades: 2024 App Store Award winner for Cultural Impact; App Store Editors’ Choice Learn more about Oko Download Oko from the App Store For Janssen and his cofounders, brother Michiel and longtime friend Willem Van de Mierop, Oko — the name translates to “eye” — was a passion project that came about during the pandemic. All three studied computer science with a concentration in AI, and had spent years working in their hometown of Antwerp. But by the beginning of 2021, the trio felt restless. “We all had full-time jobs,” says Janssen, “but the weekends were pretty boring.” Yet they knew their experience couldn’t compare to that of a longtime friend with low vision, who Janssen noticed was feeling more affected as the autumn and winter months went on. “We really started to notice that he was feeling isolated more than others,” says Janssen. “Here in Belgium, we were allowed to go for walks, but you had to be alone or with your household. That meant he couldn’t go with a volunteer or guide. As AI engineers, that got us thinking, ‘Well, there are all these stories about autonomous vehicles. Could we come up with a similar system of images or videos that would help people find their way around public spaces?’” I had maybe opened Xcode three times a few years before, but otherwise none of us had any iOS or Swift experience. Vincent Janssen, Oko founder The trio began building a prototype that consisted of a microcomputer, 3D-printed materials, and a small portable speaker borrowed from the Janssen brothers’ father. Today, Janssen calls it “hacky hardware,” something akin to a small computer with a camera. But it allowed the team and their friend — now their primary tester — to walk the idea around and poke at the technology’s potential. Could AI recognize the state of a pedestrian signal? How far away could it detect a Don’t Walk sign? How would it perform in rain or wind or snow? There was just one way to know. “We went out for long walks,” says Janssen. And while the AI and hardware performed well in their road tests, issues arose around the hardware’s size and usability, and the team begin to realize that software offered a better solution. The fact that none of the three had the slightest experience building iOS apps was simply a hurdle to clear. “I had maybe opened Xcode three times a few years before,” says Janssen, “but otherwise none of us had any iOS or Swift experience.” So that summer, the team pivoted to software, quitting their full-time jobs and throwing themselves into learning Swift through tutorials, videos, and trusty web searches. The core idea crystallized quickly: Build a simple app that relied on Camera, the Maps SDK, and a powerful AI algorithm that could help people get around town. “Today, it’s a little more complex, but in the beginning the app basically opened up a camera feed and a Core ML model to process the images,” says Janssen, noting that the original model was brought over from Python. “Luckily, the tools made the conversion really smooth.” (Oko’s AI models run locally on device.) With the software taking shape, more field testing was needed. The team reached out to accessibility-oriented organizations throughout Belgium, drafting a team of 100 or so testers to “codevelop the app,” says Janssen. Among the initial feedback: Though Oko was originally designed to be used in landscape mode, pretty much everyone preferred holding their phones in portrait mode. “I had the same experience, to be honest,” said Janssen, “but that meant we needed to redesign the whole thing.” Other changes included amending the audio feedback to more closely mimic existing real-world sounds, and addressing requests to add more visual feedback. The experience amounted to getting a real-world education about accessibility on the fly. “We found ourselves learning about VoiceOver and haptic feedback very quickly,” says Janssen. Still, the project went remarkably fast — Oko launched on the App Store in December 2021, not even a year after the trio conceived of it. “It took a little while to do things, like make sure the UI wasn’t blocked, especially since we didn’t fully understand the code we wrote in Swift,” laughs Janssen, “but in the end, the app was doing what it needed to do.” We found ourselves learning about VoiceOver and haptic feedback. Vincent Janssen, Oko founder The accessibility community took notice. And in the following months, the Oko team continued expanding its reach — Michiel Janssen and Van de Mierop traveled to the U.S. to meet with accessibility organizations and get firsthand experience with American street traffic and pedestrian patterns. But even as the app expanded, the team retained its focus on simplicity. In fact, Janssen says, they explored and eventually jettisoned some expansion ideas — including one designed to help people find and board public transportation — that made the app feel a little too complex. Today, the Oko team numbers 6, including a fleet of developers who handle more advanced Swift matters. “About a year after we launched, we got feedback about extra features and speed improvements, and needed to find people who were better at Swift than we are,” laughs Janssen. At the same time, the original trio is now learning about business, marketing, and expansion. At its core, Oko remains a sparkling example of a simple app that completes its task well. “It’s still a work in progress, and we’re learning every day,” says Janssen. In other words, there are many roads yet to cross. Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
The beta versions of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, macOS 15.3, tvOS 18.3, visionOS 2.3, and watchOS 11.3 are now available. Get your apps ready by confirming they work as expected on these releases. And to take advantage of the advancements in the latest SDKs, make sure to build and test with Xcode 16.2. View downloads and release notes Learn about testing a beta OS Learn about sending feedback
Join us in celebrating the outstanding work of these developers from around the world. Meet the winners
Attachment 2 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement has been amended to specify requirements for use of the In-App Purchase API. Please review the changes and accept the updated terms in your account. View the full terms and conditions Translations of the updated agreement will be available on the Apple Developer website within one month.
In this edition: The year in sessions, activities, apps, and games. Read the full article
The busiest season on the App Store is almost here. Make sure your apps and games are up to date and ready. App Review will continue to accept submissions throughout the holiday season. Please plan to submit time-sensitive submissions early, as we anticipate high volume and reviews may take longer to complete from December 20-26. Learn more about submitting to the App Store
Every year, the App Store Awards celebrate exceptional apps and games that improve people's lives while showcasing the highest levels of technical innovation, user experience, design, and positive cultural impact. This year, the App Store Editorial team is proud to recognize over 40 outstanding finalists. Winners will be announced in the coming weeks. Learn about the finalists
The App Store is designed to make it easy to sell your digital goods and services globally, with support for 44 currencies across 175 storefronts. From time to time, we may need to adjust prices or your proceeds due to changes in tax regulations or foreign exchange rates. These adjustments are made using publicly available exchange rate information from financial data providers to help make sure prices for apps and In-App Purchases stay consistent across all storefronts. Tax updates as of October: Your proceeds from the sale of eligible apps and In‑App Purchases have been increased in: Nepal: Apple no longer remits Nepal value-added tax (VAT) for local developers and proceeds were increased accordingly. Kazakhstan: Apple no longer remits Kazakstan VAT for local developers and proceeds were increased accordingly. Madeira: Decrease of the Madeira VAT rate from 5% to 4% for news publications, magazines and other periodicals, books, and audiobooks. Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement has been updated to indicate that Apple will not remit VAT in Nepal and Kazakhstan for local developers. Learn more about your proceeds View payments and proceeds Download financial reports Price updates as of December 2: Pricing for apps and In-App Purchases will be updated for the Japan and Türkiye storefronts if you haven’t selected one of these as the base for your app or In‑App Purchases. If you’ve selected the Japan or Türkiye storefront as the base for your app or In-App Purchase, prices won’t change. On other storefronts, prices will be updated to maintain equalization with your chosen base price. Prices won’t change in any region if your In‑App Purchase is an auto‑renewable subscription and won’t change on the storefronts where you manually manage prices instead of using the automated equalized prices. The Pricing and Availability section of Apps has been updated in App Store Connect to display these upcoming price changes. As always, you can change the prices of your apps, In‑App Purchases, and auto‑renewable subscriptions at any time. Learn more about managing your prices View or edit upcoming price changes Edit your app’s base country or region Pricing and availability start times by country or region Set a price for an In-App Purchase
Share your app or game’s upcoming content and enhancements for App Store featuring consideration with new Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect. Submit a nomination to tell our team about a new launch, in-app content, or added functionality. If you’re featured in select placements on the Today tab, you’ll also receive a notification via the App Store Connect app. In addition, you can promote your app or game’s biggest moments — such as an app launch, new version, or select featuring placements on the App Store — with readymade marketing assets. Use the App Store Connect app to generate Apple-designed assets and share them to your social media channels. Include the provided link alongside your assets so people can easily download your app or game on the App Store. Learn more about getting featured Submit a Featuring Nomination
The Push Notifications Console now includes metrics for broadcast push notifications sent in the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) production environment. The console’s interface provides an aggregated view of the broadcast push notifications that are successfully accepted by APNs, the number of devices that receive them, and a snapshot of the maximum number of devices subscribed to your channels. Set up broadcast push notifications Broadcast updates to your Live Activities
Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, Devin Davies is an excellent cook. “I’m not, like, a professional or anything,” he says, in the way that people say they’re not good at something when they are. But in addition to knowing his way around the kitchen, Davies is also a seasoned developer whose app Crouton, a Swift-built cooking aid, won him the 2024 Apple Design Award for Interaction. Crouton is part recipe manager, part exceptionally organized kitchen assistant. For starters, the app collects recipes from wherever people find them — blogs, family cookbooks, scribbled scraps from the ’90s, wherever — and uses tasty ML models to import and organize them. “If you find something online, just hit the Share button to pull it into Crouton,” says the New Zealand-based developer. “If you find a recipe in an old book, just snap a picture to save it.” And when it’s time to start cooking, Crouton reduces everything to the basics by displaying only the current step, ingredients, and measurements (including conversions). There’s no swiping around between apps to figure out how many fl oz are in a cup; no setting a timer in a different app. It’s all handled right in Crouton. “The key for me is: How quickly can I get you back to preparing the meal, rather than reading?” Davies says. ADA FACT SHEET Crouton Winner: Interaction Available on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch Team size: 1 Learn more about Crouton Download Crouton from the App Store Crouton is the classic case of a developer whipping up something he needed. As the de facto chef in the house, Davies had previously done his meal planning in the Notes app, which worked until, as he laughs, “it got a little out of hand.” At the time, Davies was in his salad days as an iOS developer, so he figured he could build something that would save him a little time. (It’s in his blood: Davies’s father is a developer too.) "Programming was never my strong suit,” he says, “but once I started building something that solved a problem, I started thinking of programming as a means to an end, and that helped.” Davies’s full-time job was his meal ticket, but he started teaching himself Swift on the side. Swift, he says, clicked a lot faster than the other languages he’d tried, especially as someone who was still developing a taste for programming. “It still took me a while to get my head into it,” he says, “but I found pretty early on that Swift worked the way I wanted a language to work. You can point Crouton at some text, import that text, and do something with it. The amount of steps you don’t have to think about is astounding.” I found pretty early on that Swift worked the way I wanted a language to work. Devin Davies, Crouton Coding with Swift offered plenty of baked-in benefits. Davies leaned on platform conventions to make navigating Crouton familiar and easy. Lists and collection views took advantage of Camera APIs. VisionKit powered text recognition; a separate model organized imported ingredients by category. “I could separate out a roughly chopped onion from a regular onion and then add the quantity using a Core ML model,” he says. “It’s amazing how someone like me can build a model to detect ingredients when I really have zero understanding of how it works.” The app came together quickly: The first version was done in about six months, but Crouton simmered for a while before finding its audience. “My mom and I were the main active users for maybe a year,” Davies laughs. “But it’s really important to build something that you use yourself — especially when you’re an indie — so there’s motivation to carry on.” Davies served up Crouton updates for a few years, and eventually the app gained more traction, culminating with its Apple Design Award for Interaction at WWDC24. That’s an appropriate category, Davies says, because he believes his approach to interaction is his app’s special sauce. “My skillset is figuring out how the pieces of an app fit together, and how you move through them from point A to B to C,” he says. “I spent a lot of time figuring out what to leave out rather than bring in.” Davies hopes to use the coming months to explore spicing up Crouton with Apple Intelligence, Live Activities on Apple Watch, and translation APIs. (Though Crouton is his primary app, he’s also built an Apple Vision Pro app called Plate Smash, which is presumably very useful for cooking stress relief.) But it’s important to him that any new features or upgrades pair nicely with the current Crouton. “I’m a big believer in starting out with core intentions and holding true to them,” he says. “I don’t think that the interface, over time, has to be completely different.” My skillset is figuring out how the pieces of an app fit together, and how you move through them from point A to B to C. Devin Davies, Crouton Because it’s a kitchen assistant, Crouton is a very personal app. It’s in someone’s kitchen at mealtime, it’s helping people prepare means for their loved ones, it’s enabling them to expand their culinary reach. It makes a direct impact on a person’s day. That’s a lot of influence to have as an app developer — even when a recipe doesn’t quite pan out. “Sometimes I’ll hear from people who discover a bug, or even a kind of misunderstanding, but they’re always very kind about it,” laughs Davies. “They’ll tell me, ‘Oh, I was baking a cake for my daughter’s birthday, and I put in way too much cream cheese and I ruined it. But, great app!’” Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
In this edition: The Swift Pathway, new developer activities around the world, and an interview with the creator of recipe app Crouton. Read the full article
As part of ongoing efforts to improve security and privacy on Apple platforms, the App Store receipt signing intermediate certificate is being updated to use the SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm. This certificate is used to sign App Store receipts, which are the proof of purchase for apps and In-App Purchases. This update is being completed in multiple phases and some existing apps on the App Store may be impacted by the next update, depending on how they verify receipts. Starting January 24, 2025, if your app performs on-device receipt validation and doesn't support a SHA-256 algorithm, your app will fail to validate the receipt. If your app prevents customers from accessing the app or premium content when receipt validation fails, your customers may lose access to their content. If your app performs on-device receipt validation, update your app to support certificates that use the SHA-256 algorithm; alternatively, use the AppTransaction and Transaction APIs to verify App Store transactions. For more details, view TN3138: Handling App Store receipt signing certificate change.
Beta testing your apps, games, and App Clips is even better with new enhancements to TestFlight. Updates include: Redesigned invitations. TestFlight invitations now include your beta app description to better highlight new features and content your app or game offers to prospective testers. Apps and games with an approved version that’s ready for distribution can also include their screenshots and app category in their invite. We’ve also added a way for people to leave feedback if they didn’t join your beta, so you can understand why they didn’t participate. Tester enrollment criteria. You can choose to set criteria, such as device type and OS versions, to more easily enroll qualified testers via a public link to provide more relevant feedback on your invite. Public link metrics. Find out how successful your public link is at enrolling testers for your app with new metrics. Understand how many testers viewed your invite in the TestFlight app and chose to accept it. If you’ve set criteria for the public link, you can also view how many testers didn’t meet the criteria. To get started with TestFlight, upload your build, add test information, and invite testers. Learn more about TestFlight
The beta versions of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 are now available. Get your apps ready by confirming they work as expected on these releases. And make sure to build and test with Xcode 16.2 beta to take advantage of the advancements in the latest SDKs. As previewed earlier this year, changes to the browser choice screen, default apps, and app deletion for EU users, as well as support in Safari for exporting user data and for web browsers to import that data, are now available in the beta versions of iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. These releases also include improvements to the Apps area in Settings first introduced in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. All users worldwide will be able to manage their default apps via a Default Apps section at the top of the Apps area. New calling and messaging defaults are also now available for all users worldwide. Following feedback from the European Commission and from developers, in these releases developers can develop and test EU-specific features, such as alternative browser engines, contactless apps, marketplace installations from web browsers, and marketplace apps, from anywhere in the world. Developers of apps that use alternative browser engines can now use WebKit in those same apps. View details about the browser choice screen, how to make an app available for users to choose as a default, how to create a calling or messaging app that can be a default, and how to import user data from Safari.
The Apple Developer Program License Agreement and its Schedules 1, 2, and 3 have been updated to support updated policies and upcoming features, and to provide clarification. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms in your account. Apple Developer Program License Agreement Definitions, Section 3.3.3(J): Specified requirements for use of App Intents. Definitions, Section 3.3.5(C): Clarified requirements for use of Sign in With Apple. Definitions, Section 3.3.8(G): Specified requirements for use of the Critical Messaging API. Definitions, Sections 3.3.9(C): Clarified requirements for use of the Apple Pay APIs; updated definition of “Apple” for use of the Apple Pay APIs. Attachment 2: Clarified requirements for use of the In-App Purchase API. Schedules 1, 2, and 3 Apple Services Pte. Ltd. is now the Apple legal entity responsible for the marketing and End-User download of the Licensed and Custom Applications by End-Users located in the following regions: Bhutan Brunei Cambodia Fiji Korea Laos Macau Maldives Micronesia, Fed States of Mongolia Myanmar Nauru Nepal Papua New Guinea Palau Solomon Islands Sri Lanka Tonga Vanuatu Paid Applications Agreement (Schedules 2 and 3) Exhibit B: Indicated that Apple shall not collect and remit taxes for local developers in Nepal and Kazakhstan, and such developers shall be solely responsible for the collection and remittance of such taxes as may be required by local law. Exhibit C: Section 6: Clarified that Apple will apply Korean VAT on the commissions payable by Korean developers to Apple to be deducted from remittance with respect to sales to Korean customers pursuant to local tax laws. Section 10: For Singaporean developers who have registered for Singapore GST and have provided their Singapore GST registration number to Apple, clarified that Apple will apply Singaporean GST on the commissions payable by Singaporean developers to Apple to be deducted from remittance with respect to sales to Singaporean customers pursuant to local tax laws. View the full terms and conditions Translations of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement will be available on the Apple Developer website within one month.
Starting today, in order to submit updates for apps on the App Store in the European Union (EU) Account Holders or Admins in the Apple Developer Program need to enter trader status in App Store Connect. If you’re a trader, you’ll need to provide your trader information before you can submit your app for review. Starting February 17, 2025, apps without trader status will be removed from the App Store in the EU until trader status is provided and verified in order to comply with the Digital Services Act. Learn what a trader is and how to enter your status
The Certification Authority (CA) for Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is changing. APNs will update the server certificates in sandbox on January 20, 2025, and in production on February 24, 2025. All developers using APNs will need to update their application’s Trust Store to include the new server certificate: SHA-2 Root : USERTrust RSA Certification Authority certificate. To ensure a smooth transition and avoid push notification delivery failures, please make sure that both old and new server certificates are included in the Trust Store before the cut-off date for each of your application servers that connect to sandbox and production. At this time, you don’t need to update the APNs SSL provider certificates issued to you by Apple.
Get your app up to speed, meet the team behind Lies of P, explore new student resources, and more. Read the full article
Lies of P is closer to its surprising source material than you might think. Based on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, the Apple Design Award-winning game is a macabre reimagining of the story of a puppet who longs to be a real boy. Collodi’s story is still best known as a children’s fable. But it’s also preprogrammed with more than its share of darkness — which made it an appealing foundation for Lies of P director Jiwon Choi. “When we were looking for stories to base the game on, we had a checklist of needs,” says Choi. “We wanted something dark. We wanted a story that was familiar but not entirely childish. And the deeper we dove into Pinocchio, the more we found that it checked off everything we were looking for.” ADA FACT SHEET Lies of P Winner: Visuals and Graphics Team: ROUND8 Studio (developer), NEOWIZ (publisher) Available on: Mac Team size: 100 Previous accolades: App Store 2023 Mac Game of the Year, App Store Editors’ Choice Developed by the South Korea-based ROUND8 Studio and published by its parent company, NEOWIZ, Lies of P is a lavishly rendered dark fantasy adventure and a technical showpiece for Mac with Apple silicon. Yes, players control a humanoid puppet created by Geppetto. But instead of a little wooden boy with a penchant for little white lies, the game’s protagonist is a mechanical warrior with an array of massive swords and a mission to battle through the burned-out city of Krat to find his maker — who isn’t exactly the genial old woodcarver from the fable. “The story is well-known, and so are the characters,” says Choi. “We knew that to create a lasting memory for gamers, we had to add our own twists.” Those twists abound. The puppet is accompanied by a digital lamp assistant named Gemini — pronounced “jim-i-nee,” of course. A major character is a play on the original’s kindly Blue Fairy. A game boss named Mad Donkey is a lot more irritable than the donkeys featured in Collodi’s story. And though nobody’s nose grows in Lies of P, characters have opportunities to lie in a way that directly affects the storyline — and potentially one of the game’s multiple endings. We knew that to create a lasting memory for gamers, we had to add our own twists. Jiwon Choi, Lies of P director “If you play without knowing the original story, you might not catch all those twists,” says Choi. “But it goes the other way, too. We’ve heard from players who became curious about the original story, so they went back and found out about our twists that way.” There’s nothing curious about the game’s success: In addition to winning a 2024 Apple Design Award for Visuals and Graphics, Lies of P was named the App Store’s 2023 Mac Game of the Year and has collected a bounty of accolades from the gaming community. Many of those call out the game’s visual beauty, a world of rich textures, detailed lighting, and visual customization options like MetalFX upscaling and volumetric fog effects that let you style the ruined city to your liking. For that city, the ROUND8 team added another twist by moving the story from its original Italian locale to the Belle Èpoque era of pre-WWI France. “Everyone expected Italy, and everyone expected steampunk,” says Choi, “but we wanted something that wasn’t quite as common in the gaming industry. We considered a few other locations, like the wild west, but the Belle Èpoque was the right mix of beauty and prosperity. We just made it darker and gloomier.” We considered a few other locations, like the wild west, but the Belle Èpoque was the right mix of beauty and prosperity. We just made it darker and gloomier. Jiwon Choi, Lies of P director To create the game’s fierce (and oily) combat, Choi and the team took existing Soulslike elements and added their own touches, like customizable weapons that can be assembled from items lying around Krat. “We found that players will often find a weapon they like and use it until the ending,” says Choi. “We found that inefficient. But we also know that everyone has a different taste for weapons.” The system, he says, gives players the freedom to choose their own combinations instead of pursuing a “best” pre-ordained weapon. And the strategy worked: Choi says players are often found online discussing the best combinations rather than the best weapons. “That was our intention when creating the system,” he says. Also intentional: The game’s approach to lying, another twist on the source material. “Lying in the game isn’t just about deceiving a counterpart,” says Choi. “Humans are the only species who can lie to one another, so lying is about exploring the core of this character.” It’s also about the murky ethics of lying: Lies of P suggests that, at times, nothing is as human — or humane — as a well-intentioned falsehood. “The puppet of Geppetto is not human,” says Choi. “But at the same time, the puppet acts like a human and occasionally exhibits human behavior, like getting emotional listening to music. The idea was: Lying is something a human might do. That’s why it’s part of the game.” The Lies of P story might not be done just yet. Choi and team are working on downloadable content and a potential sequel — possibly starring another iconic character who’s briefly teased in the game’s ending. But in the meantime, the team is taking a moment to enjoy the fruits of their success. “At the beginning of development, I honestly doubted that we could even pull this off,” says Choi. “For me, the most surprising thing is that we achieved this. And that makes us think, ‘Well, maybe we could do better next time.’” Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
We’re thrilled to announce the Swift Student Challenge 2025. The Challenge provides the next generation of student developers the opportunity to showcase their creativity and coding skills by building app playgrounds with Swift. Applications for the next Challenge will open in February 2025 for three weeks. We’ll select 350 Swift Student Challenge winners whose submissions demonstrate excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity. From this esteemed group, we’ll name 50 Distinguished Winners whose work is truly exceptional and invite them to join us at Apple in Cupertino for three incredible days where they’ll gain invaluable insights from Apple experts and engineers, connect with their peers, and enjoy a host of unforgettable experiences. All Challenge winners will receive one year of membership in the Apple Developer Program, a special gift from Apple, and more. To help you get ready, we’re launching new coding resources, including Swift Coding Clubs designed for students to develop skills for a future career, build community, and get ready for the Challenge. Learn more
Apple is committed to making the App Store a safe place for everyone — especially kids. Within the next few months, the following regional age ratings for Australia and France will be implemented in accordance with local laws. No action is needed on your part. Where required by local regulations, regional ratings will appear alongside Apple global age ratings. Australia Apps with any instances of simulated gambling will display an R18+ regional age rating in addition to the Apple global age rating on the App Store in Australia. France Apps with a 17+ Apple global age rating will also display an 18+ regional age rating on the App Store in France. Learn more about the age ratings
The App Review Guidelines have been revised to add iPadOS to Notarization. Starting September 16: Users in the EU can download iPadOS apps on the App Store and through alternative distribution. As mentioned in May, if you have entered into the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU, iPadOS first annual installs will begin to accrue and the lower App Store commission rate will apply. Alternative browser engines can be used in iPadOS apps. Historical App Install Reports in App Store Connect that can be used with our fee calculator will include iPadOS. If you’ve entered into a previous version of the following agreements, be sure to sign the latest version, which supports iPadOS: Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU Web Browser Engine Entitlement Addendum for Apps in the EU Embedded Browser Engine Entitlement Addendum for Apps in the EU Learn more about the update on apps distributed in the EU Translations of the guidelines will be available on the Apple Developer website within one month.
You can now configure win-back offers — a new type of offer for auto-renewable subscriptions — in App Store Connect. Win-back offers allow you to reach previous subscribers and encourage them to resubscribe to your app or game. For example, you can create a pay up front offer for a reduced subscription price of $9.99 for six months, with a standard renewal price of $39.99 per year. Based on your offer configuration, Apple displays these offers to eligible customers in various places, including: Across the App Store, including on your product page, as well as in personalized recommendations and editorial selections on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs. In your app or game. Via a direct link you share using your own marketing channels. In Subscription settings. When creating win-back offers in App Store Connect, you’ll determine customer eligibility, select regional availability, and choose the discount type. Eligible customers will be able to discover win-back offers this fall. Set up win-back offers Learn about win-back offers
iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, and watchOS 11 will soon be available to customers worldwide. Build your apps and games using the Xcode 16 Release Candidate and latest SDKs, test them using TestFlight, and submit them for review to the App Store. You can now start deploying seamlessly to TestFlight and the App Store from Xcode Cloud. With exciting new features like watchOS Live Activities, app icon customization, and powerful updates to Swift, Siri, Controls, and Core ML, you can deliver even more unique experiences on Apple platforms. And beginning next month, you’ll be able to bring the incredible new features of Apple Intelligence into your apps to help inspire the way users communicate, work, and express themselves. Starting April 2025, apps uploaded to App Store Connect must be built with SDKs for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, or watchOS 11. Learn about submitting apps
Get your apps ready by digging into these video sessions and resources. Explore machine learning on Apple platforms Watch now Bring expression to your app with Genmoji Watch now Browse new resources Learn how to make actions available to Siri and Apple Intelligence. Ebook actions Camera actions Presentation actions Need a boost? Check out our curated guide to machine learning and AI. FEATURED Get ready for OS updates Dive into the latest updates with these developer sessions. Level up your games Port advanced games to Apple platforms Watch now Design advanced games for Apple platforms Watch now Bring your vision to life Design great visionOS apps Watch now Design interactive experiences for visionOS Watch now Upgrade your iOS and iPadOS apps Extend your app’s controls across the system Watch now Elevate your tab and sidebar experience in iPadOS Watch now Browse Apple Developer on YouTube Get expert guidance Check out curated guides to the latest features and technologies. Games visionOS iOS and iPadOS BEHIND THE DESIGN Rytmos: A puzzle game with a global beat Find out how Floppy Club built an Apple Design Award winner that sounds as good as it looks. Behind the Design: The rhythms of Rytmos View now MEET WITH APPLE Reserve your spot for upcoming developer activities Envision the future: Create great apps for visionOS: Find out how to build visionOS apps for a variety of use cases. (October 2, Cupertino) Build faster and more efficient apps: Learn how to optimize your use of Apple frameworks, resolve performance issues, and reduce launch time. (October 23, Cupertino) Subscribe to Hello Developer Want to get Hello Developer in your inbox? Make sure you’ve opted in to receive emails about developer news and events by updating your email preferences in your developer account. Share your thoughts We’d love to hear from you. If you have suggestions for our activities or stories, please let us know.
Rytmos is a game that sounds as good as it looks. With its global rhythms, sci-fi visuals, and clever puzzles, the 2024 Apple Design Award winner for Interaction is both a challenge and an artistic achievement. To solve each level, players must create linear pathways on increasingly complex boards, dodging obstacles and triggering buttons along the way. It’s all set to a world-music backdrop; different levels feature genres as diverse as Ethiopian jazz, Hawaiian slack key guitar, and Gamelan from Indonesia, just to name a few. And here’s the hook: Every time you clear a level, you add an instrument to an ever-growing song. “The idea is that instead of reacting to the music, you’re creating it,” says Asger Strandby, cofounder of Floppy Club, the Denmark-based studio behind Rytmos. “We do a lot to make sure it doesn’t sound too wild. But the music in Rytmos is entirely generated by the way you solve the puzzles.” ADA FACT SHEET Rytmos Winner: Interaction Team: Floppy Club Available on: iPhone, iPad Team size: 5 Learn more about Rytmos Download Rytmos from the App Store The artful game is the result of a partnership that dates back decades. In addition to being developers, Strandby and Floppy Club cofounder Niels Böttcher are both musicians who hail from the town of Aarhus in Denmark. “It’s a small enough place that if you work in music, you probably know everyone in the community,” laughs Böttcher. The music in Rytmos comes mostly from traveling and being curious. Niels Böttcher, Floppy Club cofounder The pair connected back in the early 2000s, bonding over music more than games. “For me, games were this magical thing that you could never really make yourself,” says Strandby. “I was a geeky kid, so I made music and eventually web pages on computers, but I never really thought I could make games until I was in my twenties.” Instead, Strandby formed bands like Analogik, which married a wild variety of crate-digging samples — swing music, Eastern European folk, Eurovision-worthy pop — with hip-hop beats. Strandby was the frontman, while Böttcher handled the behind-the-scenes work. “I was the manager in everything but name,” he says. The band was a success: Analogik went on to release five studio albums and perform at Glastonbury, Roskilde, and other big European festivals. But when their music adventure ended, the pair moved back into separate tech jobs for several years — until the time came to join forces again. “We found ourselves brainstorming one day, thinking about, ‘Could we combine music and games in some way?’” says Böttcher. “There are fun similarities between the two in terms of structures and patterns. We thought, ‘Well, let’s give it a shot.’” The duo launched work on a rhythm game that was powered by their histories and travels. “I’ve collected CDs and tapes from all over the world, so the genres in Rytmos are very carefully chosen,” says Böttcher. “We really love Ethiopian jazz music, so we included that. Gamelan music (traditional Indonesian ensemble music that’s heavy on percussion) is pretty wild, but incredible. And sometimes, you just hear an instrument and say, ‘Oh, that tabla has a really nice sound.’ So the music in Rytmos comes mostly from traveling and being curious.” The game took shape early, but the mazes in its initial versions were much more intricate. To help bring them down to a more approachable level, the Floppy Club team brought on art director Niels Fyrst. “He was all about making things cleaner and clearer,” says Böttcher. “Once we saw what he was proposing — and how it made the game stronger — we realized, ‘OK, maybe we’re onto something.’” Success in Rytmos isn't just that you're beating a level. It's that you're creating something. Asger Strandby, Floppy Club cofounder Still, even with a more manageable set of puzzles, a great deal of design complexity remained. Building Rytmos levels was like stacking a puzzle on a puzzle; the team not only had to build out the levels, but also create the music to match. To do so, Strandby and his brother, Bo, would sketch out a level and then send it over to Böttcher, who would sync it to music — a process that proved even more difficult than it seems. “The sound is very dependent on the location of the obstacles in the puzzles,” says Strandby. “That’s what shapes the music that comes out of the game. So we’d test and test again to make sure the sound didn’t break the idea of the puzzle.” The process, he says, was “quite difficult” to get right. “Usually with something like this, you create a loop, and then maybe add another loop, and then add layers on top of it,” says Böttcher. “In Rytmos, hitting an emitter triggers a tone, percussion sound, or chord. One tone hits another tone, and then another, and then another. In essence, you’re creating a pattern while playing the game.” We’ve actually gone back to make some of the songs more imprecise, because we want them to sound human. Niels Böttcher, Floppy Club cofounder The unorthodox approach leaves room for creativity. “Two different people’s solutions can sound different,” says Strandby. And when players win a level, they unlock a “jam mode” where they can play and practice freely. "It’s just something to do with no rules after all the puzzling,” laughs Strandby. Yet despite all the technical magic happening behind the scenes, the actual musical results had to have a human feel. “We’re dealing with genres that are analog and organic, so they couldn’t sound electronic at all,” says Böttcher. “We’ve actually gone back to make some of the songs more imprecise, because we want them to sound human.” Best of all, the game is shot through with creativity and cleverness — even offscreen. Each letter in the Rytmos logo represents the solution to a puzzle. The company’s logo is a 3.5-inch floppy disk, a little nod to their first software love. (“That’s all I wished for every birthday,” laughs Böttcher.) And both Böttcher and Strandby hope that the game serves as an introduction to both sounds and people they might not be familiar with. "Learning about music is a great way to learn about a culture,” says Strandby. But mostly, Rytmos is an inspirational experience that meets its lofty goal. “Success in Rytmos isn’t just that you’re beating a level,” says Strandby. “It’s that you’re creating something.” Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.
The App Store is designed to make it easy to sell your digital goods and services globally, with support for 44 currencies across 175 storefronts. From time to time, we may need to adjust prices or your proceeds due to changes in tax regulations or foreign exchange rates. These adjustments are made using publicly available exchange rate information from financial data providers to help make sure prices for apps and In-App Purchases stay consistent across all storefronts. Price updates On September 16: Pricing for apps and In-App Purchases¹ will be updated for the Chile, Laos, and Senegal storefronts if you haven’t selected one of these as the base for your app or In‑App Purchase.¹ These updates also consider value‑added tax (VAT) introductions listed in the “Tax updates” section below. If you’ve selected the Chile, Laos, or Senegal storefront as the base for your app or In-App Purchase, prices won’t change. On other storefronts, prices will be updated to maintain equalization with your chosen base price. Prices won’t change in any region if your In‑App Purchase is an auto‑renewable subscription and won’t change on the storefronts where you manually manage prices instead of using the automated equalized prices. The Pricing and Availability section of Apps has been updated in App Store Connect to display these upcoming price changes. As always, you can change the prices of your apps, In‑App Purchases, and auto‑renewable subscriptions at any time. Learn more about managing your prices View or edit upcoming price changes Edit your app’s base country or region Pricing and availability start times by region Set a price for an In-App Purchase Tax updates As of August 29: Your proceeds from the sale of eligible apps and In‑App Purchases have been modified in: Laos: VAT introduction of 10% Senegal: VAT introduction of 18% India: Equalization levy of 2% no longer applicable Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement has been updated to indicate that Apple collects and remits applicable taxes in Laos and Senegal. Beginning in September: Your proceeds from the sale of eligible apps and In‑App Purchases will be modified in: Canada: Digital services tax introduction of 3% Finland: VAT increase from 24% to 25.5% Learn more about your proceeds View payments and proceeds Download financial reports 1: Excludes auto-renewable subscriptions.
Join us for a special Apple Event on September 9 at 10 a.m. PT. Watch on apple.com, Apple TV, or YouTube Live.
By the end of this year, we’ll make changes to the browser choice screen, default apps, and app deletion for iOS and iPadOS for users in the EU. These updates come from our ongoing and continuing dialogue with the European Commission about compliance with the Digital Market Act’s requirements in these areas. Developers of browsers offered in the browser choice screen in the EU will have additional information about their browser shown to users who view the choice screen, and will get access to more data about the performance of the choice screen. The updated choice screen will be shown to all EU users who have Safari set as their default browser. For details about the changes coming to the browser choice screen, view About the browser choice screen in the EU. For users in the EU, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will also include a new Default Apps section in Settings that lists defaults available to each user. In future software updates, users will get new default settings for dialing phone numbers, sending messages, translating text, navigation, managing passwords, keyboards, and call spam filters. To learn more, view Update on apps distributed in the European Union. Additionally, the App Store, Messages, Photos, Camera, and Safari apps will now be deletable for users in the EU.
As a reminder, Account Holders or Admins in the Apple Developer Program need to enter trader status in App Store Connect for apps on the App Store in the European Union (EU) in order to comply with the Digital Services Act. Please note these new dates and requirements: October 16, 2024: Trader status will be required to submit app updates. If you’re a trader, you’ll need to provide your trader information before you can submit your app for review. February 17, 2025: Apps without trader status will be removed from the App Store in the EU until trader status is provided and verified. Learn what a trader is and how to enter your status
Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers, and encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Attendees benefit from one-on-one code-level guidance, receive unprecedented access to Apple engineers and experts, and become part of the extended global network of Apple Entrepreneur Camp alumni. Applications are now open for female,* Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous founders and developers. And this year we’re thrilled to bring back our in-person programming at Apple in Cupertino. For those who can’t attend in person, we’re still offering our full program online. We welcome established entrepreneurs with app-driven businesses to learn more about eligibility requirements and apply today. Apply by September 3, 2024. Learn more * Apple believes that gender expression is a fundamental right. We welcome all women to apply to this program.
In response to the announcement by the European Commission in June, we’re making the following changes to Apple’s Digital Markets Act compliance plan. We’re introducing updated terms that will apply this fall for developers with apps in the European Union storefronts of the App Store that use the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement. Key changes include: Developers can communicate and promote offers for purchases available at a destination of their choice. The destination can be an alternative app marketplace, another app, or a website, and it can be accessed outside the app or via a web view that appears in the app. Developers may design and execute within their apps the communication and promotion of offers. This includes providing information about prices of subscriptions or any other offer available both within or outside the app, and providing explanations or instructions about how to subscribe to offers outside the application. These communications must provide accurate information regarding the digital goods or services available for purchase. Developers may choose to use an actionable link that can be tapped, clicked, or scanned, to take users to their destination. Developers can use any number of URLs, without declaring them in the app’s Info.plist. Links with parameters, redirects, and intermediate links to landing pages are permitted. Updated business terms for apps with the External Purchase Link Entitlement are being introduced to align with the changes to these capabilities. Learn more by visiting Alternative payment options on the App Store in the European Union or request a 30-minute online consultation to ask questions and provide feedback about these changes.
You can subscribe to this RSS to get more information