It should come no surprise that one of the biggest news items at the moment is the Covid-19 virus. Many people are currently in quarantine and have been practicing social distancing to help reduce the spread of the virus. There is a lot of information that is being shared by a variety of individuals that is false. Particularly during this time it is important to get the correct information

Today Apple, in conjunction with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to produce a new Covid-19 app that is also available on the web at apple.com/covid19.

With the app, or website, you can begin answering questions about symptoms that you, or someone else, have had. Some of these questions include symptoms, travel, if the person lives with someone who has Covid-19, and related questions.

There are a couple of things to note. First, "Your answers will not be shared with Apple or the CDC without your permission". This means that it is completely anonymous. The second item is

By using this tool, you agree to its terms and that Apple will not be liable for any harm relating to your use.

Recommendations provided by this tool do not constitute medical advice and should not be used to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Once you have finished the questionnaire, it will provide a recommendation, based upon your answers. One result that everyone should follow is:

You Should Practice Social Distancing

Help stop the spread. When outside the home, stay at least six feet away from other people, avoid groups, and only use public transit if necessary.

It is good to see Apple provide accurate and timely information.

Besides the app, Apple is helping in other ways, as outlined in a video by CEO Tim Cook.

https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1242894121372512256

Source: Apple

In addition to yesterday's announcement of a new pair of iPad Pro models, there were two other updates, to the MacBook Air and the Mac mini. Let us start with the Mac mini, as it is the more minor of the updates.

Mac mini

The Mac mini got a minor bump in base storage. The $799 Mac mini now comes with 256GB of storage standard, and the $1099 model starts at 512GB of storage. No other changes were made to the Mac mini. Now, let us look at the MacBook Air.

Macbook Air

Apple updated the MacBook Air with a few new features. The first of these is a new lower price of $999 for the base model. This lower price will get you a 1.1GHz dual-core 10th generation Intel Core i3 processor, which means that the performance may be up to 2x, according to Apple. This can be configured with a 1.1GHz Core i5 or a 1.2GHz Core i7 processor.

Along with the updated processors, you will also get 256GB of storage; which is double the previous amount of 128GB. These are configurable up to 2TB of storage, if you need that much. The memory is a faster LPDDR4X. The previous models had LPDDR3 memory, so this memory difference is definitely part of the overall speed increase.

The next change is the fact that the MacBook Air can be connected to a 6K monitor up to a resolution of 6016-by-3384 at 60Hz. It is not likely that you will want to use the MacBook Air with a 6K monitor, but if you need to, you are able to do just that.

The last change is the biggest one, the keyboard. The previous MacBook Air used the "butterfly" keys, which could be problematic. The new keyboard is called the "Magic Keyboard", and is similar to the keyboard on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. There is 1mm of travel instead of the 0.6mm of travel seen on the previous keyboard.

The MacBook Air is available for order now and will begin delivering next week.

Source: Apple

Today Apple unveiled a pair of new iPad Pro models, the 2nd Generation 11-inch iPad Pro and the 4th Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro. These two models are the same with the exception of the physical size. Both models still support the 2nd Generation Apple Pencil.

Processor

The new iPad Pro models have A12Z Bionic Chip. This is a slightly modified version of the A12X, which was in the previous generation iPad Pros. The new processor has 8 graphics and CPU cores, instead of the 7 GPU, and 8 CPU cores that were present in the previous models. This means that graphics and processing should be even faster. To quote from the press release

The eight-core GPU in the A12Z Bionic, along with an enhanced thermal architecture and tuned performance controllers, gives iPad Pro the highest performance ever in an iPad. Combined with the eight-core CPU and the powerful Neural Engine, which enables next-generation apps

Until we get our hands on the new iPad Pro and put it through its paces, it will be hard to see the real world improvement. One area where there will definitely be improvement is with the cameras.

Cameras

The new iPad Pros have an all new redesigned cameras. They now include two cameras, as 12MP wide camera and 10MP ultra-wide camera, similar to the cameras on the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. This means that you can now take wider pictures. This also means that there is a new physical capability, optical zoom out with the Ultra-wide camera. The new cameras also include 240fps recording on both cameras. The Ultra-wide camera is capable of recording at 60fps. There is one last new feature to the cameras and is new to iOS entirely, it is called a "LiDAR Sensor".

LiDAR Sensor

Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, "is used to determine distance by measuring how long it takes light to reach an object and reflect back...and opens up tremendous possibilities for augmented reality and beyond." The LiDAR Sensor will be able to measure depth, which is absolutely necessary for Augmented Reality apps.

It will be interesting to see what App developers are able to accomplish with the new LiDAR Sensor.

Sound

The 1st Generation 11-inch iPad Pro and the 3rd Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro had four speakers for audio and would automatically adjust depending on the orientation. The new iPad Pros have that as well. However, the change with the new models is in the number of microphones. There were five microphones on the previous models, and there are on the new models but they are now "Studio Quality", similar to the speakers in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. This should improve sound quality for your videos.

Magic Keyboard

The iPad is great with touch, however sometimes you need a physical keyboard to be able to handle the input. Previously, this can be accomplished using any Bluetooth keyboard or the Smart Keyboard Folio. There is a new option called the "Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro". The Magic Keyboard is more than just a simple keyboard, but it is also an iPad Stand that can be adjusted to whatever viewing angle you need for your iPad Pro.

The Magic Keyboard for each model is significantly more than a regular case or stand. The 11-inch model is $299 and the 12.9-inch model is $349. Both will be available in May and will be available in over 30 languages, so you will be able to get the keyboard that is right for you.

One thing that should also be mentioned is that the Magic Keyboard will be compatible with the 1st Generation 11-inch iPad Pro as well as the 3rd Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

iOS 13.4

The new iPads come with iOS 13.4. iOS 13.4 brings a new feature that some might expect to never arrive, trackpad support. This is not the same as the accessibility pointer support that has been in iOS 13, up until now. You can now use a connected mouse or trackpad and a cursor will appear on the screen. It will only show up on screen when you are using the mouse or trackpad. Some developers will need to improve their applications in order to fully utilize the new cursor support.

Pricing

The iPad Pro models are available in the same size, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB. models, and are available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + Cellular models. What has changed is the price of all of the models, except for the base price.

The 11-inch iPad Pro is $799, $899, $1099, and $1299 respectively. For the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the prices are $999, $1099, $1299, and $1499. You can order the models today and they will be delivered starting on March 25th.

Source: Apple

Covid-19 has become a global pandemic. Many companies, states, and other local governments are taking extraordinary steps to help curb the infection rate. The state of Illinois is going to great lengths by closing all schools for two weeks. Many companies are cancelling large gathering and having their staff work from home for extended periods of time. Apple is no exception. To quote Apple

We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27. We are committed to providing exceptional service to our customers.

The note from Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook continues:

In all of our offices, we are moving to flexible work arrangements worldwide outside of Greater China. That means team members should work remotely if their job allows, and those whose work requires them to be on site should follow guidance to maximize interpersonal space. Extensive, deep cleaning will continue at all sites. In all our offices, we are rolling out new health screenings and temperature checks.

All of our hourly workers will continue to receive pay in alignment with business as usual operations. We have expanded our leave policies to accommodate personal or family health circumstances created by COVID-19 — including recovering from an illness, caring for a sick loved one, mandatory quarantining, or childcare challenges due to school closures.

Lastly,

Apple’s committed donations to the global COVID-19 response — both to help treat those who are sick and to help lessen the economic and community impacts of the pandemic — today reached $15 million worldwide.

We’re also announcing that we are matching our employee donations two-to-one to support COVID-19 response efforts locally, nationally and internationally.

Apple closing its stores is no real surprise. They did the same thing in China during the height of its infection, so it would make sense to do the same in other parts of the world. It is also good to see Apple donating money to help those affected by the virus, as well as continuing to pay hourly workers.

Source: Apple

It is likely that you are aware that there is an international pandemic known as Covid-19. The highly transmissible virus is a problem and in order to minimize the spread, it is best to avoid large gatherings where transmission is possible.

In order to avoid having anyone contract the virus with 5,000 developers gathering in one place, Apple is changing the format of this year's WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) to an online format. For a vast majority of Apple's 23 million registered developers experience Apple's WWDC in an online-only format. In fact, the number of developer who can actually attend WWDC is 0.022% of all developers.

Apple will still hold a keynote and online sessions. To quote Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Marketing:

“The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world. We will be sharing all of the details in the weeks ahead.”

One of the downsides to moving to an online format is the fact that San Jose, where WWDC has been held the last few years, will lose out on a significant amount of revenue because of the conference. In order to help San Jose, Apple is going to provide $1 million to San Jose organizations to help offset the loss.

My prediction is that next year's WWDC will return to an in-person conference, although some of the changes made this year will still be incorporated into next year's conference. I hope to be able to watch the keynote in June, but either way I will be writing a post about what Apple announces. It will be interesting to see how this year's WWDC goes.

You can keep up to date with what Apple announces by "email, in the Apple Developer app and on the Apple Developer website".

Source: Apple

Earlier this week Apple adjusted some of its App Store Guidelines. There have been some changes surrounding prompting for App Store reviews, Sign-in With Apple, building against the iOS 13 SDK, Push Notifications, and certain app categories. The latter two are the ones I want to focus on.

Ads

One area where users often complain is in regards to the push notifications that they receive from apps. While you can control whether or not you receive push notifications from an app, it is often not possible to specify the type of notifications that you receive.

The ability for some apps to be able to advertise to their users is paramount. Often this is done via in-app ads. However, other times this is done via push notifications. This can not only detract from a user's overall experience, it goes against Apple's App Store guidelines. The guidelines have now been modified

Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.

This is a welcome change for both users and app developers. App developers will be able to advertise to users who actually choose to hear about new products and possible services. If you have an app that users enjoy and you have a new offering they will likely be more receptive to the new product.

My concern about this rule is that it will not be enforced as strictly that it should be. It is my opinion that Apple should give an app maybe two or three chances before pulling the app from the store. Repeatedly violating this app should result in a permanent ban of the app, if not the developer account. This would show app developers that Apple is serious about enforcing the rule.

There is another change that I think might have another angle that most would expect.

Dating Apps

Section 4.3 of the App Store Guidelines states:

Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, fortune telling, dating, and Kama Sutra apps, etc. already. We will reject these apps unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience. Spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Developer Program.

The first few apps: fart, burp, flashlight, and fortune telling apps are very simple and easy to make and really do not provide much value. Dating apps on the other hand can provide new and innovative experiences. However, many of them are just simply slightly tweaked takes on the "swipe left or right".

I think there is another aspect to dating apps that most might not think about. For dating apps you provide a significant amount of information like location, photos, interests and the like. This information, when linked to email address, can easily identify someone and this information can be provided to third-parties which then can be used to target you. Additionally, if the information gets into the hands of a nefarious entity, the information could be used against you.

I think this is why there is the line "unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience". I interpret this to mean that if a company like Twitter or Facebook were to want to release a dating app, it would likely be approved, but if a company called "ACME Dating app" were to try and release a dating app, it likely would be rejected.

Closing Thoughts

The guidelines that govern the App Store are adjusted from time to time to reflect changes in society and trends in the App Store. The adjustments that Apple has made are changes that could improve the experience for everyone, provided that they enforce the changes like advertising within Push Notifications. Ultimately, only time will tell if the changes will ultimately help or hinder the experience of users.

Source: Apple, 9to5Mac

Version 4.6.2 of wwriteLite is now available. This is a minor update that fixes two bugs.

1. This version fixes a crash that would occur when tapping on an ad description.
2. The second item that was fixed is the inability to perform an action on a file if ads were not disabled.

wwriteLite 4.6.2 is now available and is free.

In 2014 Apple introduced a new programming language called Swift. Swift took the best of existing programming languages and wrapped it into one. In 2016 Apple introduced a new way to work with Swift, called Swift Playgrounds.

Swift Playgrounds are, as the name implies, areas where you can play with the different aspects of Swift within a single area. Swift Playgrounds was introduced for iOS as an iPad-only app. Swift Playgrounds is no longer an iPad exclusive with the release of Swift Playgrounds on for macOS Catalina.

Swift Playgrounds on macOS is a Catalyst app. This means that it is the same code that is used with the iOS version of Swift Playgrounds. With this, it means that the app is the same as the iOS version, just available on macOS. Now that Swift Playgrounds is available on macOS you are able to use the existing playgrounds that you used on iOS on your Mac and vice versa. Additionally, any changes that you make on either platform will synchronize to the other.

The fact that Swift Playgrounds is on both platforms will allow those who may only have access to Mac and not an iPad the ability to learn how to code using Swift Playgrounds on the Mac. There is a version of Swift Playgrounds available within Xcode, but that does not have all of the same features, like code completion, the tutorials, and connectivity to the bluetooth accessories like Sphero.

If you have ever wanted to learn how to program, Swift Playgrounds is a great tool for doing so and now you can use it on your Mac. You can download Swift Playgrounds for free on the Mac App Store today. It does require macOS 10.15.3 or later.

It is not often that Apple updates the guidance that it provides to investors, however there are times when it is necessary. The first time was with Q1 2019 guidance. In that case it was due to a myriad of factors, including lack of sales in China and Emerging Markets and foreign exchange rates.

Apple is revising its guidance again with Q2 2020 numbers. The primary reason for this is due to the COVID-19, or Coronavirus, that has been a problem within Mainland China and that Apple is "experiencing a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated." This means that Apple will not meet their revenue guidance. From Apple:

The first is that worldwide iPhone supply will be temporarily constrained. While our iPhone manufacturing partner sites are located outside the Hubei province — and while all of these facilities have reopened — they are ramping up more slowly than we had anticipated. The health and well-being of every person who helps make these products possible is our paramount priority, and we are working in close consultation with our suppliers and public health experts as this ramp continues. These iPhone supply shortages will temporarily affect revenues worldwide.

The second is that demand for our products within China has been affected. All of our stores in China and many of our partner stores have been closed. Additionally, stores that are open have been operating at reduced hours and with very low customer traffic. We are gradually reopening our retail stores and will continue to do so as steadily and safely as we can. Our corporate offices and contact centers in China are open, and our online stores have remained open throughout. Outside of China, customer demand across our product and service categories has been strong to date and in line with our expectations. The situation is evolving, and we will provide more information during our next earnings call in April. Apple is fundamentally strong, and this disruption to our business is only temporary. Our first priority — now and always — is the health and safety of our employees, supply chain partners, customers and the communities in which we operate. Our profound gratitude is with those on the front lines of confronting this public health emergency.

I think Apple is doing the right thing, from both a fiduciary as well as a humanitarian standpoint. They do have to legally report to the shareholders any changes that will affect their guidance. Regarding the humanitarian side, this is a very contagious virus and the health and safety of Apple's direct employees as well as the works within the factories that produce their products.

I am sure that Apple, and the world as a whole, would prefer that COVID-19 virus was not an issue, but that is not the world we live in, and we all have to adjust accordingly.

Source: Apple

When Apple introduced the ability to publish apps to the iOS App Store in 2008, it was a very different landscape from what we have now. Back then you had either apps that you published for free or ones that were paid up front. Now, free apps are far more common than paid up-front apps.

In 2010, Apple introduced a new product, the iPad, which allowed for more opportunities within the App Store. With the introduction of the iPad you had two options, create a universal app, one that would work on both the iPhone and the iPad, or create two separate apps; one built for each platform.

While the possibility to build two distinct apps remained for a while, the introduction of the Apple Watch and the Apple TV have made the idea of creating distinct apps for each platform a bit harder to accomplish. The interfaces should be tailored for each platform, but the app itself would likely be shared amongst iOS and iPadOS.

Last year with the introduction of macOS Catalina, there was a new way to distribute your existing iOS apps, to macOS, through a project called Catalyst.

With free apps there are a number of different strategies for supporting free apps. These can be, ad-based, subscriptions, or in-app purchase. It has become more and more common for the latter two of these to be used. With in-app purchases, if you built an application for both iOS and macOS, using Catalyst or native frameworks, you would have to create two different in-app purchases, because they could not be shared between the platforms.

With the introduction of iOS 13.4 and macOS Catalina 10.15.4 you will

be allowing customers to enjoy your app and in‑app purchases across platforms by purchasing only once. You can choose to create a new app for these platforms using a single app record in App Store Connect or add platforms to your existing app record.

This is a huge change for the App Store and the distribution of apps in general. Users have been requesting the ability to purchase an app once and have it work on all of their devices. While this works for users, this can have some implications for developers.

Developer Implications

While the option to distribute a single application to all of the platforms is optional, it is likely something that users will quickly come to expect from developers. Yes, there are tools like Catalyst for macOS, it is still not at its full maturity in terms of having iOS apps ported to the Mac look and behave like native macOS apps that use AppKit.

This can have some ramifications for the developer. The first being that this can easily cut into profits for a developer. For larger companies, this may not be a big problem, but for the smaller independent developers this can have a huge impact.

With the pressure to make your application available on all platforms, and in-app purchases being good across all platforms, this will likely reduce the income for developers.

There are some developers who have wanted to have universal in-app purchases available because they want their users to be able to have the same experience on all platforms, plus users also question why they have to make the same purchase on multiple platforms. Therefore, this will be a great addition for both users and developers.

In-App Purchases on watchOS

Starting with watchOS 6.2, developers will be able to provide in-app purchases directly from watchOS. This will have a huge benefit to the watchOS platform as developers will not need to have users use their paired iPhone to perform in-app purchases, but instead have it possible to purchase them directly on the Apple Watch. This should provide a better experience for Apple Watch users and the in-app purchase workflow.

Closing Thoughts

While the addition of universal apps as well as universal in-app purchase will create a better experience for users, it could have some ramifications for developers in that they will be expected to support universal in-app purchase, which developers may want to do, as well as supporting universal app purchase, which may reduce their income.

I cannot say that this is not altogether unexpected, because it is something that both users and developers have been asking for for a while. It may take some time for applications to come to support universal in-app purchases as well as universal app purchases. This should be available starting with iOS 13.4, macOS 10.15.,4, tvOS 13.4, and watchOS 6.2.