2020 has provided a lot of change to what we might have expected. A vast majority of the world has had to quarantine or shelter in place and due to Covid-19. Because of this, many things have been interrupted and/or delayed. Some of these delays has likely included Apple's development of their operating systems and platforms.

One of the items has been Apple's World Wide Developer Conference itself. Typically WWDC occurs the first or second week of June at the San Diego Convention Center. That is not occurring. Instead, WWDC is a fully virtual conference.

Even with all of this uncertainty, there are some things that are guaranteed. Some of the guaranteed items include seeing information about the next version of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. So, the fact that these will be shown, none of them are within my guesses.

Initially I was only going to do my "Hopes for Improvement" post, but I have decided to an actual predictions post as well. Normally, I would have a bunch of predictions, but this year I do not have that many, or at least not as many as other years. This year I will be breaking my guesses down by platform. There are only 10 total.

macOS

There is one thing that I actually enjoy predicting each year. That item is the name of the next version of macOS. With Apple using California place names, I think it will be one of the following:

• Golden Gate
• Sequoia
• Tahoe
• Redwood
• Mammoth
• Oxnard (for the Dunes)
• Channel Islands
• Napa
• Big Sur

I am giving the percentage of one of these names being used at 65%. I will not be surprised if I am entirely wrong, because my guesses have not been accurate in the past.

I think we will see some improvements with MacCatalyst. Specifically, improved options for controls. I give this a 50% chance of happening.

Next is Messages. I am guessing that Messages on the Mac will become a Catalyst app and will have feature parity with iOS. I give this a 95% chance of happening.

Transition to ARM

There has been much talk about Apple moving away from Intel and using their own ARM-based chips. I think that this transition will be announced and I give it a 50% chance of being announced.

Furthermore, I am giving a 5% chance of an actual device being available for developers to order. I would love it to be the case. I would even be willing to pay full price, provided I get to keep the device.

iPadOS

The iPad is a device that could use a significant improvement to some of its features. I think we will see some changes to the way the home screen functions. The home screen has been a grid since the original iPhone. The grid on the iPhone makes sense, but on the iPad, much more can be done. I think there will be a new list view option, similar to the Apple Watch. I am giving this a 70% possibility. I am also thinking this will come to the iPhone, and give this a 60% chance of happening.

watchOS

I think we will see additional health-related items on watchOS. This could be something like a new workout type, or more likely sleep tracking. I give this a 75% chance of occurring.

The second item for watchOS is the ability for third-party watch faces with a new framework. This will allow third-parties to create and customize various aspects of the watch face. I am giving this a 25% probability of happening.

iCloud

I think we will see an announcement that the base iCloud storage will be doubled to 10GB instead of the measly and paltry 5GB available now. I give this a 5% chance of happening. I would like to give this a higher chance, but I do not think Apple will do increase it, but there is always a chance.

Prediction Recap

I do not have that many predictions for this year's WWDC announcements. Here is a recap of my predictions:

• Messages on Mac same as iOS -- 95%
• New health-related task on watchOS -- 75%
• App List view on iPadOS -- 70%
• macOS being one of the names listed -- 65%
• App List view on iPhone -- 60%
• Transition to ARM being announced -- 50%
• Mac Catalyst controls update -- 50%
• Third-party Watch Faces -- 25%
• ARM Dev Kit available for order -- 5%
• Double base iCloud Storage -- 5%

The keynote for WWDC 2020 will be airing tomorrow at 10:00am Pacific Time on June 22nd. I will have a recap of the keynote after it has finished.

I have been thinking about the 'Hey' app controversy that has been happening this week. I was not sure if I was going to post about it, but I have decided I have thing to say about it. I will not go in-depth into the situation. There are others that have done a much better job than I could.

If you want to read the start of it, you can begin with the original Twitter thread from Basecamp's co-founder, and Chief Technology Office, David Heinemeier Hansson. The first tweet is below and clicking on it will show the entire thread.

https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017

For more comprehensive coverage, check out a TechCrunch piece by Sarah Perez and an interview with Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino. Despite the more expansive coverage by others, a brief summary is needed.

Brief Summary

To summarize the issue, Apple is refusing to allow an update for Basecamp's 'Hey' email app, without Basecamp implementing in-app purchasing for subscriptions. Doing so allows Apple to get their 30% cut of the subscription fee. I have some thoughts on this as an independent developer.

My Thoughts

First, this entire situation should be terrifying for all developers. The amount of power that Apple has over the App Store is absolute. They can make or break an independent developer. If Apple is willing to pick on a large developer, then what chance does a small and independent developer have? Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, has heard from numerous companies, "from the smallest companies in the world to the largest", about how they have been subjected to the same demands as Basecamp, so this is not a one-off situation.

Second, this is very bad from an optics standpoint. Former technology journalist, and super smart techie, Christina Warren sums it up quite nicely:

https://twitter.com/film_girl/status/1273405263563771904?s=21

This is a complete and utter shit show, plain and simple. There have been many examples of Apple doing things that go against the interest of developers. Sometimes these are in the names of customer privacy, which is to be lauded, yet in other situations, the actions are just plainly against the developer.

Third, the timing of this could not have been worse. If this had been, say November, it might not get as much attention, but this is the week before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. The week prior to, and of WWDC, the focus is on Apple, its developers, and the new releases. Furthermore, the response from Apple became a focus of the technology community on the same day that the European Union began investigating Apple for its App Store practices.

What did not help was the tone of the response to Basecamp. As Ben Thompson and John Gruber stated on their June 19th episode of their podcast Dithering, typically "Apple is a measure twice and cut once company", also stated, and I am paraphrasing, "it could be that Apple felt pressure to respond" as to not have the story continue into WWDC week, when they want the focus to be on the new releases.

From Ben Thompson's June 18th Stratechery newsletter:

Everyone else is absolutely terrified of Apple — again, from the smallest companies in the world to the largest.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that executives in the tech industry are more afraid of Apple in 2020 than they were of Microsoft two decades ago. App Store Review is such an absolute gatekeeper, and the number of ways that Apple can retaliate are so varied and hard to verify, that no one is willing to publicly breathe a word against the company.

This last sentence is the part that I think is the most problematic. Microsoft had quite a strong hold on the internet browser market in the mid-1990s that it was difficult for anyone else to make a dent into the market, because the browser was built into the operating system with no way to uninstall. I would venture to say that their stranglehold is somewhat similar to the way that Google has used its dominate market position to force changes that go against the open web standards, but that is a different topic entirely. The result of these practices was the infamous Microsoft was an anti-trust trial that resulted in Microsoft having to unbundle their internet browser from the operating system and provide users with alternatives. It it unknown what a similar trial for Apple would result in.

The arbitrary nature of the App Store approval process is not new. Many Apple developers have stated that sometimes it comes to the luck of the draw as to whether or not your app will get rejected for any reason. This is due to the "Monday Morning Reviewer" syndrome and the whims of the reviewer. For instance, you could submit your app for approval, have it get rejected for some reason, make a minor change or no change at all except for a build number, then resubmit and it will be approved. This shows the arbitrary nature of the App Store reviewers and the inconsistencies between them.

Lastly, many have stated that Apple's priorities are as follows:

1. Apple
2. Customers
3. Developer third.

This seems to be borne out in practice. Apple is first and foremost a public company. Their valuation depends on investors paying more for shares of the company and their primary focus is making more money. Customers coming second also makes sense, because Apple cannot make money without customers.

However, having developers being last does not always make sense. I think Apple forgets that a vast majority of its developers, 99.9%, are also their customers, just as much as their non-developer customers are their customers. Developers, who have inarguably helped build the App Store and Apple into the company that they are today, are the same ones who buy Apple's products. They have to do so, in order to build an app and have it in the App Store. Outside of this, developers are often the ones telling their friends and family to purchase Apple products and bringing people into the Apple ecosystem. The reason that they do this is not just because they are developers, but because they also enjoy using the products.

What I think Apple seems to forget is that yes, they built the platform, however it is is the developers who have created the apps in the App Store. The apps have driven demand for Apple's products and the App Store in general. I understand that Apple has seen falling demand for the physical products and wants to wants/needs to shift to services as their primary source of revenue. This approach makes sense, but not to the extent where it will begin pushing developers to think about releasing new apps and I honestly could see some developers opting for other platforms and foregoing Apple's platforms entirely.

Furthermore, I would not be surprised if we starting seeing MORE apps that utilize cross-platform frameworks, like Electron, instead of fewer. The reason I think this is because if a developer uses one of these and Apple decides that they want to pull their app from the store, then their development workflow does not change much and they still can make money from their work. This results in a worse experience, but when you are at the whims of an arbitrary set of rules, you may not have a choice.

If you ask any developer who has been building apps for the App Store for any length of time to describe an instance when their app was rejected, each and every developer would invariably have an example to share. I am no exception to this.

My Experiences

I will state outright that I do not make my primary living from the App Store. The amount I have made from the App Store does not even cover the developer fees that I have paid. Even with that though, I still do have two apps on the App Store, and I also use my developer account to be able to download and install beta releases of Apple's platforms, for my books, so I do rely on my developer account. I have been paying for my Apple Developer account since 2008 when the iOS SDK was announced, so I am not a newbie to the App Store and the Apple developer community. This entire situation makes me quite hesitant to develop any new applications, because they can be rejected for any reason, and at any point. It is not likely that Apple would remove an already published app from the store, but it has been done.

Since my app has been on the App Store for over 10 years, I have had my fair share of app rejections. Most of these were due to mistakes on my end (like app crashes and buttons not working, or missing metadata, missing entitlements, and other minor blunders), but two that I can think of right now, were not. The first instance was when my App was rejected because Apple wanted to ask about how I used a specific feature. Instead of just putting a hold on the release, they outright rejected the app. No developer likes to have their application rejected and having it rejected for something like this seems counter-intuitive.

The second, and more time consuming issue, was when I was forced to change the name of my ad-supported app, because it contained the word "free" in the name. The app had been in the store for 8 years at that point and there was no issue up until that point. This is a prime example of rule re-interpretation. Neither of these really impacted my revenue since my app has had $635 in total sales since being released in 2010. The time consuming aspect was not the fact that the name had to be changed, but this version is the one where I introduced app icons. This caused me extensive amounts of time. First, I had to come up with a new name. Next I had to make the necessary code changes, re-create the icons, and then re-import all of them. Each icon had to be individually imported and with 14 icons and 18 different sizes for each one, this meant 252 individual icons that needed to be imported. Needless to say it was a lot of work for a change that did not need to be done, except on the whims of an Apple App Store decision.

Possible Solution

I do have an idea, which might be a compromise, but would take significant work on Apple's part. Right now there is no way to side-load an app onto iOS. I think Apple should create the ability to do so. This could, and should be, in the same manner as macOS apps that cannot, or their developers prefer not, to have them on the Mac App Store. In other words they need to be notarized.

These apps would still get the same protections that apps on MacOS get, in that they will be checked for malicious code, individual app versions can be removed. Additionally, these apps could be distributed outside of the App Store. With this approach, these apps could be allowed to use their own payment processing, but they would still be protected by the App Store. Sandboxing can be enforced and required. Alternatively, maybe it does go through a full App Store review, and a downloadable, distributable version that is counter-signed by Apple is provided.

This could be a special type of app that would not be allowed to be distributed on the App Store and it would still need to be verified before it can run. This would require significant work for Apple, not only on the App Store side, but also on iOS. They would have to build the ability to side-load apps onto iOS, which is not available now.

I do not claim that this is the best approach and I am sure that I am missing somethings that could cause the idea to not be a worthwhile pursuit, but it is something that can be looked into. It would mean additional work for users to obtain these. However, all around it could allow developers to be able to provide their apps in a secure manner and the slight relaxation of the rules for these apps would generate good will amongst developers and users.

Even if Apple were to begin working on this now and make it a priority, it will likely be a year before we will see this come to fruition. However, considering the amount of time that things like this take, it would not be something we would see for years.

Closing Thoughts

I do not think this is a one-off situation, nor the last time that this type of controversy will erupt. There have been rumblings that Apple specifically targets popular developers to make examples of them, specifically because of the popularity of the app. The developers often do not have any choice but to comply. In this particular case, Basecamp is not complying, they are going to fight.

While I understand that the App Store rules are intentionally not black and white, as to allow some interpretation, and that the rules do not explicitly state what is allowed versus not allowed, in this case I do think Apple is making a mistake by not applying the rules consistently. This line from Apple's response to Basecamp is contrary to what they are doing:

We are happy to continue to support you in your app business and offer you the solutions to provide your services for free — so long as you follow and respect the same App Store Review Guidelines and terms that all developers must follow.

There has not been consistency and enforcement of the rules. There are big companies who can get away with many things without having their apps pulled and their developer accounts cancelled. One big example is Facebook. They used background APIs to listen as well as always track users. At the same time, if a small developer did this, their app was removed and their developer account cancelled.

Sadly, I do not think Apple will be changing its mind on this. I think it will come down to Apple's hand being forced by laws and rulings that they are compelled to comply with in order for there to be any meaningful change. Unfortunately, this is not a fast process and it will take time for the investigation by the European Union to conclude. Getting a law passed in the United States, in the current political climate, is not likely either. This means that many developers will likely have no choice but comply with Apple's demands or face losing their livelihoods.

As is the case with many other developers, I am somewhat concerned about talking about the topic for fear that Apple will find it, read it, and not like what I have posted and then remove my developer account, but as you can see, I did post the article.

Just in time for Apple's World Wide Developer Conference Apple has released a couple of updates for developers. These are the Developer app and the developer forums.

Developer App

The Apple Developer app has been updated to support the Mac. This uses MacCatalyst to be able to provide the functionality on the Mac. If you open the app you are presented with a three-column layout. The sidebar on the left, a list of items in the middle, and the detail information on the right.

The sidebar allows you to select from different groupings, including Library, Browse, Platforms, and Events. These will provide you with various items under each heading. As an example, if you click on an item under the "Platforms" heading, you will get a list of videos related to that platform. If you select one of the videos, you will get the details on the right side. This is very similar to what you would get on the Apple Developer website. This applies to each of the sections under the headings.

Issues

While the app contains a lot, and is a very welcome addition to the Mac, the app is not without issues. The first of these is that there is no way to adjust the font size. This mans that if you have a large screen, or are using a large screen resolution, it may be hard to read the text. Considering how much Apple puts into accessibility, this is definitely not accessible.

The second issue is one that I find strange. If you expand the right most pane out, the content is always centered. It does not flow like it should. instead the content stays centered.

Both of these issues should be fixed, particularly the in-ability to adjust the font-size. The font size issue may be a limitation of Catalyst on macOS Catalina and maybe the functionality will work with the next version of macOS. Next, let us look at a refresh to a resource that developers may overlook, the developer forums.

Developer Forums

Today Apple unveiled a refreshed Apple developer forums. The Apple developer forums are designed to allow developers to connect with each other, as well as Apple developers, to help discover and work out issues with Apple's platforms. The old developer forums did look as though they were from the mid-2000s, which they were.

Here are a couple of screenshots from the old developer forums.

New Forums

Given the age of the Apple developer forums a refresh has been needed. Today Apple released the new developer forums. The new forums bring a new overall look. When you open up the developer forums you are presented with two column view. The columns are Top Posts on the left, and Top Tags and Top Users on the right. Similar to the image below.

Asking and Replying to Questions

Besides searching, one of the most common tasks for the developer forums is to ask a question. When you do this, you will see a page with two areas, the question and a Live Preview. The question box uses Markdown to be able to format the questions. You are able to use quite a bit of formatting. Here is a full example below.

Once you are done writing your question, you can add tags. This is done with a search to allow you to add a tag to your post. When you begin typing, a list of matching tags. If you do not have any text in the tags, a list of all of the available tags will be shown. Below is what the tags look like

If you do not have any questions but want to help others, you can reply to a question. When you do this, you can use the same Markdown formats for replying to a question.

Viewing a Question

One thing you may do when you are using the developer forums is to view a question. When you view a question you will see the question text, a thumbs up/down button on the left, the tags, how old the question is, and when it was asked.

Below the asked question, you will see any replies. The replies should be in oldest to newest. If there are more than 15 replies, the additional replies will be on subsequent pages.

Next to the name of the person who asked the question, you will see a "Share Button". The share button will display a standard Share Sheet, for the platform.

Overall, the new look works well and is an improvement over the previous developer forums. Despite all of the good, there are some issues with the new developer forums.

Problems with the new Developer Forums

The new developer forums leave a bit to be desired. In terms of layout, typography, and overall aesthetic for the developer forums, they are absolutely fantastic. Viewing an actual issue now offers a larger view and a larger amount of white space. The buttons are big, and in some respects too big. The overview is nice, as are the top tags. However, everything now comes down to search, or clicking on an existing tag within a question.

The number of results is still limited to 600 with no way to add more filters or even sort. Furthermore, the search results are usually not relevant. For instance, I did a search for "beta iOS", thinking it would show some recent beta posts, but here are the first five results with when they were asked:

• Beta iOS 9 - Asked 4 years ago
• How do I install the beta iOS 9? - Asked 5 years ago
• How How install/download beta iOS 13/watchOS 6 profile? - Asked 11 months ago
• Proactive search not displaying on Public Beta iOS 9 - Asked 4 years ago
• beta iOS 10.3 battery drain - Asked 3 years ago.

Other than the third result, the rest are not very useful. Maybe it was the search, so let us look at another example. This time I just searched "iOS". Here are the results:

• iOS 10beta to final ios 10 - Asked 3 years ago
• iOS 11 recovery to iOS 10 - Asked 2 years ago
• iOS 11 GM to iOS 11 - Asked 2 years ago
• iOS 10 restore to iOS 10 - Asked 3 years ago
• iOS 10.0.2 (iOS 10.1) Betas - Asked 3 years ago

Again, these results are not very helpful. I figured I would try something a bit newer, like ARKit. Here are those results:

• ARKit - Asked 3 years ago
• SwiftUI and ARKit - Asked 11 months ago
• ARKit on iPad? - Asked 3 years ago
• Geolocation and ARKit - Asked 3 years ago
• ARKit question - Asked 2 years ago

Even the results for ARKit are not super relevant, excluding the second result. Therefore, I am not sure if they will be useful.

Ways to Improve

I do not want to just highlight the about the new developer forums. Instead I have some ideas for improvement.

List All Tags

Provide a page that shows all of the tags, and the number of posts with that tag. I can understand not showing all tags and even limiting it to the top 50 or 100 tags with the option of displaying all tags would help developers find what they are looking for.

Filters

Add the ability to filter results. This could be with an additional keyword search that would match the current results. This even could be with some Boolean logic, for instance the phrase "swiftui and Xcode NOT beta" would show items that have both SwiftUI and Xcode, but not beta. After all these are developers and they are able to use logic.

An additional filter that Apple could add would be for time frame. Even if these are a static list, it could go a long way to being more useful.

Closing Thoughts

I will be the first to admit that I often forget about the forums except right after WWDC when I go and look to see if others are having similar issues. Even though the developer forums have been updated, I am not sure how useful they will be given their current state. I do want to reiterate that the new look is much better and much cleaner and is definitely welcome. It is the overall functionality that needs some improvement.

I am guessing that Apple wanted to get something out in time for WWDC, and they did just that. As is the case with many of the products that get re-written, it appears as though the developer forums have been done with a minimum viable product. With a minimum viable product, not every feature with the previous version is re-implemented at first, just due to time and cost. Hopefully, many of the missing features will come to the developer forums in the coming months.

There are some things that I would like to see changed with Apple's platforms. These are mostly "paper cuts", in that none of them show-stoppers in themselves but combined they make it a lot tougher to deal with the platforms. These are not my predictions for WWDC, those will be in a separate post.

Apple TV

• A way to save specific screensavers while still downloading new ones.
• Have the ability to have Siri limit to the media I already own.
• Have Siri have the ability to add more categories. For example "Show me movies that are action comedies."

macOS

• Specifically for Catalyst, more refined controls for macOS Catalyst apps that match macOS even better.
• Fix Bluetooth, for keyboard, mice, and trackpads. I have issues with bluetooth disconnecting randomly and in the middle of using it.
• Within the Mail app, keep order of accounts. The order will randomly reset when showing the app window even if the mail app was not closed, but the window was.

iCloud

• More default iCloud storage. 5GB really is paltry and just embarrassing at this point. I do not expect 100GB, but even 10GB or 25GB free would be better than the 5GB we get now.

iOS

• Improvements to Mail, like actually indicating messages have been read.
• Quick method to enable or disable "Block Unknown callers" from Control Center.
• Set default for Noise Cancelling headphones other than "Active Noise Cancelling".
• I love that iOS 13.4 added keyboard and trackpad support for iOS, but system-wide support for navigating alerts with the keyboard would be very helpful.
• Fix Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a mess on iOS, particularly for audio. For instance, my Beats Solo Pros will have distortion when using any other app, but not all the time. It is consistent enough to notice that it is a problem. For instance, if I am typing in messages while listening to something, the audio will stutter and its not the key taps making noise. The same goes for many other apps.
• Within the Files app, provide option to always show file extensions. I say an option because some will not want it, but power users, like myself, can really need it.

iPadOS

• True multiple user support, not limited to schools or businesses.
• Have a calculator, specifically license PCalc, for use on the iPad.

Screen Time

• Have actually accurate synchronization and reports. Here is a great example. April 12th, I got the following reports: iPhone: 15 hours, 59 minutes, iPadOS stated, up 51% for an average of 16 hours and 15 minutes per day, and macOS stated "You averaged 13 hours, 33 minutes of screen time per day last week." So obviously something is amiss between the synchronization of the devices and the reported screen time. Synchronization should be forced before sending the notification.

watchOS

• Qi Charging on the Apple Watch. Right now the Apple Watch uses proprietary charging, but having standard charging would be nice.

Wallet

• We need a website with the ability to see all transactions, make payments, etc.
• Additional user on the same card including adding children, and even possibly giving them a budget.

Notes

• Add the ability to not have urls automatically be created for links, preferably on a note-by-note basis.

Numbers

• Copy a table as HTML, even without any formatting, with the header rows as thead rows.

Pages

• Have it remember your place when you switch between Pages and another app, when using it on iOS.
• Provide ability to edit styles when a file is in a shared folder on iCloud. Currently, you cannot edit any styles if the file is in a folder that is shared on iCloud. You can select them, but not edit

iTunes Connect

• Create an API, similar to the App Store Connect API, for users to be able to manage their iTunes Connect items in a similar manner as App Store Connect. This would be a tremendous improvement.

These are just some of the things that I have managed to come across that would be helpful for improving the functioning of Apple's platforms. Some of these are easier to accomplish than others, and some are just bugs that should have already been fixed, but for some reason are still present within Apple's software.

The week before a World Wide Developer Conference can sometimes have new items become known. The release for these is because the items will not be discussed at the WWDC keynote. This year there are two hardware updates and a service update.

16-inch MacBook Pro Graphics

The first update is for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. There is a new graphics option available. You can now configure a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an AMD Radeon 5600M with 8GB of HBM2 memory. The other options available are all GDDR6 memory. The difference with the HBM2 memory is that it has more bandwidth available and ideally suited for Artificial Intelligence and advanced computing, like Machine Learning. Typically, HBM2 is more expensive than GDDR6 and this new option will cost you $800 to add to a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Mac Pro SSD Kit

If you are using the high-end of the high-end, the Mac Pro, there is a new kit for you, the SSD Kit. The SSD Kit for the Mac Pro will allow you to swap out the internal storage on your Mac Pro. The SSD Kit comes in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB kits. Once you have purchased your SSD Kit you can see how to install the new SSD with Apple's support article.

Apple Card Payments

When you want to go and purchase that new 16-inch MacBook Pro, you may want to be able to use your Apple Card and finance it. Previously you could finance an iPhone over 24 months, but now you can finance other products as well. You can finance a HomePod, AirPods, and the Apple TV for six months, or an iPad or Mac for 12 months. When you do this, you get the Apple Pay Cash right up front.

Closing Thoughts

The inclusion of the new hardware options will be great for pro users who can benefit from the options and can significantly enhance their productivity. For those who may not be able to utilize the hardware, you can use the monthly payments option on your purchase of a Mac, iPad, HomePod, or AirPods, in addition to an iPhone.

Source: TechCrunch

Today Apple unveiled the some details about their annual World Wide Developer Conference, or WWDC. Previously, Apple announced that the conference would be all digital. At the time, the did not provide many details except that there would be a Keynote and a State of the Union. Today we received some more details. Let us look at a few different areas, including Keynote, Videos, Labs, and Developer Forums.

Keynote

As expected there will be a keynote streaming at 10:00 am Pacific Time on Monday, June 22nd. This will be streaming from Apple Park, instead of the San Jose convention center. You will be able to stream it via the Apple Developer app, the Apple Developer website, the Apple TV app, and YouTube. If you are within China, you will be able to stream it via China, the keynote will also stream on Tencent, iQIYI, Bilibili, and Youku.

Platforms State of the Union

While the main WWDC Keynote is done at a developer-focused conference, it is also designed to be a main-stream announcement. The main keynote does not go in-depth. That is reserved for the Platforms State of the Union. If you have not watched or attended the Platforms State of the Union keynote, you can think of it as the developer-focused keynote. This will be available on-demand at 2pm pacific time on June 22nd. This keynote will be streamed via the Apple Developer app and the Apple Developer website. For those within China, you can get the video from encent, iQIYI, Bilibili, and YouKu.

Session Videos

Because WWDC 2020 is virtual conference, you may be wondering how the sessions will be handled. When WWDC is held in-person, these are presented throughout each day of the conference. These sessions are recorded and typically available the next day. Because of the virtual nature of this year's WWDC, all of the day's videos will be available starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. There will be over 100 session videos, and these will be available using the Apple Developer app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, as well as on the Apple Developer website.

Developer Labs

One of the big reasons to attend WWDC is to be able to talk one-on-one with Apple's developers in one of the labs. This is important for some because they are able to talk directly to the engineers who build the frameworks and they can help you figure out a knotty problem and you can help them find bugs in the frameworks. These will be available by appointment only and will be open to Apple Developer Program members as space is available.

Developer Forums

One of the resources that developers have, but may not utilize as much are the developer forums. These forums are vital during a beta period because developers can work with other developers to try and figure out problems, or get clarifications, with Apple's software. From the announcement:

The all-new Apple Developer Forums will connect the developer community with more than 1,000 Apple engineers to answer questions and engage in technical discussions. Starting the first day of WWDC, anyone can search and view the forum discussions to follow along, and Apple Developer Program members will be able to post their own questions and learn directly from Apple experts.

The new developers forms will be coming on June 18th.

Closing Thoughts

For a vast majority of developers the only difference between this year's WWDC and previous years is that the videos will be dropping all at once. I do feel bad for those who were really looking forward to attending WWDC in person, as it is a time for people to get together, and create relationships with other Apple developers.

It has been said quite often as of late, but we live in interesting times and I think Apple is doing the best it can with the present situation. You can keep up with announcements via the Apple Developer App and the Apple Developer Website. I will try to do a predictions/hopes post before the Keynote. I will also have a recap about what Apple announces at WWDC 2020.

Source: Apple

Apple has been a presence in Education for a majority of its existence. Over the years they have provided educational discounts for Macs, iPads, and other Apple hardware. They give discounts on software, and even allow third-parties to office bulk discounts in the iOS and Mac App Store. One of the things that they wanted to do was be able to provide a simple tool for creating rich interactive books. These could be any type of books, but textbooks were the primary market. And who uses textbooks the most, education.

The tool that Apple introduced was called iBooks Author. iBooks Author is a tool that allowed you to create these rich books, but they were in a proprietary format that was exclusive to Apple's platforms. iBooks Author allows you to include video, images, table of contents, and more.

iBooks Author is now officially deprecated. Per an email to iBooks Author users:

Thank you for being a member of the iBooks Author community. We have some news to share with you about the future of book creation.

Two years ago we brought book creation into Pages. With key features such as the ability to work on iPad, collaborate with others on a shared book, draw with Apple Pencil, and more, Pages is a great platform for making books.

As we focus our efforts on Pages, iBooks Author will no longer be updated and will soon be removed from the Mac App Store. You can continue to use iBooks Author on macOS 10.15 and earlier, and books previously published to Apple Books will remain available. If you have iBooks Author books you’d like to import into Pages for further editing, we have a book import feature coming to Pages soon.

Important Phrases

There are two important phrases that I want to highlight. First "You can continue to use iBooks Author on macOS 10.15 and earlier". This phrase indicates, at least to me, that iBooks Author will not work on macOS 10.16. It is possible that it will work, but may stop working and if that happens, there will be no support.

The second phrase to highlight is "If you have iBooks Author books you’d like to import into Pages for further editing, we have a book import feature coming to Pages soon". This is a good move. Once available, it will help users be able to keep updating their existing iBooks Author books, albeit in a new editor. As far as we know now, when you import an iBooks Author book into Pages, it will become a Pages document and you will not be able to publish them as iBooks Author books.

Closing Thoughts

This is not a real surprise. Apple's iBooks format did not take off as a way of publishing. While the tool was easy enough to use, it was proprietary to Apple's platforms and no other vendors were going to try and read the books. Furthermore, there was never an iBooks Author app on iOS, so you could not create books on the device you were going to read them on. You could preview them on device, but not create or edit them. Additionally, there was no way that Apple would move iBooks Author to iCloud for collaboration and sharing. That would be too much work for not much result.

I did not mind using the app to create books, however, even I stopped using it to publish my books in 2017. Instead, like so many others, I moved to the ePub format for my books. This is a standard and if the file is DRM free, it can be used on other devices and services. It is much easier, particularly for independent authors, to be able to create a book once and use that file to upload to various stores.

Apple has created a page that will help you transition from iBooks Author to Pages for creating books. There are some limitations that I have found with Pages, but they are minor.

Overall, I think it makes senses to focus on a single application that can work across all of Apple's platforms, and that app is Pages. One things that is not clear though, is how long the Apple iBooks will be supported by the Books app on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

There is a minor update to both wwrite and wwriteLite. There is only one tweak which is to the Feature Request screen. The entire screen has been reworked to accommodate smaller screens and the submit button is now at the top of the screen instead of the bottom.

As always these are free updates for existing users.

I have released new versions of wwrite and wwriteLite. These are a minor update that provides a few new features and some tweaks. The biggest changes are the new Sentiment icon and the ability to show only Family-Friendly ads.

New Features

• Added Sentiment option which shows how positive your text is. 0 - 33 is negative, 33 to 66 is neutral, and 66 to 100 is positive.
• There is a new option to only show "Family Friendly" ads. This is available by going to Tools -> Settings -> Family Friendly Ads. (wwriteLite only)
• The Paragraph count of the current file is now in the "Info" panel.
• Want a new feature? Use the new "Feature Request" option available under Tools -> Support. This is entirely anonymous with no email necessary.

Tweaks

• Added additional debug information. Debug information will now be sent to support when you send an email.
• Added error logs, which will be included with any email to support.

If you have played any games on any device, one of them has likely been Tetris. Tetris has been around since 1985 and there have been many versions of the game even on iOS. Tetris licenses out the name of the game so others can create a game. Back in January of 2020, a whole new version of Tetris was released by the development group N3twork. The release can be viewed on tetris.com.

As is the case with many apps these days, they are free with ads. Quite often there is the ability to remove the ads. When the app was released, there was an offer to remove ads. This was a one-time fee of $4.99. I immediately purchased this, because I do not like seeing ads when I am playing a game. The one-time purchase mechanism is useful in some situations, however, it is becoming less common. Instead, many apps are moving towards a subscription model.

In many cases, this makes sense, because a subscription can generate consistent revenue. The reason for this is because many people sign up for a subscription and often forget that they have subscribed. When it comes time to renew, if they didn't pay attention the notice from Apple, and say, "oh it's only x, I'll keep subscribing". If the fee is small enough, say $4.99 a month, most would not argue with that.

While I was digging through the interface of Tetris, I noticed that there was the option to change avatars and your background. These had a lock in the lower right corner. So I tapped on it, and it brings up the option for "Tetris Premium", which I can understand.

What shocked me though was not that they were offering a subscription, but the price. It is $4.99 per week. This is not $4.99 per month, which I can somewhat understand, but PER WEEK. This means that if you were to subscribe to Tetris Premium for an entire year, it would cost your $259.48. Here is what you would get for that:

1. No interstitial ads
2. Exclusive LCD Theme
3. Three Exclusive Avatars

That is it. I would hope that they would add more backgrounds and avatars.

My Thoughts

To me, this is completely absurd. I will concede that it is possible that this is an "accident" and it meant to be per month, but it does not seem to be the case. It is also possible that the interface can update to whatever the current offer. There are many apps that are scammy apps that try to trick people into spending money for very little in return.

I am not saying that $4.99 is inappropriate for all applications, quite the contrary. However, for a game like Tetris, pricing of $4.99 per week is definitely not worth the price. To me, this just seems like a cash grab. Not only should N3twork be ashamed, Tetris Holdings, Inc. should protect their brand, because this is going to make people stop trusting any Tetris apps in the future.