Today Apple has made a number of announcements with many of these being related to complying with the European Union Digital Markets Act, or DMA. The DMA requires big technology companies, like Apple, to comply with a number of various new regulations.

There is a lot of information. I could attempt to detail all of the changes, but I would do a poor job of it. Instead, I am going to provide a brief overview of each of the changes, with links to a much more in-depth article. Most of these will be limited to the EU, but there are some new items that are not.

Request for Improved Interoperability

Developers can now make a request improved interoperability with the iOS hardware and software. This request form does not guarantee that a feature will be implemented. Developers will need to be explicit in their request and why they are requesting it. There are, of course, limitations. Anything that would weaken security will be rejected. This request is limited to EU developers.

You can read more information at MacRumors

Third-Party App Stores in the EU

The biggest requirement for the DMA is that Apple will be required to allow side-loading of apps from third-party app stores. These companies will be required to comply with. One requirement is that the companies must have a 1 million euro line of credit with an A-Plus rating. This is to be able to make sure they can pay some fees, but more on that in a bit.

Apps that are made available on these marketplaces will be required to be notarized through Apple, which will ensure safety and security checks, but they will not be checked for content.

More details are available at 9to5Mac.

Reduced Commissions in the EU

The third item announced is that there will be a reduced commission structure for EU developers. The new structure will drop down to 10% for Small Developers, down from 15%. For larger developers, it will be 17%. Apps that are within third-party app marketplaces can use any payment processor that they want. Including Apple’s. If they opt to use Apple’s, they will pay an additional 3% fee.

For developers who have more than 1 million installs per year, they will need to pay a Core Technology Fee, or CTF. This is €0.50 per install. This fee will need to be paid regardless of where the app is installed, via Apple or via a third-party marketplace.

Third-party Marketplaces will need to pay the Core Technology Fee for apps downloaded through the marketplace. There is no threshold for marketplaces.

You can read additional details via target="_new">9to5Mac.

Web Browsers and Near Field Communications

Apple will be opening up iOS to allow apps to access the Near Field Communication, or NFC, chip. This will allow apps to offer non-Apple "Tap to Pay" options. Details are available at MacRumors.

For the entire lifetime of iOS, there has only been a single browser engine, WebKit. To date, third-party browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, have all had to use the WebKit engine on iOS and iPadOS. This will change. They will now be able to use their own browser engine. Users will even be prompted to choose a default. This is similar to the Browser Ballet that Microsoft had to implement on Windows in the European Union.

Additional details are available on 9to5Mac.

New Gaming Streaming Options

The gaming landscape has changed significantly since iOS was initially released in 2007. When it was released, physical games were prominent. iOS has contributed to digital games being even more prevalent. One of the downsides to modern games is that they can be rather large in size. Along with this, internet speeds have become much faster. In order to limit the needs to constant updates, as well as be able to game on anything, streaming games have become more commonplace.

To date, Apple has required developers to submit every game as a discrete app. This was an untenable solution for streaming games. This will no longer be the case. This change will allow services like Xbox Game Pass and GeForce Now to be viable options via an App on the App Store. Previously these were only available via a web browser. This will apply to the App Store world wide, not just in the EU.

More details can be found on MacRumors.

New Developer Reports

The last item that was announced is that developers will be getting access to 50 new additional reporting metrics. Four of the new metrics will be engagement of users, additional details with in-app purchases, improved app usage, like crashes and deletions. The one that might be the most interesting is framework usage. This will allow developers to see how their app interacts with frameworks like Widgets, CarPlay, and PhotoPicker.

There will be more information available in March about the new metrics and reports that will be available.

Additional information can be found on MacRumors.

Closing Thoughts

Apple has clearly indicated that they will not be brining any of the EU-specific changes to any other markets, unless required to by law, so do not expect these changes to come to other markets without changes in laws.

Many of the changes announced are specific to the European Union. However, I think the new streaming game option could be a big boon to the Apple TV. This is possibly a boon because more people might opt to purchase an Apple TV and game controller and use that with Xbox Game Pass instead of purchasing an Xbox Console. Beyond this, having access to Xbox Game Pass available natively on an iPad can improve the experience overall.

Today Apple held its annual World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote. As expected they announced all of the new operating systems as well as some new hardware. iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS 14 Sonoma, were all covered and each of them included a bunch of new features.

Macs

Apple announced three new Macs today, a MacBook Air, a Mac Studio, and the Mac Pro. Let us start with the 15-inch MacBook Air.

15-inch MacBook Air

The 15-inch MacBook Air is very similar to the 13.6-inch model, in that it has an options for an 8-Core M2 chip with either 8 or 10 GPU cores, a Liquid Retina display, P3 Color gamut, and True Tone on the display. It has 2 Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports. It has a 15.3-inch screen, with 500 nits of brightness.

According to Apple, it it s 12x faster than the latest Intel-based MacBook Air and it comes with 18 hours of battery life. You can configure it up to 24GB of memory and up to 2TB of storage.

The 15-inch MacBook Air will be available to order it today and will start shipping next week. The 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1299 for the 8-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU with 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage. As a side note, the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air is now starts $1099 for the 8-Core CPU and 8-Core GPU with 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage.

Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra

The Mac Studio is Apple’s latest desktop Mac and it has been popular amongst users who need the additional power of the M1 Max and M1 Ultra. The Mac Studio is a great way of being able to have the connectivity that you need given the myriad of ports on the back of the device.

The hardware has now been updated with the M2 Max and M2 Ultra. The M2 Max is the same one that comes in the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro, so it has either a 12-core CPU, and 30-Core GPU. The M2 Ultra is double that of the M2 Max, so it has a 24-Core CPU and a 76-Core GPU. The M2 Ultra is capable of streaming 22 8K streams simultaneously, so it is a beefy powerhouse. The M2 Max also includes a 32-core Neural Engine and can support up to 192 GB of memory.

The M2 Ultra now supports up to 6 Pro Display XDR connected to a single Mac Studio with M2 Ultra, if you need that much screen real estate. On either of the models, you can configure up to 8TB of internal storage.

The Mac Studio with M2 Max is available for order today and will start shipping next week. The starting price is $1999. The Mac Studio with M2 Ultra is also available to order today and will begin shipping next week. The starting price for the Mac Studio with M2 Ultra, 64GB of memory, and 512GB SSD, and 1TB of storage is $3999.

Mac Pro

Mac Pro with Apple Silicon it combines the Apple Silicon with PCI expansion. All Mac Pro comes with M2 Ultra. This is the 24-Core CPU, 60-Core GPU, and 32-core Neural engine.

The Mac Pro with Apple Silicon comes with the performance of 7 afterburner cards, and it can unjust 24, 4K camera feeds and render them in real-time. There are also 8 thunderbolt 4 ports, six on the back and 2 on the top. There are six open PCI slots that support generation 4 PCI. This allows you to expand your Mac Pro as needed.

The Mac Pro with Apple Silicon starts at $6999, for the 24-Core CPU, 60-Core GPU, and 32-core Neural engine, and 1TB of internal storage . It can be ordered today and will start arriving next week.

iOS 17 and iPadOS 17

iOS 17 brings a few new features that will help you communicate in new ways through a feature called Contact Cards. Contact Cards are a way of allowing you to personalize your own card that will show up when you call someone. You can customize the photo, font size, font weight, and even the font color. You can choose to use a Memoji instead of a photo if desired.

Along with a personal contact card, you will also be able to see a live transcription of voicemails that are left for you, and if it is a time sensitive item, you can answer the call right from the Lock Screen. One thing that is coming to FaceTime is the ability to leave a voicemail message, so they will see that you contacted them.

Messages is getting some enhancements to its search by adding the ability to filter messages using advanced filtering.

The iPhone also gets a new “Standby” mode. When you put your iPhone in landscape mode, a new layout will appear. This layout will allow you to easily see the items that you need to see, depending on location, and time of day. This is powered by widgets, so you can see upcoming calendar events, photos, and more. StandBy will also support live activities. StandBy will be useful on a nightstand by changing the font to be red, so it will not interfere with your sleep.

There have been some improvements to both dictation and auto-correct. They will now use on-device learning to be able to more accurately predict what you want to type next.

There is one last new feature to highlight, called “Check In”. Check In will allow you to automatically notify family and friends when you get home. This is done within Messages and if you are running late, you can also extend time.

iPadOS 17

iPadOS 17 is getting some new features of its own, like the Lock Screen, Interactive Widgets, PDF improvements, and the Health App.

With iOS 16 the iPhone received a way to be able to customize the Lock Screen, including photos, fonts, and colors, and you could even include some widgets. This year the iPad gets the same features, including the ability to add more widgets along the left-side of the iPad. This makes sense given the larger real estate on an iPad. Along with the Lock Screen customizations, widgets also get some improvements.

Widgets can now be interactive, so this means that you can tap on a task and have it be completed, or you can tap on a Smart Light and have it turn on or off. This is a great enhancement that many users have been waiting for a while. Interactive widgets are available on both iOS 17 and iPadOS 17.

There is a huge improvement to PDF support within Notes. You can now add multiple PDFs to a note, annotate PDFs, and even collaborate on PDFs. All of the collaboration is real-time so if someone else makes they will be reflected on your copy.

The iPad is now getting the Health app, so you can now view everything within the Health app across iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. To go with health, there is a focus on mental health, including the ability to provide context for your mood and you can gain some insights with what is adding to your current feelings.

There is also a new “Journal” app that will allow you to provide additional information about moments in your life. There are also intelligent suggestions for things like podcasts, music, photos, contacts, and photos, among other sources of information.

watchOS 10

watchOS is getting a redesign with a focus on glanceable information through the use of stacks of information. You can quickly glance at a variety of information by swiping as you would on stacks within widgets.

Activity will now show you a full-screen view of your information for standing, exercise, and calories burned. If you are a cyclist, you now have dedicated

There are two new watch faces, Palette, which is a three layers of color to provide you the time. The second watch face features Snoopy and Woodstock and this watch face can provide various appearances depending on time of day and current weather.

For those who like to hike, there are a few new features including two waypoints, Cellular Connectivity, and SOS. The Cellular Connectivity waypoint will show you where you are able to get cellular connectivity should you need to call someone. At the same time, the SOS waypoint will show you where you can make an emergency call. Along with this, you can now see elevations and contour lines within maps, so you can more easily see how difficult your hike will be.

macOS Sonoma

macOS is a mature operating system and this year’s release of macOS Sonoma (macOS 14) is getting a few features including changes to Safari, widget enhancements, screensavers. For the screensavers you will be able to download screensavers similar to those on the Apple TV. These will also show when the Mac is locked.

Safari is seeing some new features like profiles. Profiles will allow you to keep work, school, and standard separate. When you enable profiles you will have separate cookies, tab groups, and favorites. What this means is that you can log into the same website on two different windows. One of these could be on a user account or another could be on an administrator account.

The last big feature to highlight is Interactive Widgets. Widgets are now on macOS Sonoma and they are no longer limited to the Notification Center, they can now be placed on the desktop. Widgets do not get in the way, they will stay in the background and the tint will dim their background and the widget will still be visible no matter of the background color. Widgets on macOS Sonoma will also allow you to use iPhone widgets on your Mac, provided the iPhone is nearby or on the same Wi-Fi network.

The last item to cover is the biggest announcement, the Vision Pro Headset

Vision Pro Headset

It has been long rumored that Apple was working on a headset, and today they announced just that. Their product is called Apple Vision Pro. The Apple Vision Pro Headset is an all-new product category for Apple and the first product category since the AirPods in 2016. The Apple Vision Pro headset is designed to work well in a spatial environment. The Vision Pro Headset is designed to augment what you see by providing overlays of the apps that you are used to.

The Vision Pro Headset has a feature called “EyeSight”, which will allow others to easily see if the user is able to see them, or if they are fully immersed in what they are doing. As a user, you can adjust the size of any app window to the size that makes the most sense to you. This means that you can watch a video in a window that would be similar to that in a theater, or even just in a corner, so you can watch what you want and continue to perform work.

Given the 3D nature of the Vision Pro headset, you can record videos in 3D, and even play them back at a future date. The Vision Pro headset is powered by an all new operating system called visionOS. From Apple’s announcement:

visionOS features a brand-new three-dimensional interface that makes digital content look and feel present in a user’s physical world. By responding dynamically to natural light and casting shadows, it helps the user understand scale and distance. To enable user navigation and interaction with spatial content, Apple Vision Pro introduces an entirely new input system controlled by a person’s eyes, hands, and voice. Users can browse through apps by simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to select, flicking their wrist to scroll, or using voice to dictate.

Battery life on the Vision Pro Headset is two hours with the battery pack, or all day when plugged in. The Vision Pro Headset will be available in early 2024 and it will start at $3,499. It will be available in the United States only, via Apple.com and in Apple Retail stores. You can read more about the Vision Pro headset on Apple’s dedicated Apple Vision Pro headset page.

Closing Thoughts

The items outlined above are just a fraction of what was actually announced. I think a lot of the work this year went into the Vision Pro headset as well as visionOS that powers the Vision Pro. While we did get some great features for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, with widgets. There is a lot more information in the actual Keynote, which you can watch on the Apple Special Events page.

Sources:

A few years ago Apple introduced the ability for a new type of application, content blockers. Content blockers are aptly named in that they will help you block content on the internet. The reason why you may want to block content can vary, and content blockers can help allow you to block exactly what you want to block.

The file format for the data for a content blocker is JSON. Each entry consists of two parts, a "trigger" and an "action".

Google has recently made a few new top-level domains, or TLDs, available for registration. The two problematic ones are ".zip", and ".mov". Bleeping Computer has a good write up on how these could be used in a malicious nature to trick users into visiting a site where they can get infected. The issue with these domains, as opposed to other domains, is that the ".zip" and ".mov" extensions are used as file type extensions and this could be the cause of confusion.

If you want to block a top level domain you can use the following code to block .zip domains, but still be able to download .zip files from other sites.

{
    "trigger": {
            "url-filter": ".*\.zip\/"
    },
    "action": {
        "type": "block",
    }
}

The reason that .zip domains are blocked, but files work is due to the " / " in the "url-filter". The ".zip" will match .zip domains. Domains will have a trailing forward slash, whereas files will not. The "url-filter" trigger above will match the trailing slash.

I am not sure how many people will do this, but I am providing the code should anyone want to block the .zip, or .mov top level domains.

For more information about content blockers be sure to check out Apple’s documentation site.

No product from any single company is going to be perfect for every consumer of said product. Additionally, each user is unique and not likely to be similar to any other user. Some users may need additional accomodations. These accomodations could be due to physical, cognitive, or even visual needs. In order to help their ecosystem be useable by everyone Apple has put forth tremendous effort into accessibility.

Accessibility for Apple is not just an afterthought, but it is built into every operating system that Apple ships. Furthermore, it is not a set of features that Apple adds once and does not improve upon. To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which is May 18th, Apple has previewed a set of new accessibility features coming to its operating systems later this year. The features that will be coming are:

• Point and Speak in Detection Mode in Magnifier
• Assistive Access
• Live Speech and Personal Voice

Let us look at each of these in turn, starting with Point and Speak in Detection Mode in Magnifier.

Point and Speak in Detection Mode in Magnifier

There are those who may have vision problems and have been able to benefit from a feature called Magnifier. Magnifier will, as the name suggests, magnify the view of what is being shown on an iPhone's screen. While being able to increase the size of what is being shown this is only a first step. Later this year Magnifier will be able to have the app detect text and then it will speak it out loud to the user. This will help users be able to easily understand the text on signs, appliance buttons, and a myriad of other items.

Assistive Access

There are many people within the world who have mobility issues, either temporary issues or even permanent issues. For these users beign able to use an iPhone or iPad can be quite difficult, particularly if the touch targets are smaller and more difficult to precisely touch. For those who can benefit from it, Assistive Access can be quite useful.

From Apple's press release:

Assistive Access uses innovations in design to distill apps and experiences to their essential features in order to lighten cognitive load. The feature reflects feedback from people with cognitive disabilities and their trusted supporters — focusing on the activities they enjoy — and that are foundational to iPhone and iPad: connecting with loved ones, capturing and enjoying photos, and listening to music.

Assitive Access will create a very easy to use interface with large buttons to easily access the primary featuers that a user might need to access. As an example, Assistive Access combines the Phone and FaceTime into a single app that will allow users to easily contact someone, wheether it be via a phone or via FaceTime. This will be a boon for those with mobility issues and allow them to easily access the functions of their phone that they need to access.

Live Speech and Personal Voice

Live Speech and Personal Voice is a forthcoming feature that will allow users to type out what they want to say and have it spoken out loud. This may be during a phone calls, FaceTime calls, or even in-person conversations. For some adding this feature, as outlined above, might be enough. But it goes further. From Apple's press release:

For users at risk of losing their ability to speak — such as those with a recent diagnosis of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other conditions that can progressively impact speaking ability — Personal Voice is a simple and secure way to create a voice that sounds like them.

Users can create a Personal Voice by reading along with a randomized set of text prompts to record 15 minutes of audio on iPhone or iPad. This speech accessibility feature uses on-device machine learning to keep users’ information private and secure, and integrates seamlessly with Live Speech so users can speak with their Personal Voice when connecting with loved ones.

Additional Features

The items outlined above are just the beginning. Apple has also outlined a number of additional features coming. These include:

• Deaf or hard-of-hearing users can pair Made for iPhone hearing devices directly to Mac and customize them for their hearing comfort.3 Voice Control adds phonetic suggestions for text editing so users who type with their voice can choose the right word out of several that might sound alike, like “do,” “due,” and “dew.”4 Additionally, with Voice Control Guide, users can learn tips and tricks about using voice commands as an alternative to touch and typing across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• Users with physical and motor disabilities who use Switch Control can turn any switch into a virtual game controller to play their favorite games on iPhone and iPad.
• For users with low vision, Text Size is now easier to adjust across Mac apps such as Finder, Messages, Mail, Calendar, and Notes.
• Users who are sensitive to rapid animations can automatically pause images with moving elements, such as GIFs, in Messages and Safari.
• For VoiceOver users, Siri voices sound natural and expressive even at high rates of speech feedback; users can also customize the rate at which Siri speaks to them, with options ranging from 0.8x to 2x.

Closing Thoughts

Accessibility is a large aspect to Apple's operating systems that allow users, particularly those who need some sort of accomodation, to be able to customize their devices to work in a manner that functions best for them. In order for any operating system to be successful, Accessiblity cannot be something that is bolted on after the fact. It has to be a primary concern and should be able to help users create the best experience for their needs.

The three features highlighted above, "Point and Speak in Detection Mode in Magnifier", "Assistive Access", "Live Speech and Personal Voice" are just the latest in the line of accessibility features across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. I suspect that we will see many more accessibility features being added in the future.


Source: Apple Newsroom.

Every year since 2012 I have written a book covering the new releases of Apple's operating systems, one that covers iOS and its sibling operating systems and another one for macOS. This is the 10th year that I have been writing books. Beyond it being 10 years, Apple's operating systems have become quite similar, particularly wit the addition of Apple Silicon.

This year I am doing something different, there is only one book this year. That book covers all of Apple's operating systems. The title of this year's book is "iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, tvOS 15 and watchOS 8 for Users, Administrators, and Developers".

Here is the description of the book.

Apple is on a yearly cadence for releasing new operating systems. Despite all of the troubles of 2020 and 2021, Apple has continued this cadence. This year’s releases of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey are somewhat lighter on new features that one might expect. However, the new features the operating systems have are big changes.

The biggest change is with a new Focus system, which will allow you to customize how your iPhone, iPad, and Mac all function when you need to concentrate on a particular type of task. The iPad has seen a significant change with the ability to place Widgets on the home screen. This will create a whole new experience, particularly with the extra large widget size.

For developers there are significant changes with Swift’s new async/await pattern, a whole new button system for customizing buttons, and a new continuous integration service called Xcode Cloud. Xcode itself has some improvements like inline commenting and the ability to review, merge, or close pull requests.

SwiftUI, Apple’s Swift-only UI framework has some enhancements with a new refreshable modifier, new button options, a new primitive called AsyncImage.

These topics just barely scratch what is covered in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey. The information within will provide details about all of the new features of each operating system and has something for everyone, no matter what level of expertise.

The book is available for pre-order from both Apple Books and Amazon for $4.99. The current release date is November 1st, but the book will be available whenever iOS 15 or macOS Monterey is released.

There will be a paperback forthcoming. When that is available there will be another post letting you know.

Apple has announced that they are providing even more features for those with disabilities. There are a couple of things to highlight including SignTime, Assistive Touch, eye-tracking hardware support, support for bi-directional hearing aids, and improved voiceover support.

SignTime

SignTime is a new service, available starting today, May 20th, 2021 which will allow users to communicate with Apple Retail and Customer Care representatives through a Sign Language interpreter. This is accessible right from within the browser. If a customer is in an Apple Store and needs an interpreter, they will be able to use SignTime to communicate as necessary. There are three different languages available for users, American Sign Language (ASL) in the US, British Sign Language (BSL) in the UK, and French Sign Language (LSF) in France.

There is another new feature, for those with limited mobility called AssistiveTouch.

AssistiveTouch

AssistiveTouch is a feature for the Apple Watch that will detect subtle differences for the Apple Watch that will allow users to be able to interact with the Apple Watch. This is done by the Apple Watch detecting differences in muscle movements and tendon activity to be able to sense the intension. 

This will be a significant leap in terms of inclusivity for those who may have limb differences so that they can be able to use the Apple Watch, the same as anybody else.

Those who have limb differences are not the only ones seeing some improvement. 

Eye-Tracking Support for iPad

There are those who may have motor issues and these issues would still want to be able to control an iPad. Later this year the iPad will support hardware eye-tracking devices through the Made for iPad, or MFI, program.

With the Eye-Tracking support users will be able to move the point on the iPad, solely use the eye-tracking hardware. This, like AssistiveTouch, will allow users with limited mobility to use an iPad, just like other users.

Bi-Directional Hearing Aids

There are different types of people throughout the world. There are some users who may have difficulty hearing certain things. Apple has provided some features, like “Listening Mode”, which allows you to use your iPhone or iPad as a way to increase volume.

While this may work for some users, there are those users who need other types of auditory assistance. Those users may need hearing aids. Apple has updated their MFi program to support bi-directional hearing aids. According to Apple, “The microphones in these new hearing aids enable those who are deaf or hard of hearing to have hands-free phone and FaceTime conversations”.

This will be a great way of allowing those with hearing issues to have Hearing Aids that will allow them to natively use their phone hands-free and participate in FaceTime conversations. 

Exploring Images with VoiceOver

Over the last few years Apple has been improving their object detection through machine learning. While this has been great for object detection, facial recognition, and much more. One benefit that all of this work has is a new feature that Apple will be releasing is the ability to explore images with VoiceOver. 

For those who are visually impaired, you will be able to use VoiceOver to detect objects within an image. This goes beyond what users have experienced thus far by being able to describe details about people, like their position with a photo. Beyond this, for things like receipt VoiceOver will be able to go column by column, row by row. This includes being able to provide header information. 

Closing Thoughts

These new initiatives for Apple will be great additions to be more inclusive of additional people who may mobility, hearing, and movement issues. It is good to see Apple add this, but I hope that Apple adds more assistive technologies over time.

Source: Apple

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.

When technology "just works" it is absolutely fantastic. It can allow us to do things that we never thought possible. Technology can provide us interactions and efficiencies that were mere ideas only a short time ago. However, when technology goes awry, it can be a complete disaster. This is exhibited with my ongoing iCloud issues.

The Issue

The issue I am having with iCloud is that I cannot upload any files to iCloud Drive. When I do, it just sits and pretends it will upload the files, but it does not. The same goes with downloading files from iCloud Drive; no files can be downloaded. This renders iCloud entirely useless.

Now, this may not be a big issue if I only used iCloud randomly and sporadically; but that is not the case. I use Apple's "Desktop & Documents folders" syncing feature, which allows any files I create in m "Documents" or "Desktop" folders to synchronize to all of my Macs and iCloud. This includes being able to access the files from within any application or on my iOS devices. Due the inability to upload or download any files to iCloud, these features are entirely broken.

Backstory

This actually began on December 1oth, 2019 after I upgraded my iMac to macOS Catalina 10.15.2. My MacBook Pro is usually on the developer version of macOS and it did not exhibit any of this behavior and was synchronizing files without a hitch. At first I thought it might have just been a fluke and that iCloud needed time to resynchronize everything. After a few days of not being able to synchronize anything, I contacted Apple Support.

Apple Support

When I contacted Apple support I was connected with a tech support person who attempted to help me. We did some testing, which included trying to upload files to iCloud on all of my devices and on different networks, rebooting the device, but none of these steps had any effect.

Since the first tech support person I contacted was not able to find a fix, I was transferred to a specialist. Over the course of a couple weeks we did various things, including:

• Creating a test file and uploading it (does not work)
• Creating a new account and trying to upload a file (does not work)
• Trying to find any offending files that were not uploading and remove them (had no effect)
• Uploading files via the web interface (which did and does still work)
• Creating a file at a specific time and then gathering the logging information for 24 hours

After all of this testing and nothing working, the issue was sent to Engineering. Engineering came back with some questions and requests, and required screenshots on iOS of the issue. One of the things they requested was to install a configuration profile to gather some data. The log that was uploaded ended up being well over a gigabyte in size; and that was when it was compressed.

Partial Fix

Due to the complete hassle this has been I began looking for a fix on my own. As with any problem, it is best to search google. I came up with this solution from stackexchange.com. The following commands were entered into terminal:

killall bird
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
rm -rf CloudDocs

These steps will do the following:

1. Stop the "bird" service. The "bird" service is the service that controls uploading and downloading data to and from iCloud Drive.
2. Change directories to the local user Application Support directory under the "Library" directory.
3. Remove all of the cached files for iCloud.

When these have been done, you need to restart the computer, just to be on the safe side. When I did this on my MacBook Pro, it began downloading the file list in iCloud Drive. Once this was done, the biggest portion of the work began. That work is comparing the local copies of the files with the files that are stored in iCloud Drive. The length of time is depending on the number of locally stored files that you have.

Due to the amount of information I had on my MacBook Pro this ended up taking several hours. But once it was finished I tested uploading a file to iCloud Drive and it worked. I waited a couple of days to make sure things still worked. Upon verification, I then performed the same steps on my iMac and it produced the same results, albeit the amount of time it took on my iMac was a bit longer due to having more files on my iMac.

My iOS devices were another matter entirely. Because you do not have access to terminal on iOS, you cannot perform the same actions. The only steps you can do on iOS are:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Click on your Name at the top to open up the iCloud settings.
3. Tap on "iCloud" to open iCloud options.
4. Scroll down to "iCloud".
5. Tap on iCloud Drive toggle switch to disable it. A popup may appear.
6. Click on "Delete from iPhone" to confirm any documents that are not synchronized will be deleted. This will turn off iCloud Drive and delete any locally saved documents.
7. Reboot the iOS device.
8. Plug the iOS device into power.

You can then restart your device and perform the same steps to turn iCloud Drive back on. When I did this, it did not seem to have any effect, at first. After about 45 minutes the files that are stored in iCloud Drive populated. Unlike on macOS, I do not think any of the downloaded files that I had remained on the device. One last thing to keep in mind is that when you disable iCloud Drive on an iPhone it will also disable the Wallet app, because the Wallet app depends on iCloud Drive to function properly. So you will want to re-enable Wallet on your device as well. Disabling iCloud Drive will not remove your cards, so I am not sure what function requires iCloud Drive within the Wallet app.

Once I saw the list of files, I then created a test folder and verified that it would indeed upload and I could see it on my other devices. So, this seemed to work.

It may not strictly be necessary to plug the iOS device into power, but it cannot hurt because when an iOS device is connected to power, additional processes will run that may not run when the device is on power and this may ultimately speed up the population of the iCloud Drive files.

Possible Root Cause

While I cannot fully know, I think I have determined the cause of the issue. When it comes to any app, you are likely to have a "state" for something. In the case of Files, the "source of truth" is iCloud. I think that the synchronization information on my iMac somehow got corrupted and that corrupted information propagated to all of my devices. The only way to get things back into place was to erase the local cache and re-download all of the data from the server.

Closing Thoughts

As of this writing, everything seems to be working. I am somewhat disappointed that Apple could not find a solution, and I was left to find a solution on my own. Also, at the moment, my issue is still in Engineering, and I do not expect to hear back from my support representative about a fix for the issue. I am glad I was able to find a solution to get things back on track, but these types of things need to be handled by Apple in a much faster manner than they are now.

One way to mitigate this from happen would be for Apple to create some sort of automated testing that occurs on each device where it attempts to create a file and upload it to iCloud. If this does not happen within a period of time, say 24 hours, send a push notification that will trigger the resetting of the iCloud cache information stored on the device. This type of solution would be able to mitigate, if not eliminate, these types of issue because it would end up being proactive and not wait for the user to notice that something is wrong and attempt to find a solution with the help of Apple. I completely get that I may have just been a "lucky" one to run into this bug and it may only be affecting a small percentage of users. However, when you have 1.5 billion active devices, even one tenth of one percent is still 1.5 million people. Even if the percentage is much smaller, this type of solution could go a long way to improving user experience.

Today Apple sent out an email to developers about the security of their accounts. The emails states:

In an effort to keep your account more secure, two-factor authentication will be required to sign in to your Apple Developer account and Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles starting February 27, 2019. This extra layer of security for your Apple ID helps ensure that you're the only person who can access your account. If you haven't already enabled two-factor authentication for your Apple ID, please learn more and update your security settings. If you have any questions, contact us. Best regards, Apple Developer Relations

There are a few possible reasons for this. The first is, as the email states, to help secure developer accounts. By enabling the two-factor authentication, particularly for Certificates, Identifiers, and Profiles cannot be added by unauthorized users.

This will have some downsides though. By requiring two-factor authentication, only ten devices will be able to receive the two factor authentication codes. For most individual users, this will not be a problem. Five of these trusted devices can be Macs and five of these can be iOS devices.

I contacted Apple Support to verify the number, and it is indeed ten trusted devices that can be associated with an Apple ID.

For larger development groups who may need to allow more than one user to login to the Certificates, you will likely need add a user who has access to the Developer Resources.

If you have not already enabled two-factor authentication on your Apple Developer account, you will want to review the two-factor authentication support page to be sure that you have a way to recover your account, if needed.