Apple Store app adds two-step authentication and Touch ID support.
LaunchKit, which aims to give developers a tool set that makes launching new apps easier, announced its newest service this week. It’s now possible to use Touch ID for a variety of tasks within the app, including looking at orders, accessing EasyPay receipts and making reservations at a local Apple Store. The App Store is a busy place, and it’s easy to miss an awesome new release, much less an update to an old app that makes it worthy of re-downloading.Every new version of an operating system comes bundled with new features, and iOS 8 was Apple’s major release, but the users found that the OS is not as stable as it should, so the developers released patches with bug fixes and small updates, but no additional features.
In an effort to beef up its service before Apple unleashes its Beats redesign this summer, Spotify is making headway by differentiating itself with more features. Apple kept its mouth closed regarding the iOS 9 and even if WWDC 2015 is getting closer, don’t get your hopes up, because the company might not reveal it to the public eye. Instead of building a complex dashboard that developers can then obsess about every day, the team decided to use Slack and/or a daily email to keep users up to date on their sales. “The LaunchKit team built Sales Reporter because we wanted a simple way to get iTunes Connect sales data into the place our team communicated all the time: Slack,” LaunchKit founder Brenden Mulligan tells me. “After a simple setup, the free tool starts posting sales data into Slack daily.” “The emails we had gotten in the past looked terrible on a mobile device and contained a lot of unnecessary info,” said Mulligan. “So we made it look nicer.” New reports appear every morning, right after iTunes Connect makes the latest sales data available to developers (typically before 7 a.m. News publications like Vice and BBC are offering video content through Spotify now, and the app also lets you find and play fine podcasts (like The CultCast).
The temp matching for running is a little silly, but cool for runners who really like Tiësto (the popular DJ is doing custom upbeat tracks for the feature). Just like The Gadgeteer Android app, the iOS app is free and offers you a quick and easy way to read gadget and gizmo related news and reviews on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices. Spotify’s overall app design changes a little too with this new update, and if you don’t have it already, it should be hitting your App Store soon. The company’s iOS app review process causes much controversy, taking weeks to get a single, critical update into the hands of users, creating a rift not just between Apple and developers, but developers and users who have to endure potentially bug-ridden software for a long time before a fix is made available.
After launching iOS 8 in September last year, Apple came with the first update, iOS 8.1, which had two new features: Apple Pay and Continuity, then, the company kept on bringing new updates – iOS 8.2, iOS 8.3 and the last one is iOS 8.4 beta. Mulligan says the team, which also includes Taylor Hughes and Riz Sattar, plans to add more features and support for more devices to Screenshot Builder in the near future. Billed as “the most powerful video converter ever,” this multi-featured Mac tool can edit, download, convert and burn all your videos and handle transfers between hard disks, optical media and the web. By using algorithms to flag potential issues – bad code, copyrighted or offensive material – Google’s testers only have to focus on the ‘bad’ apps, rather than wasting time approving the good ones. The users couldn’t delete it because Apple made it that way to allow them to sync their phones/tablets with a smartwatch, and to organize and customize its home screen.
Due to the market dynamics of Android and iOS, it’s unlikely that vast swathes of developers are going to switch overnight, but it does make the grass on the other side seem a little greener and more appealing, a potentially vast problem for Apple. This iOS 8.2 update came with a list of bug fixes, optimizations and updates for the Health application, as follows: the users can select the unit of measurement for their body’s temperature, height, weight, distance, plus blood glucose; the app is more stable when it deals with a big amount of data; the users can add and visualize workout sessions from third party applications; there was a glitch that prevented users from adding photos in Medical ID and now it was fixed, as well as the units for vitamins and minerals; there were also issues with health data not refreshing after changes in data source order and another issue prevented some graphics from showing data values. This update was focused more on bug fixes – for example delayed notifications and shaky animations, but the developers made iOS 8.3 more stable and they improved the following apps and services: App launch, App responsiveness, WiFi, Safari tabs, Messages, Control Center, third-party keyboards, Keyboard shortcuts and Simplified Chinese keyboard. This beta version might be launched ahead of the WWDC convention and the users are expecting a redesigned Music app, with the possibility to personalize playlists.
The Apple Store app is now available in several more countries too, including Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, Taiwan, Malaysia and Philippines. Many independent developers not backed by big studios find it hard to get their app out there, usually via a spot on the ‘Featured’ page which is controlled by Apple.
The application has a new MiniPlayer, an improved New Playing, Global Search, Streamlined iTunes Radio, Up Next, and the recently added albums and playlists are found at the top of the library. This may seem like a small issue, but Apple should be incredibly wary of how developers see the company – iOS is, in part, great because of its strong and rich app ecosystem, and alienating developers certainly won’t help the operating system. One of the more recent issues on Apple’s list of worries was discovered by developer Craig Hockenberry, the creator of Twitterrific, the first third-party Twitter app. Alienating developers in this way adds absolutely nothing to Apple’s credibility, and could cause long lasting damage in terms of the firm’s relationship with these important people.
The resurgence of Microsoft could be enough to lure developers away, especially considering the exciting ways in which Windows 10 can be used across multiple devices. Pushing devs into the arms of competitors seems an absolutely idiotic move from Apple’s perspective and it’s unclear why steps haven’t been taken to remedy the situation. Of course, there is still the iMac, a machine which can be tuned up to Mac Pro-style performance and comes with a screen, but the lack of care for high-end users seems to be a symbolic issue for Apple, representative of the company’s changing style as it goes forward. It’s impossible to force Cupertino into catering for a particular market – especially one as niche as £2,500 ($3,000 in the US, which is around AU$3,750) and up desktops – but Apple as a company was built on a foundation of “the high-end” and ignoring those users seems like bad business.
The quality of iOS and OS X updates has been the focus of much scrutiny lately with some speculating that in order to push out more features – including a complete redesign in iOS 7 – Apple has sacrificed quality, allowing obvious and annoying bugs into the final versions of the operating systems. Catering to hundreds of millions of users is hard, but Apple is the biggest company on Earth, and it seems contemptuous of its user base to ignore issues that have a direct impact on products and, ultimately, how the company is perceived. Ignoring users is a slippery slope and we could just be witnessing the beginning of the end, as those who are most committed to the ecosystem are alienated.