While the week's major releases were presented and dissected over the past two days, Apple also implemented some changes to the rules (or future) rules of the week. App store. In the next paragraphs, we'll talk about them all one by one, so there's no confusion.
Children's Apps
Apple's promise to ban the action of third-party trackers on children's apps has already changed. First, the implementation of the new policies has been postponed for a few months, but without specifying the new deadline; Ma has now announced the date that developers should comply with the new guidelines but, at the same time, has also relaxed some of the announced rules.
Specifically, developers will need to update their children's apps at March 3, 2020 to comply with guidelines 1.3 and 5.1.4. Both express more or less the same rule and state that applications may not send personal or device information to third parties, such as advertisers, and may not contain third-party review or advertising systems.
However, guidelines have already been updated to relax these rules in some cases. Now Apple states the following:
In some cases, third-party analytics tools may be allowed as long as the services do not collect or transmit the advertising identifier (IDFA) or child identifiable information (such as their names, dates of birth or email addresses), their locations or their devices. () Contextual advertising provided by third parties may also be permitted in limited cases, provided that the services have publicly documented practices and policies designed for the Child Category, with human review by advertising professionals to ensure only age-appropriate content.
The changes must satisfy protests from a whole range of developers who said they would lose their sources of sale if Apple completely banned advertising and third-party tracking of children's apps. Remember that new apps for kids should follow the guidelines right now: only existing apps that will have up to March 3 to fit them.
“Sign in with Apple”
Another promised change that had generated controversy among developers was the button “Sign in with Apple”, thought of as a (supposedly) safer alternative to login buttons on websites or apps with your Google or Facebook account.
As announced by Ma a few months ago, the “Sign in with Apple” mandatory for all developers to include authentication buttons in their apps. In other words, if your app has a "Sign in with Facebook / Google" button, it must also have the option to sign in with Apple.
However, we do not know that this requirement does not apply in some cases. As stated by Apple in section 4.8 of the App Store guidelines:
O “Sign in with Apple” not required if:
– Your app uses only your company's login and account systems;
– Your app from education, business or business categories and requires the user to log in with an existing educational or corporate account;
– Your app uses a government or company-owned citizen or employee identification system to authenticate users;
– Your client app for a specific service and users need to sign in via their email, social networks or other third party accounts to access their content directly.
While the first three points had already been kind of implied in the announcement of the appeal, the latter can be considered novel. In practice, it means that apps simply used to access a service like Gmail or Tweetbot, for example, will not need to rely on “Sign in with Apple”. Better this way, then.
IOS apps
In addition to the above rule changes, Apple has also started asking App Store developers to start upgrading their machines so that their creations interact with the app. iOS 13.
More specifically, the company stated that from next april, all apps (new or updated) submitted for store approval will need to be built with the iOS 13 SDK, and will need to support the iPhone XS Max screen and its successor, iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Ma, of course, also points out that the iOS 13 SDK brings benefits to developers: with it, a lot of new features can be introduced into applications such as Dark Mode, ARKit 3, CoreML 3, and the new capabilities of Apple. Crab besides, of course, the above button “Sign in with Apple”.
WatchOS apps
Likewise, Apple has also updated the guidelines for developers building apps for Apple Watch which is particularly important now, as Apple Watch watchOS 6 bring the debut of an App Store to the watch, which makes its applications effectively independent of the iPhone.
In fact, starting next April, all applications developed for the platform should be built with the watchOS 6 SDK and support Apple Watch Series 4 or later.
All noted? We work, then!
