Apple is shaking up the App Store, but what about its OS X counterpart? Sure, the new subscription terms extend to iOS, tvOS and OS X apps, but what's Apple going to do, if anything, in order to make the Mac App Store a more attractive venue for Mac software distribution?
We should find out what's next for the Mac App Store next week at WWDC. In the meantime, here's what developers are disliking about it, based on a DevMate survey which polled about 700 Mac developers.
There has been a lot of confusion following Apple's App Store shakeup concerning subscription apps.
First and foremost, does Apple require subscription apps to be functional in some limited way without a subscription, as is the case with apps that use In-App Purchases, or will subscription apps require a subscription to use the app at all? If Apple's comment to MacWorld is to be taken at face value, both could be true.
Apple's next flagship smartphone, currently being called the iPhone 7, may come in a new "deep blue" color, reports Macotakara. Citing an informed source, the website says that Apple plans to add the new colorway this fall as a replacement for its Space Gray offering.
It's not hard to imagine Apple introducing new color options for its handset this fall, as it's done so several times in the past. And with few major aesthetic changes expected for the iPhone 7, this would be a way for customers to distinguish the new model from its predecessors.
iCloud Photo Library has a nifty little feature that lets you store full-resolution photos and videos to iCloud while keeping device-optimized versions on your iPhone, which can save you quite a lot of storage space.
But not everyone uses iCloud Photo Library (do you?) and pays for iCloud storage beyond Apple's measly 5GB free tier (anyone?). That's where Avast's Photo Space for iPhone jumps in. With this app, your Photos library goes on a diet.
The UEFA European Football Championship kicks off on Friday, June10, and Apple's United Kingdom branch has decided to celebrate the occasion by releasing a brand new “Shot on iPhone” commercial, aptly titled “The Beautiful Game.”
The 30-second video features various photographs and videos of soccer players, fields and stadiums shot by iPhone users around the world.
Facebook today announced that it has started accepting 360-degree photo uploads. Panoramic photographs taken with your iOS device can now be uploaded to Facebook through the updated mobile app and are viewable in the web interface and on Facebook for iOS and Android.
Panoramic photos in your News Feed are marked with the compass icon. You can move your iOS device to pan around and even experience them in virtual reality with the Samsung Gear VR.
Camera+ by oddly named developer taptaptap, one of the longest-standing camera applications (and one of the best out there, in my personal opinion), has received a major refresh on the App Store.
Camera+ 8.0 packs in a slew of improvements such as an innovative slow shutter feature, an extended range of effective ISO values, a handy extension for easier sending of photos from the share sheet of other apps and more.
Apple has argued that its new App Store rules, which extend subscriptions to literally every app category, would help create a new business model in which people would warm up to the idea of subscribing to apps rather than paying for them upfront.
I'm not so sure that subscriptions are the right answer to what the market is calling “app fatigue”, but I can tell you right now that I'd rather continue paying upfront for fine, quality apps than use them on a subscription basis, here's why.
I'm positive that this stat does not apply to me, but most smartphone users in the United States downloaded zero apps in a typical month, as per comScore's August 2014 mobile app report.
This is something that indie devs have had to live with for more than two years now and it remains to be seen if Apple's new App Store subscription terms will help solve this worrying problem.
Last month's research from Nomura, which relies on data from app tracker SensorTower, painted a gloomy picture for big name developers, too, as the top 15 app publishers saw downloads drop an average of 20 percent in the United States.
So, is the app boom really over or is this just a temporary blip?
It looks like Apple has turned to LG's Innotek division as a source of dual-camera modules for its upcoming iPhone 7 refresh. Industry sources told Business Korea that “LG Innotek will exclusively supply dual camera module to Apple's iPhone 7 Plus, which will come out in September this year”.
Activist investor Carl Icahn earlier this year sold his position in Apple, but that doesn't mean he no longer thinks Apple is a lucrative stock to invest in. Quite the contrary, he's made several billion dollars on Apple!
That being said, he would invest back in the Cupertino firm were it not for Apple's prospects in China, which he doesn't feel secure about although he's adamant that CEO Tim Cook is “doing a good job”.
Google surely didn't waste any time yesterday. Just a few hours into Apple's App Store announcements which revealed a new 85/15 revenue split for In-App Subscriptions, the Internet giant told Re/code that it, too, will be making a similar change concerning Android app subscriptions on the Play store.
But unlike Apple, which stipulates that devs will see the 70/30 revenue split turn into a 85/15 deal one after one full year of subscription, Google's Play Store 85/15 split would take effect immediately, without the one-year requirement.