Web Distribution lets authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to users in the European Union (EU) directly from a website owned by the developer. Apple will provide developers access to APIs that facilitate the distribution of their apps from the web, integrate with system functionality, and back up and restore users’ apps, once they meet certain requirements designed to help protect users and platform integrity. For details, visit Getting started with Web Distribution in the EU.

April 16, 2024

UPDATE

Apple Developer Academy expands to Bali

Indonesia welcomes its fourth academy in the country as Apple deepens its investment in students and aspiring developers

Today Apple announced it will open Indonesia’s fourth Apple Developer Academy in Bali, expanding on its investment to increase opportunities for developers, students, and entrepreneurs looking to embark on careers in the region’s growing iOS app economy.

Since Indonesia’s first Apple Developer Academy launched in Jakarta in 2018, Apple has opened academies in Surabaya and Batam, and more than 2,000 aspiring developers have completed the program. As a testament to the academy’s impact, 90 percent of its graduates have gone on to find meaningful employment in various sectors spanning education, e-commerce, transportation, sustainability, and more.

“We’ve seen many times over that a line of code can change the world — and in Indonesia, we’re investing in the creativity and skills of people determined to prove it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited by the growing developer community in Indonesia, and we look forward to investing in the success of even more coders with our fourth academy in the country.”

The academy’s nine-month program covers the basics of coding, as well as areas such as design, marketing, and project management, empowering students with the full suite of skills needed to become world-class entrepreneurs and developers. To encourage cross-cultural exchange, the Bali campus will accept applications not just from Indonesia, but across the globe, regardless of educational background or coding experience. 

The academies in Indonesia have welcomed students from a variety of personal and professional backgrounds. To date, the cohorts have comprised students from over 90 cities across Indonesia, ranging between 18 and 50 years old, each of whom brings new ideas and life experiences to app designs and business plans.

Mary Santoso, who joined the academy in 2022 at the age of 38, founded WonderJack, a neurodiverse-friendly iPad game that trains executive function and mental processes for children. Inspired by her experience witnessing members of her family with dyslexia, the iPad app includes a soothing soundtrack, and tactile cards and objects so children can enjoy a stress-free, multisensory learning experience. The team is now collaborating with educational institutions, including an inclusive school in Surabaya, to research and assess the impact of the app.

“As a stay-at-home mom, the Apple Developer Academy helped me transform and focus on my mission to help children facing learning challenges that are similar to ones my daughter faces,” Santoso says. “There, I found a team of learners from different backgrounds who shared my passion for education and inclusivity. The guidance from mentors helped us hone our problem-solving skills and equipped us with the tools to build WonderJack, an app that aims to unlock the potential of all children.”

The academy’s curriculum reflects Apple’s approach to Challenge Based Learning, encouraging students to address personal, community, and global challenges, while designing inclusively to make a positive impact in the world.

Alumni Graciela Gabrielle, Jessi Febria, and Yafonia Hutabarat came together at the Jakarta academy to build Indonesia’s first indoor navigation app to assist blind and low-vision users with independent travel. The app, PetaNetra, uses augmented reality paths to provide the safest and fastest routes, considering features such as walls, floor patterns, and other objects. The team has secured partnerships with major institutions, including the Jakarta Library, to map their spaces and improve its features.

“I’m truly blessed to have found supportive and committed teammates at the academy,” explains Gabrielle, PetaNetra’s co-founder and CEO, whose parents are visually impaired. “As three female founders, we are passionate about creating social impact with the work we do. This inspired us to create PetaNetra, a gift for my parents and the 4 million visually impaired in Indonesia.”

Southeast Asia is home to hundreds of thousands of developers behind more than 90,000 apps on the App Store. Beyond creating their own startups in Indonesia, many academy graduates have also gone on to join established companies throughout the region, contributing to the development of apps and digital products with skills gained at the academies.

Alumni Denis Wibisono and Rais Mohamad Najib now lead the iOS development team for Bank Mandiri, the largest bank in Indonesia. Through their work, they push the boundaries to ensure a seamless, market-leading mobile banking experience for millions of Indonesians, and almost 40 percent of the bank’s iOS development team are academy graduates.

“Being at the academy really fueled my passion for iOS app development,” says Wibisono. “I believe the experience not only equipped me with advanced coding skills, but also critical thinking training, both of which are essential qualities of professional tech engineers.”

Alumni can also participate in other Apple educational programs and resources, such as the Apple Developer Center in Singapore and Apple Entrepreneur Camp which offer additional mentorship, inspiration, and insights from Apple experts and engineers.

Since the first Apple Developer Academy opened in Brazil, the program has grown to more locations around the world, including Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and the U.S.

Press Contacts

D’Nara Cush

Apple

d_cush@apple.com

Chloe Sweet

Apple

chloe_sweet@apple.com

Apple Media Helpline

media.help@apple.com

Today Apple announced an upcoming enhancement to existing repair processes that will enable customers and independent repair providers to utilize used Apple parts in repairs. Beginning with select iPhone models this fall, the new process is designed to maintain an iPhone user’s privacy, security, and safety, while offering consumers more options, increasing product longevity, and minimizing the environmental impact of a repair. Used genuine Apple parts will now benefit from the full functionality and security afforded by the original factory calibration, just like new genuine Apple parts.

“At Apple, we’re always looking for new ways to deliver the best possible experience for our customers while reducing the impact we have on the planet, and a key part of that means designing products that last,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. “For the last two years, teams across Apple have been innovating on product design and manufacturing to support repairs with used Apple parts that won’t compromise users’ safety, security, or privacy. With this latest expansion to our repair program, we’re excited to be adding even more choice and convenience for our customers, while helping to extend the life of our products and their parts.”

The process of confirming whether or not a repair part is genuine and gathering information about the part — often referred to as “pairing” — is critical to preserving the privacy, security, and safety of iPhone. Apple teams have been hard at work over the last two years to enable the reuse of parts such as biometric sensors used for Face ID or Touch ID, and beginning this fall, calibration for genuine Apple parts, new or used, will happen on device after the part is installed. In addition, future iPhone releases will have support for used biometric sensors. And in order to simplify the repair process, customers and service providers will no longer need to provide a device’s serial number when ordering parts from the Self Service Repair Store for repairs not involving replacement of the logic board.

Apple will also extend its popular Activation Lock feature to iPhone parts in order to deter stolen iPhones from being disassembled for parts. Requested by customers and law enforcement officials, the feature was designed to limit iPhone theft by blocking a lost or stolen iPhone from being reactivated. If a device under repair detects that a supported part was obtained from another device with Activation Lock or Lost Mode enabled, calibration capabilities for that part will be restricted.

As device longevity increases, Apple believes it’s important that a device’s second or third owners have access to its full part and repair histories. With Parts and Service history, located within Settings on iOS, Apple is the only smartphone company that transparently shows owners whether their device has been repaired and provides information about the parts used. This fall, Apple will expand Parts and Service History to additionally show whether a part is a new or used genuine Apple part.

This upcoming enhancement to Apple’s repair processes is another step forward in the company’s commitment to improving access to safe and affordable repairs. In the last five years, Apple has nearly doubled the number of service locations with access to genuine Apple parts, tools, and training to more than 10,000 Independent Repair Providers and Apple Authorized Service Providers. For those who have the relevant experience repairing electronic devices, Self Service Repair gives access to the manuals, genuine Apple parts, and tools used at Apple Store and Apple Authorized Service Provider locations. Launched in 2022, Self Service Repair now supports 40 Apple products in 33 countries and regions, and 24 languages.

April 9, 2024

UPDATE

Apple Vision Pro brings a new era of spatial computing to business

Incredible new enterprise experiences leverage spatial computing to customize workspaces, collaborate on 3D designs, deliver specialized employee training, and guide remote fieldwork in entirely new ways

For decades, Apple has worked to provide innovative products and services for businesses. Today, Apple products are used by all of the Fortune 500 companies in every industry around the world — iPhone and iPad are indispensable for businesses of all sizes, and Mac is preferred by employees when given the choice at work. Apple’s unique combination of hardware, software, services, and built-in support for IT makes it incredibly easy to manage and secure devices at scale. With the introduction of Apple Vision Pro, spatial computing enables enterprises to build experiences that previously were not possible.

“There’s tremendous opportunity for businesses to reimagine what’s possible using Apple Vision Pro at work,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations and Enterprise Marketing. “We’re thrilled to see the innovative ways organizations are already using Apple Vision Pro, from planning fire response operations to iterating on the most intricate details of an engine design — and this is just the beginning. Combined with enterprise-grade capabilities like mobile device management built into visionOS, we believe spatial computing has the potential to revolutionize industries around the world.”

With visionOS built on the foundation of decades of engineering innovation in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, enterprise developers can create powerful spatial experiences controlled by the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — a user’s eyes, hands, and voice. The breakthrough design of Apple Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system and custom Apple silicon in a unique dual-chip design to deliver experiences in real time. Vision Pro uses a wide range of advanced machine learning and AI models to enable foundational capabilities such as hand tracking, room mapping, Personas, and more. All of this is accelerated by the Neural Engine in the M2 chip, which ensures spatial computing is the most powerful way for a business to leverage AI.

Developers have been building apps for Apple Vision Pro across numerous enterprise categories, from business productivity and product design, to immersive training and guided work.

Customized Workspaces for Productivity

Spatial computing blends digital content with the physical world, providing an infinite canvas that enables businesses to reinvent workspaces and enhance everyday productivity. With visionOS, apps are freed from the boundaries of a display, so they can appear side by side at any scale. With support for Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, users can set up the perfect workspace and bring the powerful capabilities of their Mac into Apple Vision Pro wirelessly, creating an enormous, private, and portable 4K display with incredibly crisp text. The most-loved productivity apps for business are now available on Vision Pro.

SAP Analytics Cloud helps streamline the process of gathering, integrating, analyzing, and presenting data-driven insights to enhance business decision-making. On Apple Vision Pro, the app enables employees and executives to immediately access their data dashboard and arrange their most critical business workflows, apps, and cards beautifully in their space. They can also drill down into the data with contextual 3D maps and graphics to gain new insights. With the latest SDK release for developers, the SAP Business Technology Platform fully supports Apple Vision Pro. Customers and partners can now deploy their SAP apps to Vision Pro, alongside iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

“Apple Vision Pro is a revolutionary device, and we are thrilled to leverage the capabilities of spatial computing with SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Mobile Start,” said Philipp Herzig, chief AI officer, SAP SE. “Going forward, we see the power of visionOS combined with generative AI being a force multiplier for enterprises. SAP Analytics Cloud running on Apple Vision Pro will help our customers discover all-new insights from complex data with powerful and intuitive processes that supercharge their business planning. And with SAP Mobile Start, we provide access to all of SAP’s business applications and workflows in unimaginable ways.”

Microsoft 365 productivity apps and AI companion Copilot built for Apple Vision Pro can help users get more done in powerful new ways. Focus mode in Word allows users to write without distraction; graph, manipulate, and visualize data in sharp, crisp detail in Excel; and immerse themselves in a slideshow with PowerPoint. Switching between meetings, chats, and shared content is easy in Teams — along with accessing the assistance of Copilot — with life-size windows that can be arranged in the user’s space.

“Spatial computing has enabled us to rethink how professionals can be productive and work intelligently with the power of AI,” said Nicole Herskowitz, vice president, Microsoft 365 and Teams. “With Microsoft 365 and Teams on Apple Vision Pro, your office moves with you, allowing users to view apps side by side on an infinite canvas with spatial computing for incredible multitasking and collaboration.”

Additional apps in business productivity include:

• Webex by Cisco brings an immersive and intuitive meeting experience that fills the space and utilizes Personas and Spatial Audio for a more natural video conferencing experience.

• Zoom provides an experience built for Apple Vision Pro with exceptional audio and video quality, giving users the ability to easily collaborate and schedule meetings.

• Box makes it easy for users to collaborate and securely manage files and content, including 3D objects, allowing them to intuitively bring this content into the world around them.

Design and Collaboration

The display system on Apple Vision Pro packs 23 million pixels across two displays — or more than 4K resolution for each eye — which makes videos, images, and documents crystal clear from any angle. With crisp visualization of 3D content, spatial computing opens up opportunities for product design, retail planning, and construction modeling, and enables new experiences for customers to engage with products and services.

The Porsche Race Engineer app provides an entirely new way for the Porsche team to collaborate. Race engineers are constantly making real-time decisions about everything from the performance of the car to the driver’s vitals. Apple Vision Pro helps engineers visualize car data in real time, bringing critical metrics like speed and braking alongside track conditions and car positioning, combined with live video from the car’s dashboard. In February, Porsche broke the U.S. record for electric vehicles at Laguna Seca with the new Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, while the engineers tracked along using Vision Pro. This can also expand track experiences for fans around the world.

“At Porsche, we’ve always been driven by dreams, and Apple Vision Pro has enabled us to reimagine track experiences,” said Oliver Blume, Porsche’s CEO. “The new Porsche Taycan Turbo GT is the ultimate all-electric performance car, and, fittingly, we were thrilled to bring the best of German engineering and Apple’s inspiring product innovation together with the Race Engineer app. This is the perfect example of our team delivering on our goal to bring the best user experience to our employees and customers.”

Design and manufacturing processes are complex and involve large amounts of data from various sources. NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud APIs let developers stream massive 3D engineering and simulation data sets from the cloud to Apple Vision Pro. The high-resolution displays and powerful sensors built into Vision Pro enable developers and designers to create detailed, immersive renderings and visuals that can be viewed and manipulated in real time.

“The world’s industries are racing to build digital twins of products, facilities, and processes to better test and optimize designs well before constructing them in the physical world,” said Rev Lebaredian, NVIDIA’s vice president of Omniverse and Simulation Technology. “Enterprises can now combine the power and capabilities of Apple Vision Pro and the physically accurate renderings of OpenUSD content with NVIDIA accelerated computing to power the next generation of immersive digital experiences.”

Additional apps in design and collaboration include:

• Lowe’s Style Studio leverages the unique capabilities of spatial computing to help customers visualize and design their dream kitchen, making home improvement easier than ever.

• JigSpace brings intuitive, hands-on inspection and effortless collaboration to help users communicate complex ideas, products, and processes with spatial context.

• EnBW (Energie Baden-Württemberg AG) enables visualization of renewable energy infrastructure projects, allowing collaborators to see and assess designs of vehicle charging stations, wind turbines, and solar farms.

Training and Simulation

From preparing technicians to install equipment, to teaching complex tasks requiring hundreds of hours of hands-on work, making training procedures more interactive and impactful is critical to employee success. When it comes to aircraft maintenance, taking a plane offline for training can be costly and cause delays throughout the system. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will dramatically improve technical maintenance and airline operations with spatial computing on Apple Vision Pro. The Engine Shop app enables technicians to train on the latest engine models in full fidelity in their own space. With this app, a technician can instantly see the entire task they need to perform step by step, with detailed repair instructions overlayed on a 3D model of the exact engine. This reduces errors and increases employee job satisfaction while saving valuable time and ultimately speeding up plane turnaround times.

“We see Apple Vision Pro as a tremendous value-add that will improve our fleet availability and operations,” said Bob Tulleken, KLM’s vice president of Operations Decision Support. “Training our employees with spatial computing will lead to fewer costly errors because the most current information they need to do their job is there in front of them as they perform the task. This means we not only get vastly more efficient in our work, but also provide a better work environment for our employees to succeed.”

Additional apps in training and simulation include:

• Taqtile Manifest makes digital work instructions actionable with a simple glance or hand gesture.

• PTC enables designers and engineers to review and approve complex 3D models of a new production line within a space before manufacturing begins.

Guided Work

Guided work requires the context of a person’s surroundings, such as a utility service technician who needs access to work orders or schematics. Resolve has reimagined how building engineers can plan for and access information they need to make decisions about systems behind walls, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and fire sprinkler lines. Rather than use static paper plans, users can review high-detail plans and 3D models on Apple Vision Pro, enabling architects, builders, and maintenance workers to see, fix, and comment, enhancing the entire life cycle of a construction project.

In emergency response scenarios, incident management software combines real-time and historical information with geospatial data to help first responders manage their people and fleet resources. The FireOps app, developed by About Objects and DigitalCM, marks a turning point in emergency response management. FireOps leverages the infinite canvas with visionOS to provide a unified operational view of incident action plans, dramatically streamlining over a dozen procedures. This enhances coordination and decision-making among all participants, and ensures that first responders are more connected, informed, and prepared than ever before.

Additional apps in guided work include:

• TeamViewer Spatial Support enables remote experts and service technicians on the ground to troubleshoot repair and maintenance processes with unparalleled fidelity, enabling faster response and reduced downtime.

• BILT supports 3D interactive instructions with voice, text, and animated guidance for thousands of products to enable a wide range of workflows.

Apple offers developers a variety of resources, including powerful APIs, rich documentation, global developer labs, Develop in Swift tutorials, and the visionOS simulator to help companies bring game-changing Apple Vision Pro experiences to life. To further support developers, today Apple is announcing the Enterprise Spatial Design Lab, providing hands-on support from Apple to help enterprises bring apps from concept to reality. The immersive sessions will be available beginning this summer at developer.apple.com. In addition, Deloitte announced today it is expanding its Apple practice to include a new Academy for Apple Vision Pro. The practice includes more than 100 practitioners trained to deliver visionOS solutions to clients, with a series of one-week, instructor-led courses to help engineers, product managers, and business leaders prepare for the new era of spatial computing.

Press Contacts

Jessica Reeves

Apple

j_reeves@apple.com

Andrea Schubert

Apple

a_schubert@apple.com

Apple Media Helpline

media.help@apple.com

April 8, 2024

FEATURE

Pushing the limit with Apple Watch Ultra and The Speed Project

Members of L.A.’s Koreatown Run Club and New York’s Old Man Run Club join forces to take on the 300-plus-mile relay from Santa Monica to Las Vegas

Driving along Ocean Avenue around 3:30 a.m. on a cool Friday morning in March, most of Santa Monica is perfectly quiet and still. But as the car approaches Colorado Avenue, a low din of voices begins to build. Every block, it grows louder and louder, until suddenly its source becomes clear, illuminated beneath the blazing neon at the entrance to the city’s iconic pier.

Hundreds of people have gathered here for the start of The Speed Project, an annual relay event that attracts brave souls from all over the world. The energy is electric: Team RVs covered with DIY signage line the street, massive flags ripple in the wind, and a drone flies overhead, casting an otherworldly glow on the undulating crowd. As the clock strikes 4 a.m., the teams scatter off in every direction.

Members of Los Angeles’s Koreatown Run Club (KRC) and New York City’s Old Man Run Club (OMRC) have been training for this day for months, joining forces from their respective coasts to take on the grueling 300-plus-mile route through the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas. There are no rules, no support stations, no spectators, no rain delays — just the runners, their navigators, their crew, and the open road. And that’s a big part of the appeal.

Through it all — the rugged landscape, the sleep deprivation, the dehydration, the extreme temperatures, and the pouring rain — Apple Watch Ultra 2 was an essential companion, offering the 12-member team the ability to instantly keep tabs on each others’ locations, take hands-free calls, keep an eye on their pace, provide visibility in the darkness, and view their elevation.

“Apple Watch Ultra 2 was our instant lifeline to each other,” says Cindy Le, the team’s veteran navigator and crew captain — a sentiment echoed by cocaptain Ja Tecson.

“The watch is truly made for the conditions we were going through, especially when we did our trail runs at night,” Tecson adds.

Made from aerospace-grade titanium, Apple Watch Ultra 2 is Apple’s most capable and rugged watch, with the best battery life of any Apple Watch, advanced running metrics, easy-to-read Workout Views, a range of training experiences, and Apple’s brightest display.

The team’s photographers — A.J. Lising, Jeremy Jude Lee, and Ja Tecson — documented their journey in a series of images shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max, and edited in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop with an analog aesthetic, capturing the emotion of each moment.

Friday, 04:00:08 a.m.
Palisades Park, Santa Monica, California

Early Friday morning, the team’s 12 runners and eight support crew members are already running on adrenaline and very little sleep. Everyone is excited to watch teammate Annie Cun — who is here at the starting line despite a recent cancer diagnosis — kick off the very first segment. “This is a journey that we’re doing together,” says Le, reminding the runners in the huddle to stay in the moment and not just focus on their final destination. “Like in life, there’s not really a finish line. There’s only this present moment over and over and over again.”

Friday, 10:08:06 a.m.
Santa Clarita, California 

As Angelo Antonio heads along Soledad Canyon Road, the clouds have finally opened up.

Friday, 12:38:30 p.m.
Palmdale, Mojave Desert

Anthony Trần takes a breather after making the handoff to teammate Paulsta Stanczuk.

Friday, 06:36:41 p.m.
Oro Grande, Mojave Desert

At sunset, Antonio runs along a single-lane dirt road in Oro Grande. For the runner, who grew up in the Mojave Desert, the moment is particularly special, representing a homecoming of sorts.

Saturday, 12:15:11 a.m.
Newberry Springs, Mojave Desert

At night, Tecson says Apple Watch Ultra 2 provided the team with an extra sense of safety: “I would always turn my flashlight setting on, because there were a lot of really aggressive drivers on the road.”

Saturday, 12:36:15 a.m.
Newberry Springs, Mojave Desert

Sleep deprivation is an inescapable part of The Speed Project experience. “A lot of people, when you get into ‘I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m cranky,’ you can really lose who you are a little bit,” says team cocaptain Will Eckman. “You have that shared experience with everyone else, and how do you all push each other up to get through? I think everybody was certainly feeling it in the overnight moments between midnight and 7 a.m.”

Saturday, 09:10:12 a.m.
Death Valley Road, Baker 

Though many of the runners from the two clubs hadn’t met in person until the night before the race, it doesn’t take long for a sense of camaraderie to build on the road. “It just felt so natural, everybody coming together and really building a friendship,” says Will Eckman. “It almost felt like we had been friends for a very long time. That was amazing to see very quickly.”

Saturday, 09:25:48 a.m.
Baker, Mojave Desert

Out on the road, the runners use Apple Watch Ultra 2 to stay in touch with the crew back in the RV. “If something comes in that I have to answer, I use voice to text to continue my run and not break stride,” says cocaptain Kim Yee, shown here during a one-mile repeat on Death Valley Road.

Saturday, 01:47:48 p.m.
Boron, Mojave Desert

By the time the team reaches the grueling 26-mile stretch known as Power Line in the late afternoon, the weather has changed, and the team is concerned about their SUV getting stuck in the mud. “We started to feel some drizzle, and then we heard the rain hitting the power lines,” says Tecson. “You could just feel this crackling sound with the wind — it sounded beautiful and scary at the same time.”

Saturday, 06:08:43 p.m.
Goodsprings, Southwest Extreme Triangle

While they’re on their feet completing their segments, Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers the team’s athletes the ability to multitask. “As a runner, there’s so much going on,” says Tecson, pictured here waiting for teammate Cun. “You’re also concerned about everyone else, but you can also see through the watch that it got executed and checked off the list.”

Saturday, 06:23:10 p.m.
Jean, Southwest Extreme Triangle

Silhouetted against the backdrop of the desert mountains along State Route 161 — still capped in snow after a brief storm hours earlier — Jenny Peng finishes another segment. As the team delves deeper into the Mojave Desert, they rely on the precision dual-frequency GPS of Apple Watch Ultra 2, which provides precise distance, pace, and route data. “Having GPS dial in quickly so you can just tag and go was really critical,” says Will Eckman.

Saturday, 07:05:16 p.m.
Jean, Southwest Extreme Triangle

As night falls along the California-Nevada border, fatigue starts to set in for all of the runners, including Peng.

Saturday, 07:26:07 p.m.
Sloan, Southwest Extreme Triangle

With Las Vegas and its bright lights slowly coming into sight, Will Eckman stretches and prepares to embark on his final one-mile segment.

Saturday, 09:53:40 p.m.
Las Vegas, Southwest Extreme Triangle

On Saturday evening, the KRC x OMRC team crosses the Speed Project finish line in Las Vegas, with a final time of 41 hours and 51 minutes — cue the celebratory champagne shower, a well-deserved real shower, a hot meal, and a comfy hotel bed. “I love doing this race because you get to see what the human spirit is capable of,” says Le. “You see people go through their lows and really struggle to get out of their rock bottom in that moment to show up for each other and show up for themselves, and do something a previous version of themselves would have never thought was possible.”

Press Contacts

Nikki Rothberg

Apple

nrothberg@apple.com

Apple Media Helpline

media.help@apple.com

The beta versions of iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, macOS 14.5, tvOS 17.5, visionOS 1.2, and watchOS 10.5 are now available. Get your apps ready by confirming they work as expected on these releases. And to take advantage of the advancements in the latest SDKs, make sure to build and test with Xcode 15.3.

View downloads and release notes

Learn about testing a beta OS

Learn about sending feedback

The App Review Guidelines have been revised to support updated policies, upcoming features, and to provide clarification. The following guidelines have been updated:

• 3.1.1(a): Updated to include Music Streaming Services Entitlements.
• 4.7: Added games from retro game console emulator apps to the list of permitted software, and clarifies that mini apps and mini games must be HTML5.

View guidelines

Translations of the guidelines will be available on the Apple Developer website within one month.

Welcome to Hello Developer — and the kickoff to WWDC season. In this edition:

• Discover what’s ahead at WWDC24 — and check out the new Apple Developer YouTube channel.
• Learn how the all-new Develop in Swift Tutorials can help jump-start a career in app development.
• Find out how Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger rebooted the crossword puzzle with Knotwords.

WWDC24

The countdown is on

WWDC season is officially here.

This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference takes place online from June 10 through 14, offering you the chance to explore the new tools, frameworks, and technologies that’ll help you create your best apps and games yet.

All week long, you can learn and refine new skills through video sessions, meet with Apple experts to advance your projects and ideas, and join the developer community for fun activities. It’s an innovative week of technology and creativity — all online at no cost.

And for the first time, WWDC video sessions will be available on YouTube, in addition to the Apple Developer app and website. Visit the new Apple Developer channel to subscribe and catch up on select sessions.

TUTORIALS

Check out the new Develop in Swift Tutorials

Know a student or aspiring developer looking to start their coding journey? Visit the all-new Develop in Swift Tutorials, designed to introduce Swift, SwiftUI, and spatial computing through the experience of building a project in Xcode.

BEHIND THE DESIGN

Gage and Schlesinger at the crossroads

Learn how acclaimed game designers Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger reimagined the crossword with Knotwords.

Knotwords: Gage and Schlesinger at the crossroads

Learn how longtime design partners Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger rebooted the crossword puzzle.

View now

MEET WITH APPLE EXPERTS

Browse new developer activities

Check out this month’s sessions, labs, and consultations, held online and in person around the world.

NEWS AND DOCUMENTATION

Explore and create with new and updated docs

View the complete list of new resources.

Subscribe to Hello Developer

Want to get Hello Developer in your inbox? Make sure you’ve opted in to receive emails about developer news and events by updating your email preferences in your developer account.

Share your thoughts

We’d love to hear from you. If you have suggestions for our activities or stories, please let us know.

Knotwords is a clever twist on crossword puzzles — so much so that one would expect creators Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger to be longtime crossword masters who set out to build themselves a new challenge.

One would be totally wrong.

“Crosswords never hit with me,” says Gage, with a laugh. “I dragged myself kicking and screaming into this one.”

It’s not about ‘What random box of words will you get?’ but, ‘What are the decisions you’ll make as a player?’

Jack Schlesinger, Knotwords

In fact, Gage and Schlesinger created the Apple Design Award finalist Knotwords — and the Apple Arcade version, Knotwords+ — not to revolutionize the humble crossword but to learn it. “We know people like crosswords,” says Schlesinger, “so we wanted to figure out what we were missing.” And the process didn’t just result in a new game — it led them straight to the secret of word-game design success. “It’s not about ‘What random box of words will you get?’” says Schlesinger, “but, ‘What are the decisions you’ll make as a player?’”

Gage and Schlesinger are longtime design partners; in addition to designing Knotwords and Good Sudoku with Gage, Schlesinger contributed to the 2020 reboot of SpellTower and the Apple Arcade title Card of Darkness. Neither came to game design through traditional avenues: Gage has a background in interactive art, while Schlesinger is the coding mastermind with a history in theater and, of all things, rock operas. (He’s responsible for the note-perfect soundtracks for many of the duo’s games.) And they’re as likely to talk about the philosophy behind a game as the development of it.

I had been under the mistaken impression that the magic of a simple game was in its simple rule set. The magic actually comes from having an amazing algorithmic puzzle constructor.

Zach Gage

“When you’re playing a crossword, you’re fully focused on the clues. You’re not focused on the grid at all,” explains Gage. “But when you’re building a crossword, you’re always thinking about the grid. I wondered if there was a way to ask players not to solve a crossword but recreate the grid instead,” he says.

Knotwords lets players use only specific letters in specific sections of the grid — a good idea, but one that initially proved elusive to refine and difficult to scale. “At first, the idea really wasn’t coming together,” says Gage, “so we took a break and built Good Sudoku.” Building their take on sudoku — another game with simple rules and extraordinary complexity — proved critical to restarting Knotwords. “I had been under the mistaken impression that the magic of a simple game was in its simple rule set,” Gage says. “The magic actually comes from having an amazing algorithmic puzzle constructor.”

Problematically, they didn’t just have one of those just lying around. But they did have Schlesinger. “I said, ‘I will make you a generator for Knotwords in two hours,’” Schlesinger laughs. That was maybe a little ambitious. The first version took eight hours and was, by his own account, not great. However, it proved a valuable learning experience. “We learned that we needed to model a player. What would someone do here? What steps could they take? If they make a mistake, how long would it take them to correct it?” In short, the puzzle generation algorithm needed to take into account not just rules, but also player behavior.

The work provided the duo an answer for why people liked crosswords. It also did one better by addressing one of Gage’s longstanding game-design philosophies. “To me, the only thing that’s fun in a game is the process of getting better,” says Gage. “In every game I’ve made, the most important questions have been: What’s the journey that people are going through and how can we make that journey fun? And it turns out it’s easy to discover that if I’ve never played a game before.”

Learn more about Knotwords

Find Knotwords+ on Apple Arcade

Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the winners and finalists of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.

March 26, 2024

PRESS RELEASE

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference returns June 10, 2024

Entire conference available online for all developers, with a special event at Apple Park on June 10

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) online from June 10 through 14, 2024. Developers and students will have the opportunity to celebrate in person at a special event at Apple Park on opening day.

Free for all developers, WWDC24 will spotlight the latest iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS advancements. As part of Apple’s ongoing commitment to helping developers elevate their apps and games, the event will also provide them with unique access to Apple experts, as well as insight into new tools, frameworks, and features.

“We’re so excited to connect with developers from around the world for an extraordinary week of technology and community at WWDC24,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “WWDC is all about sharing new ideas and providing our amazing developers with innovative tools and resources to help them make something even more wonderful.”

Developers and students will be able to discover the latest Apple software and technologies by tuning into the keynote, and they can experience WWDC24 throughout the week on the Apple Developer app, website, and YouTube. This year’s conference will include video sessions and opportunities to engage with Apple designers and engineers and connect with the worldwide developer community.

WWDC24 will include an in-person experience on June 10 that will provide developers the opportunity to watch the keynote at Apple Park, meet with Apple team members, and take part in special activities. Space will be limited, and details on how to apply to attend can be found on the Apple Developer site and app.

Apple is proud to support the next generation of developers through the Swift Student Challenge, one of many Apple programs that seek to uplift the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs. On March 28, this year’s applicants will be notified of their status, and winners will be eligible to apply for the in-person experience at Apple Park. Fifty Distinguished Winners, who are recognized for outstanding submissions, will be invited to Cupertino for a three-day experience.

Apple will share additional conference information in advance of WWDC24 through the Apple Developer app and on the Apple Developer website.

About Apple
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

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