Ottorino Bruni’s Mobile Blog

iTunes Connect now offers exciting new features and enhancements. The iTunes Connect Developer Guide (version 6.0) provides details about these features and how you can take advantage of them, including:

• Using the new Version Release Control to choose when your new app version goes live on the App Store;
• Delivering binaries using Application Loader;
• New states for your app including Prepare for Upload, Pending Developer Release, and Processing for App Store;
• UI Enhancements that indicate when you can edit your app information;
• Game Center functionality for the setup of Achievements and Leaderboard Categories for sandbox testing purposes.

You’ll find the iTunes Connect Developer Guide available for download on the homepage of iTunes Connect.

iOS SDK and iOS 4.1 beta 2 are now available from the iPhone Dev Center. Make sure to read the Xcode 3.2.4 Readme and the iOS SDK 4.1 beta 2 Release Notes before installing and downloading these new releases.

Known Issues

Xcode

• Xcode can hang sometimes when doing a clean build if you are running on Mac OS X 10.6.3 or lower. To fix this problem please upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.4 (Software update to Snow Leopard).

Address Book

• In this seed a new API is available that allows developers to get the thumbnail image for a contact reliably:
  • extern CFDataRef ABPersonCopyImageDataWithFormat(ABRecordRef person, ABPersonImageFormat format);

AVFoundation

• The AVQueuePlayer class is now available in AV Foundation. This class allows you to play a sequence of AVPlayerItem objects.
• The AVAssetReader and AVAssetWriter classes and their supporting classes are now available in AV Foundation. The AVAssetReader class allows clients to read decompressed samples from media. The AVAssetWriter class allows clients to supply uncompressed samples for compression and file writing.

Debugger

• When debugging your multitasking enabled app, avoid manually pausing and continuing from the debugger when the application is suspended in the background. Pausing an application that is suspended in the background disrupts proper multitasking behavior until the application is relaunched.

GameKit

• NEW: In this release, the Game Center server does not preserve the “high water mark” for achievements. Instead, it uses the latest reported status for each achievement.
• NEW: For this release, while there is API for doing so, an application cannot reset achievements earned for a player.
• NEW: To access a leaderboard, applications now need to specify the leaderboard’s identifier.
• NEW: The Achievement APIs, Server, and iTunes Connect support are available with the latest seed.
• NEW: APIs that previously returned or took a GKPlayer object now take a player identifier string.
• NEW: A range checking exception has been added to leaderboard requests.
• NEW: Developers no longer have access to the players’ status.
• FIXED: Support for the iOS 4 preview version of Game Center will be phased out soon. Only applications that are using the version of Game Center in iOS 4.1 or greater will be supported.
• FIXED: For this release, GameKitPreview.h was renamed Gamekit.h.
• FIXED: The auto-matching service does not yet support player attributes. Player attributes can be used in your code but are ignored by the server.
• FIXED: For iOS 4.1, the string format used by the playerID property (of the GKPlayer class) changed.

MapKit

• FIXED: All MKOverlayView objects added to a map view are now composited into a single Core Animation layer. Previously each MKOverlayView had its own layer.

Media Player

• If your application plays background audio, it is recommended that you implement support for remote-control events to let users control the audio directly from the application switcher. For more information, see “Remote Control of Multimedia” in Event Handling Guide for iOS.

UIKit

• FIXED: Setting some animatable properties inside a transition animation block may not work.
• FIXED: The default behavior for the new UIView block-based animation API in iOS 4 is to disable user interactions across the whole interface while the animation is playing. Developers should not rely on this behavior remaining the default as it may be reversed in future releases, thereby allowing user interactions to occur by default while the animation is playing. Programs compiled against iPhone SDK 4 will continue to work as-is, but code compiled under future versions of the SDK may require setting a different option flag to enable the original behavior.
• FIXED: The default behavior for the new UIView block-based animation API in iOS 4 is to inherit the animation duration from an enclosing animation block (when present). Developers should not rely on this behavior remaining the default, as it may be reversed in future releases, thereby preventing animations from automatically inheriting the duration of their enclosing animation. Programs compiled against iPhone SDK 4.0 will continue to work as-is but code compiled under future versions of the SDK may require setting a different option flag to enable the original behavior.
• NEW: The UIDatePicker class is not correctly adjusting its displayed time to the local time zone. Instead, it is always displaying time in the UMT time zone.

Xcode 4 has a brand new user interface, built upon proven technologies that Apple itself uses to build Mac OS X and iOS, and that have produced over a quarter million Mac, iPhone, and iPad apps.

• Single Window
• LLVM Compiler 2.0
• New Debugger
• Interface Builder-Inside
• Fix-it
• Instruments for Xcode 4
• Assistant
• Version Editor

Beginning July 22, you will need to use Application Loader to submit your binary to iTunes Connect. Binary uploads will no longer be accepted through the iTunes Connect interface on that date.

Application Loader offers fast uploading, a more stable connection, and early validation warnings. You can now also submit binaries that contain In App Purchase using Application Loader. Make sure the status of your app in iTunes Connect is Waiting for Upload before you submit your binary through Application Loader.

If you have installed iPhone SDK 3.2 or later, you can access Application Loader from the Utilities folder (/Developer/Applications/Utilities/Application Loader.app). You can also download Application Loader from iTunes Connect.

iOS SDK and iOS 4.1 beta are now available from the iPhone Dev Center. Apps built with iOS SDK 4.1 beta should only be tested on devices running iOS 4.1. Make sure to read the Xcode 3.2.4 Readme and the iOS SDK 4.1 beta Release Notes before installing and downloading these new releases.

Known Issues

Xcode

• Xcode can hang sometimes when doing a clean build if you are running on Mac OS X 10.6.3 or lower. To fix this problem please upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.4 (Software update to Snow Leopard).

Debugger

• When debugging your multitasking enabled app, avoid manually pausing and continuing from the debugger when the application is suspended in the background. Pausing an application that is suspended in the background disrupts proper multitasking behavior until the application is relaunched.

GameKit

• Support for the iOS 4 preview version of Game Center will be phased out soon. Only applications that are using the version of Game Center in iOS 4.1 or greater will be supported.
• For this release, GameKitPreview.h was renamed Gamekit.h.
• The auto-matching service does not yet support player attributes. Player attributes can be used in your code but are ignored by the server.
• For iOS 4.1, the string format used by the playerID property (of the GKPlayer class) changed.

MapKit

• All MKOverlayView objects added to a map view are now composited into a single Core Animation layer. Previously each MKOverlayView had its own layer.

Nike

• The Nike + iPod application does not allow syncing workouts over the air in the seed. Syncing through iTunes works as expected.

Media Player

• If your application plays background audio, it is recommended that you implement support for remote-control events to let users control the audio directly from the application switcher. For more information, see “Remote Control of Multimedia” in Event Handling Guide for iOS.

UIKit

• Setting some animatable properties inside a transition animation block may not work.
• The default behavior for the new UIView block-based animation API in iOS 4 is to disable user interactions across the whole interface while the animation is playing. Developers should not rely on this behavior remaining the default as it may be reversed in future releases, thereby allowing user interactions to occur by default while the animation is playing. Programs compiled against iPhone SDK 4 will continue to work as-is, but code compiled under future versions of the SDK may require setting a different option flag to enable the original behavior.
• The default behavior for the new UIView block-based animation API in iOS 4 is to inherit the animation duration from an enclosing animation block (when present). Developers should not rely on this behavior remaining the default, as it may be reversed in future releases, thereby preventing animations from automatically inheriting the duration of their enclosing animation. Programs compiled against iPhone SDK 4.0 will continue to work as-is but code compiled under future versions of the SDK may require setting a different option flag to enable the original behavior.

The latest version of the iTunes Connect Developer Guide (version 5.6) is now available. This new version includes information on:

• Enabling your app for iAd rich media ads and the iAd Network module in iTunes Connect;
• New support for requesting Promotional Codes;
• Fetching crash logs on demand;
• Requirements for submitting high resolution screenshots and small icons.

You’ll find the iTunes Connect Developer Guide available for download on the homepage of iTunes Connect.