Hello Developer: December 2023

December 7, 2023

A graphic that reads “Hello” in a font that resembles code.

Welcome to Hello Developer. In this edition: Check out new videos on Game Center and the Journaling Suggestions API, get visionOS guidance straight from the spatial design team, meet three App Store Award winners, peek inside the time capsule that is Ancient Board Game Collection, and more.

VIDEOS

Manage Game Center with the App Store Connect API

[alt text: A composite image of three screenshots that show different views of Game Center. On the left, a screen of Leaderboards organized by location. In the middle, a list of players with the best overall score. On the right, a push notification indicating a change in the player rankings.

In this new video, discover how you can use the App Store Connect API to automate your Game Center configurations outside of App Store Connect on the web.

Manage Game Center with the App Store Connect API

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And find out how the new Journaling Suggestions API can help people reflect on the small moments and big events in their lives through your app — all while protecting their privacy.

Discover the Journaling Suggestions API

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Q&A

Get your spatial design questions answered

An array of different UI elements on visionOS (buttons, switches, alerts, symbols, etc.)

What’s the best way to make a great first impression in visionOS? What’s a “key moment”? And what are some easy methods for making spatial computing visual design look polished? Get answers to these questions and more.

Q&A: Spatial design for visionOS

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FEATURED

Celebrate the winners of the 2023 App Store Awards

Every year, the App Store celebrates exceptional apps that improve people’s lives while showcasing the highest levels of technical innovation, user experience, design, and positive cultural impact. Find out how the winning teams behind Finding Hannah, Photomator, and Unpacking approached their incredible work this year.

“We’re trying to drive change": Meet three App Store Award-winning teams

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Missed the big announcement? Check out the full list of 2023 winners.

NEWS

Xcode Cloud now included with membership

A photo of developer Klemens Strasser seated at his desk.

Starting January 2024, all Apple Developer Program memberships will include 25 compute hours per month on Xcode Cloud as a standard, with no additional cost. Learn more.

BEHIND THE DESIGN

Travel back in time with Ancient Board Game Collection

Klemens Strasser’s Ancient Board Game Collection blends the new and the very, very old. Its games date back centuries: Hnefatafl is said to be nearly 1,700 years old, while the Italian game Latrunculi is closer to 2,000. “I found a book on ancient board games by an Oxford professor and it threw me right down a rabbit hole,” Strasser says. Find out how the Austria-based developer and a team of international artists gave these ancient games new life.

With Ancient Board Game Collection, Klemens Strasser goes back in time

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DOCUMENTATION

Get creative with 3D immersion, games, SwiftUI, and more

This month’s new sample code, tutorials, and documentation cover everything from games to passing control between apps to addressing reasons for common crashes. Here are a few highlights:

Game Center matchmaking essentials, rules, and testing: Learn how to create custom matchmaking rules for better matches between players and test the rules before applying them.
Incorporating real-world surroundings in an immersive experience: This sample code project helps you use scene reconstruction in ARKit to give your app an idea of the shape of the person’s surroundings and to bring your app experience into their world.
Creating a macOS app: Find out how to bring your SwiftUI app to macOS, including adding new views tailored to macOS and modifying others to work better across platforms.
Creating a watchOS app: Find out how to bring your SwiftUI app to watchOS, including customizing SwiftUI views to display the detail and list views on watchOS.

View the full list of new resources.

View what’s new in the Human Interface Guidelines.

NEWS

Catch up on the latest updates

App Store holiday schedule: We’ll remain open throughout the holiday season and look forward to accepting your submissions. However, reviews may take a bit longer to complete from December 22 to 27.
Sandbox improvements: Now you can change a test account’s storefront, adjust subscription renewal rates, clear purchase history, simulate interrupted purchase flows directly on iPhone or iPad, and test Family Sharing.
New software releases: Build your apps using the latest developer tools and test them on this week’s OS releases. Download Xcode 15.1 RC, and the RC versions of iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, macOS 14.2, tvOS 17.2, and watchOS 10.2.

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