APP developers, 4 major changes seen at Apple WWDC

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held next week. The mainstream American online media BI interviewed several top app developers to discuss the changes they most want to see at WWDC. Apple is expected to announce a variety of new products and services at this year's conference, including its latest mobile operating system iOS 9, its ecosystem for connected devices HomeKit, a new streaming music service supported by Beats Music, and a large number of smartwatch apps for Apple Watch.

So what do app developers look forward to most? Many app developers want to see major improvements to Apple's suite of developer tools, which they have previously described as "buggy" and "broken" and lacking many useful features found in Google's Play Android app store. They also paid close attention to the rich array of apps being developed for the Apple Watch, which Apple has promised to showcase at WWDC.

1. The tool issues that application developers are most worried about

1. Overall quality decline

“One of the big issues that app developers aren’t talking about publicly is that they feel the overall quality of Apple’s developer tools has declined,” said Jeff Grossman, co-founder and chief product officer of confidential messaging app Confide. “The iTunes Connect portal that developers use to influence and manage apps and the TestFlight platform that streamlines beta testing are both very buggy.”

2. Submission process

Jordan Edelson, founder and CEO of mobile app development studio Appetizer Mobile, has similar concerns. "From a developer perspective, I really wish Apple would pay more attention to their developer submission process and platform," he said.

"Apple has botched the integration of TestFlight," Edelson said. "When they acquired TestFlight, they wasted a ton of time on the back end, making it more complicated for us to test devices now. TestFlight now has to go through a different submission process to approve every test build we submit, and we only have 30 days at most to update the product in test."

"You want to release a beta version, but you can't," Crossman said. "I really like their rigor, but it also shows that Apple doesn't use these developer tools internally because they don't need to. According to many developers and computer scientists, Apple doesn't have to go through all the signing and cooperation steps that developers must accept. Although Apple has received a lot of complaints about this, they have made improvements, but there is still more room for improvement."

3. Application Discovery

Rahul Dewan, a former Apple engineer who developed the popular app Duet Display, said Apple has made great progress in how people find apps in the App Store, but it still lags behind Google. “The new App Analytics data is great, and it has a lot of valuable data that we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “However, it’s really interesting to see what people are searching for when they discover your app. Almost half of all downloads come from search, and one of the biggest problems apps face is discovery. Allowing developers to see where users are coming from will help them market their products more effectively.”

4. Lack of channels to respond to user comments

Dewan also mentioned that he would like to see Apple learn from the feedback experience of the Google Play Android app store, because currently Apple app developers have no channel to respond to user comments. “Whether they love or hate a product, I want to be able to reach out to the people who leave reviews,” Dewan said. “It’s great to get feedback and help people use the product more effectively. Whoever writes the review is probably your biggest fan because they care deeply about your product.”

Dewan also said: "When you return to the App Store, there is no way to answer user reviews from a development perspective. Some questions are usually urgent, such as 'This app is bad because the function does not work or cannot be found at all', which requires help from developers or customer service staff. But Apple's current approach is disappointing."

5. Swift

Ben Rubin, founder and CEO of popular video streaming app Meerkat, said he would like to see Apple develop its new programming language Swift for iOS and Mac. "We like Swift and have been aware of it since it first came out and there were a lot of gaps that needed to be filled, so we're looking forward to seeing improvements in the development experience. We also hope to see Apple continue to be open and improve video capture and application programming interface (API) technology."

2. More apps for Apple Watch

When the Apple Watch was released, most third-party apps were restricted to the Apple Watch developer platform, WatchKit. But there will be major changes at WWDC. Apple Watch project leader Jeff Williams promised at the Code Conference that Apple will soon allow app developers to build native apps for the Apple Watch.

"I want to get a good understanding of the Digital Crown and the Taptic Engine," Crossman said. "Right now, Apple tightly controls how the Digital Crown works, and we want to learn more about it. We're very limited in how we develop apps because we don't even use an Apple Watch to develop apps for it, so these things should be able to use our apps. We want to use the Digital Crown to add magic to your messages."

Matt Ronge, a former Apple engineer who developed the drawing app Astropad, also said: "We really want to understand the digital crown. The current SDK is too limited. I think the factor that makes it really take off is that developers integrate sensors into it and add more newer and more creative ideas. Many Apple apps are very cool, but I think with the addition of developers, you will see a lot of newer and more interesting things."

“We want to be able to access all the sensor data that’s being captured,” Elderson said. “When Apple finally opens it up, that’s going to be a huge game-changer for developers.”

3. iOS and Mac stability

After the twists and turns of launching iOS 8, Apple is said to have regarded stability as one of the core features of iOS 9, and most developers also think this is a wise move.

"From an engineering perspective, I totally understand them slowing things down and cleaning things up," Lanci said. "I'd love to see that not only with the new iOS, but I'd love to see it on the Mac as well. Especially with Wi-Fi, we just had a lot of big issues with Yosemite. Our products rely on Wi-Fi, so it's really important to us and we'd like to see it improve and become more reliable."

Crossman also said: "If Apple announces that they are more focused on stability, even if no new features are added, I would be very happy. Before iOS 8, we had a lot of trouble with things not working properly. We really hope that they can improve the current features, especially those new features that work very well, but need to fix performance and stability."

4. Remember iPad

"I think there will be a lot of stability updates and a renewed focus on what I call the 'neglected child', the iPad," Edelson said. "The iPad really didn't get a lot of attention from Apple in the last update, at least in terms of innovation. I think we'll see new features like split-screen multitasking."

Lanci also very much hopes to see Apple update the iPad. He hopes Apple can add new features to the iPad, such as Force Touch. This screen technology has currently been applied to Apple Watch and the new generation of Macbooks. The devices can sense the strength of light and heavy pressure and call out different corresponding functions.

"We're really excited about the potential of Force Touch for art," Lanci said. "This new input technology will allow for more precise sketching and painting with Astropad. With Force Touch, you can just use a regular stylus, and if you have some pressure sensitivity, that's really cool. Combined with Astropad, it will make our current work in art and design much easier."

"I would really like to see more granular control over notifications," Crossman said. "Right now, especially on the Apple Watch, notifications are almost always sent on an app-by-app basis. I would like Apple to give developers more power to tag notifications in specific ways, giving users control over which notifications come from which devices. Personally, I would like to see Confide users be able to send specific notifications only to Apple Watches."