WWDC20: What’s new for developers?

This dub dub brought so many amazing features which are must know for you as a developer & as an app owner to enrich your app experience.

AppClips — Source: https://developer.apple.com/

App Clips

You can now have small working features of your app to be available separately to download, of <10 MB size.

Example: User went to restaurant, they see an app clips logo on table and they scan it with camera; and guess what the small app clip is now installed in their device. Now they can see the restaurant menu from the app clip.

This is a great way to let your users get feel the app before installing actual one.

You can have Sign-in with Apple & Apple Pay integration with App Clips as well.

There are various ways your users can find your App Clips, via NFC Tags, QR Codes, Safari App Banner, Links in Messages, Place Cards in Maps & from Recently Used App Clips section.

I highly recommend to integrate this in your apps.

WidgetKit

WidgetKit — Source: https://developer.apple.com/

Allow your users to see important content of your app without opening the app from home screen; across iOS, iPadOS & macOS.

I consider this as advanced version of Today Extension.

In-App Purchase Transactions Tool

Now test In-App purchase in simulator directly from a transactions tool; including Auto Renewable subscription. 😃

WWDC20: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10659/

Nearby interactions

Now access Apple’s U1 chip to do nearby interactions between multiple devices.

WWDC20: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10668

New Apple Developer Forum

A Stackoverflow style Apple developer forum is a new way to ask/answer questions.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/

SwiftUI

Some awesome new SwiftUI APIs including TextEditor, LazyHGrid & LazyVGrid (UICollectionView alternative), FileDocument and DocumentGroup (To create a document-based apps), ColorPicker, Sidebar for iPadOS and more…

Mac Catalyst

Apple has added tons of new APIs including SwiftUI available to Mac Catalyst which converts iPadOS apps to Mac app.

WWDC20 — New Catalyst APIs: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10143

FaceID & Touch ID for web

Now login to your websites securely with TouchID & FaceID using Web Authentication.

WWDC20 — Auth with FaceID: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10670/

WWDC20 — Web Authentication: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10670/

Xcode12: Faster Xcode

New document tabs make opening multiple files fast and lightweight to support interface files, and logs and project files each open in their own tab. Navigator fonts now match the system size, or can be set to small, medium, or large. And Xcode 12 builds macOS Universal apps by default to support new Macs with Apple silicon. — Apple

Xcode12: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-reveals-new-developer-technologies-to-foster-the-next-generation-of-apps/

Many more…

Including macOS Big Sur, iOS 14, iPadOS 14, Siri, Machine Learning, Apple watch complications etc…

WWDC is still in full swing, Keeping eyes on it and will update here if there is any significant update for you.

Thanks for reading.