Graham Spencer

1054 posts on MacStories since January 2011

Former MacStories contributor.
graham@macstories.net

Apple Announces New iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru, India→

Apple press release:

Apple today announced a new initiative to support engineering talent and accelerate growth in India’s iOS developer community.

The company will establish a Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru, the home of India’s startup scene. Tens of thousands of developers in India make apps for iOS, the world’s most powerful mobile operating system and the foundation for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This initiative will provide additional, specialized support for them.

This new Design and Development Accelerator (which will open in early 2017) is similar to the announcement from January this year where Apple committed to opening an iOS App Development Center in Naples, Italy.

“India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we’re giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world.”

Today’s India-specific press release comes after another Apple press release yesterday which announced that GarageBand added Chinese instruments and sounds. Tim Cook was in China, but arrived in India last night for his first official visit to India as Apple CEO. Cook is expected to visit Gurgaon, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, as well as meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Putting Recent App Review Time Improvements in Visual Context

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

As many have noted this month, including Bloomberg, App Review has been processing app updates at a much quicker rate than usual. In the past week the average time for an iOS app to be approved by App Review has fallen to just 1.5 days. Apple itself doesn’t publish times, but there is unofficial crowd-sourced data at AppReviewTimes.com.

Dave Verwer of AppReviewTimes.com was kind enough to share the raw data with MacStories, and we produced the above and below charts which provide some visual context and demonstrate just how out of the ordinary the recent improvement in App Review time is. It is too early to say conclusively, but given the extent of the reduction (and the sudden nature of it), I think it is fairly safe to guess that Apple has made some internal changes in order to improve the speed of App Review.

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Earlier this year we published an extensive survey which detailed a number of frustrations that developers had with App Review, and suggestions for how Apple could improve App Review. At the top of that list of developer frustrations was the slow speed of App Review, with 78% saying it was bad or terrible.

Apple Celebrates Chinese Music With GarageBand Update→

Apple issued a press release earlier today, announcing a GarageBand update which adds Chinese instruments and sounds:

Apple today announced an update to GarageBand that celebrates the rich history of Chinese music with new instruments and extensive Chinese language localization throughout the app. Building on GarageBand’s extensive collection of sounds, this update adds traditional Chinese instruments — the pipa, erhu and Chinese percussion — along with 300 Apple-created Chinese musical loops, giving users the power to tap into their creativity and make beautiful Chinese-inspired music right on their iOS device or Mac. GarageBand for iOS users also get two new Chinese templates for Live Loops, and new sharing options to popular Chinese social networks, so they can easily share their music creations with friends and followers across QQ and Youku.

There’s also a video of Tim Cook and Chinese musician JJ Lin making some music with these new Chinese instruments in GarageBand.

There’s no doubt that this is a very nice update to GarageBand which will be appreciated by many millions of users in China and around the world. But what I find even more interesting is that Apple took the time to publicize the update in a press release. It’s yet another example of Apple’s strong efforts in courting Chinese users and the Chinese government as the region becomes even more important to Apple’s future.

Below the break I’ve listed every single press release from Apple since the beginning of May last year and you’ll notice that five press releases are dedicated to China-specific announcements (in bold). The only other country-specific announcements are the UK Apple Pay announcement and Europe’s first iOS App Development Center in Italy.

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Apple Music Introduces Student Subscription With 50% Discount→

TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reports that Apple has today introduced a new student subscription plan for Apple Music which cuts the cost of the subscription to just $4.99 per month.

The option isn’t just arriving in the U.S., though. Students in other countries, including the U.K., Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, will also be able to take advantage of the new membership option.

However, because Apple Music is priced slightly differently in other markets, the cost of the student membership will vary. But in all markets, it will be 50 percent off the standard subscription price.

This is a smart move to boost subscription numbers. At just $5 per month, Apple Music becomes a really good deal - even for cash-strapped students. The new student subscription plan is available from today, but it does require you to verify that you are a student.

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