I've always understood it to be the case that apps could permit users to log in or use a code to access paid content, as long as the app did not direct the user to an external web site to make a purchase. For example, apps like Netflix or Kindle.My app isn't even doing anything close to this. I have an app in which digital content is unlocked via in-app purchase. Occasionally I give away promo codes that allow a user to unlock one free piece of content. These codes can only be used once, and are distributed in very limited numbers on cards, in person, at events like trade shows.My app has been in the store for about four years using this method. This week I attempted to publish a small bug-fix update, and was flagged by Apple and told that my use of Promo Codes in this manner violates the rules.What happened here? Did Apple misunderstand what my app is doing? Did the rules change recently and I was unaware of the change? Has this always been against the rules, but either Apple didn't enforce it before or they never reviewed my app thorougly enough to find it?Thanks,Frank

How do I get a background image to fill the screen in my launch screen on an iPhone X?I have aligned the image to the top and bottom layout guides, but this leaves large white gaps.

Hi,I have an app that was approved and is "Pending developer release".While we were waiting to release the app, someone found a bug that we'd like to fix.Unfortunately, I can neither upload a new version of the app, nor create a new version in iTunes Connect (the option to add a new iOS version is disabled).Is there any way to revoke the approved version without releasing it to the app store? I don't mind having to wait for Apple to review the updated version again.Frank

Hi,I have an app that includes a very simple one-button interface for recording a video. Our customer wants to be able to switch between the front and rear cameras while the video is being recorded, and without any interruption in the video stream. I notice that even the iOS built-in camera app doesn't do this, but I've heard that some third-party apps do.Is this possible in a practical way? If so, how would I go about it?Thanks,Frank

A customer added me to their team today as a developer.When I sign in to App Store Connect, I can see and select their team from the list that appears under my name. However, when I open Xcode, the team doesn't appear under my Apple ID in Account Preferences or in the Team drop-down in the signing tab.I also noticed that even though I can select the team in App Store Connect, my name doesn't appear on the Users and Access screen. But I can see the app that I was assigned to work on.I tried closing and opening Xcode several times. I also removed and re-added my Apple ID.I waited several hours in case this was some sort of data propagation issue, but it hasn't resolved. What should I do next?Frank

I've seen examples of Swift code with #if DEBUG / #endif, and have even used it myself.I know exactly how preprocessor macros work in c, c++ and Objective-C. In those languages, I know I can say:#ifdef DEBUG ... some code ...#endifAnd I know that if the DEBUG flag is false at build time, the code will not only not run, but it won't even be compiled. This is important to me because the code inside that block contains some sensitive information that must not end up in my compiled code for non-debug builds.In Swift, I'm really not sure what happens. I know the code doesn't execute, but I'm also told that Swift doesn't have a preprocessor. So, what exactly is going on here?Specifically, can I hide sensitive information inside an #if DEBUG block in Swift and be assured that it won't get compiled or in any way be present in the executable when the DEBUG flag is false? Or is #if DEBUG evaluated at runtime in Swift?Thanks,Frank

We have an auto-renewable subscription in our app that we want to stop offering. However, we want to make sure that people who have already purchased the subscription remain subscribed until the end of their current subscription period (and are subsequently unsubscribed and not charged further). What is the right way to do this?We tried submitting the app with the subscription still enabled in App Store Connect but hidden in the app, and our update was rejected because the reviewer couldn't find a way to subscribe.Thanks,Frank

How do I configure an iPad app to only work in portrait mode?In Xcode there are checkboxes for the four orientations, and only Portrait is checked, but the app still rotates into landscape mode.I also tried checking the "Requires full screen" box, but this didn't have any effect.Thanks,Frank

My app has been reporting error code -1200, "NSURLErrorSecureConnectionFailed", on a very small number of end user devices. I cannot reproduce the error. The devices that report this error have ranged from very old iOS 9 devices to modern iOS 14 devices. The documentation says, "An attempt to establish a secure connection failed for reasons that can’t be expressed more specifically." Can anyone elaborate on what kinds of reasons might cause this error? I'm otherwise stuck, with no way to explain this to my customers and no advice for how they might fix it. Thanks, Frank

I've got a fairly old app that I first built back in 2014, and have been maintaining over the years. One of the screens in the app uses the camera to scan barcodes. The barcodes we scan are printed on labels, and are in the org.iso.Code128 format. When the app was first developed, I simply set the metadataObjectTypes property of AVCaptureMetadataOutput to all available types. This worked fine. The app scanned our barcodes very quickly with almost no issues. In 2017, we started seeing issues where barcode scanning was becoming slower. I reasoned that having it configured to scan for every possible barcode format might be the issue, so I went in and changed the code to have it scan only for the org.iso.Code128 format. This helped, for a while. Now, we're seeing the problem again in iOS 14 devices. On some devices it is nearly impossible to scan the barcodes. On others, you have to wait 20 or 30 seconds before the barcode is recognized. What could be causing this issue?

I happen to have a lot of experience writing a Windows application in c#, where the async/await pattern has been a standard feature for years. I can say from this experience that it's a great way to handle concurrency and I'm really happy that Apple is bringing this to Swift. I'm often critical of language improvements that end up reproducing things you could already do with a different syntax, but in this case it's definitely worth it. If you've never used async/await, it may initially look confusing. It looks like all you're doing is blocking your thread from running until another thread completes, but what really happens is that your thread returns at the point where the await keyword appears, and then resumes later when the result is available. So if your thread is the main thread, which is the most common case, using await doesn't block the main thread. Exactly how the compiler manages to suspend and resume the thread without destroying your local variables, I don't know, but I'm sure they figured out a way that makes sense. Frank

How do I get Xcode to remember my Git credentials? I am not using Github, or one of the other brand-name Git repositories that Xcode recognizes. There doesn't appear to be a way to store Git credentials generically.

The server I'm working with returns a date/time string that is always expressed in US central time. There is no timezone information in the string itself. In order to parse this string, I need to create a DateFormatter and then assign its timeZone property. I'm having trouble figuring out the right way to do this. I know that the correct string that means US central time is "America/Chicago", but it appears that the TimeZone initializer is looking for an abbreviation, rather than a full string. I don't know what the correct abbreviation is. I don't want to use "CST" or "CDT" since those denote standard or daylight time. I need something that means whatever the current timzeone is in Chicago. In Java, as an example, the Timezone class accepts "America/Chicago" as an initializer and it works whether or not the calendar is on daylight savings time. Thanks, Frank

I'm using Sign In with Apple and requesting both .fullname and .email. The first time I sign in on any given device, the callback to my app has an authorization credential that contains an email address and a fullname, as expected. However, any subsequent login on the same device does not return either the email address or the fullname. All I get is the user ID string. The server I'm working with requires an email address to log in, so I need that email address. Why does it only appear the first time? Frank

Hi, I'm trying to figure out how to manually position a subview within a view using SwiftUI. For example, when the user taps the screen, I want to place a small icon on the screen at the position tapped. I know how to get the coordinates of the tapped location but I don't know how to either place a view there or move an existing view already being shown to that location. In a regular non-SwiftUI app I can set the frame, or set up constraints. I don't know what the best approach is in SwiftUI. Thanks.