Apple VP Lisa Jackson has tweeted a photo of the first graduating class from the Apple Developer Academy in Naples …

Apple confirmed today that iTunes Connect will be unavailable for a five-day period lasting from December 23 to 27. The pre-announced shut down is part of Apple’s annual time off period for app reviewers at the company.

Apple today announced that transcripts are now available to accompany its WWDC 2016 session videos. These transcripts allow developers to read the full content of session videos.

One of iOS 10’s cool new features is the ability for developers to create sticker pack animated emojis for iMessage using the Messages API.   Apple is showing how it is done, so to speak…

Apple’s announcement that developers will be able to keep 85% of subscription revenue after the first year seemed to leave some questions unanswered. In particular, Phil Schiller’s examples appeared to contradict descriptions on Apple’s own website.

You have to feel a little sympathy for Microsoft. At a time when everyone wants to be writing apps for iOS first and Android second, Windows 10 is left out there as a platform people might get around to if they have time. But the company seems to be compensating by beefing up its efforts to both sell its services to iOS developers and create more iOS apps.

Apple has released the fourth update to Safari Technology Preview today with fixes in connecting to the 1Password extension and watching videos on Netflix. The update primarily focuses on general bug fixes including networking, media, JavaScript, CSS, web APIs, Web Inspector, rendering, and accessibility. Safari Technology Preview is available as a download through the Apple Developer Center and subsequent updates will be received through the Mac App Store.

Apple is rolling out some iterative improvements to Apple News for publishers taking advantage of its Apple News Format to post articles. Apple is adding Map and Place components, to let authors pictographically display relevant locations — complete with pins to highlight POI.

Apple has announced on its developer blog that it will require all apps submitted to the iOS App Store to support IPv6-only networks from June 1 2016. Apple originally introduced the transition a year ago at WWDC 2015, implying it would soon become a requirement.

Stanford has released the latest semester of its iOS development course today. Entitled “Developing Apps for iOS 9 with Swift“, professor Paul Hegarty takes students and iTunes U subscribers through the intricacies of developing for one of the world’s most popular mobile operating systems. The first lecture is available today as an introduction to the course. 

We’ve previously reported that the Samsung Gear S2 would be gaining support for iOS later this year, and it looks like that support is coming soon. A member of the XDA-Developers forums has shared a link to a potentially early version of a Samsung Gear S2 specific app that would allows iOS to pair with the device. While the app appears to be in the early stages (indications of the app’s creation dates back to March 2nd), it could potentially show us what the final app will look like.

Based on discussions in the forum, users looking to attempt the pair the devices may have to restore their S2 to factory settings before having it pair with the leaked iOS application. This may require having another Android device on hand, but the results seem to be mixed at this point. Some forum members are also indicating that they are able to receive notifications pushed from iOS, but have no way to reply.

The Samsung Gear S2 Lite iOS application can be installed through iTunes, or by side-loading through Xcode. Before launching the application, a Samsung specific enterprise profile must be accepted through settings. We cannot stress this enough, installing applications from unverified sources is not guaranteed safe. Proceed with extreme caution.

The Samsung Gear S2 is available refurbished from Best Buy for $159.99, or new from Amazon at $249.

Apple has released its first update and second release to its Safari Technology Preview browser. The browser puts an emphasis on releasing stable, technology preview ready builds. With updates coming every two weeks, Apple is showing a commitment to bringing stability to developers on the cutting edge of web technologies.

In a blog post announcing their launch of an embeddable web and native app VR viewer, Google also introduced the official launch of their Cardboard SDK for iOS. The SDK allows iOS developers to embed virtual reality content within their own apps to then be viewed using a viewer like Google’s own Cardboard.

Apple has released Xcode 7.3 for developers, following a lengthy beta period, with several new features, enhancements and bug fixes. First and foremost, Xcode 7.3 includes the latest SDKs for iOS 9.3, watchOS 2.2, OS X 10.11.4. It also bundles the latest release of Swift version 2.2.

Xcode 7.3 include several new features, including more intelligent code completion so developers can more quickly write their programs. It also lets developers more easily handle developing for Apple Watch, with quick switching between paired Watches. The debugger now automatically evaluates framework code, a big pain point for developers to date. The static analyzer has been upgraded to detect more potential issues related to pointer nullability.

Grab Xcode 7.3 now from the Mac App Store.

Stack Overflow reports that more developers now use OS X than Linux as their primary OS, and that if the trend continues, fewer than half of all developers will be using Windows next year.

Apple is adding a convenient new feature for developers today in iTunes Connect. Following a refresh to the Payments and Financial Reports pages a fortnight ago, Apple is now letting developers opt-in to a weekly summary report email of their apps. The email will summarize important business metrics for the developer’s apps, including information on App Store views, unit sales, sessions and crash rates. The email will also show the comparisons of these statistics to the previous seven-day period.

Apple is rolling out a small but useful improvement to developers today. It has overhauled the Payments and Financial Reports section of iTunes Connect with a modern interface and new design that combines all relevant financial numbers into one table. This screen was long overdue for a redesign, until today featuring ugly iOS 5 era buttons and textured backgrounds. The new look reflects Apple’s modern design philosophy: flat, white and clean.

On Wednesday, Google released their aptly named UI testing framework, EarlGrey. Having been using the framework in a few of their current iOS apps already for functional testing, it’s good to hear that the product has been validated before an initial public release.

Panic has released their new 2.5 update for Prompt, the popular SSH application for iOS. Introducing split-screen views on the iPad and 3D Touch on the latest iPhones, this brings Prompt to the forefront with the latest features available in iOS 9.

Data from App Annie suggests that global mobile app revenue will hit $50B this year, and $101B by 2020. Total annual downloads will rise from 111B last year to 284B by 2020.

Apple’s iOS is set to retain its store leadership by gross revenue over the five-year period, while Google Play and third-party Android stores will expand their lead measured in downloads due to wider proliferation of devices.

The forecast was made a month after Apple announced a new record for App Store sales, hitting over $1.1B revenue in just two weeks of the holiday season.

App Annie suggests that China will overtake the U.S. in app revenue in the first half of this year, and cites good evidence for this …

Apple this evening has pushed a small update to its developer software Xcode. The update bumps the app to version 7.2.1, following the initial release of version 7.2 late last year. Xcode 7.2.1 carries the build number 7C1002 and includes a handful of under-the-hood fixes and improvements.

Michael Sayman, known for creating the iOS game 4 Snaps, shared a story today on what it was like growing up in the world of iOS development at such a young age. After his first app’s major success at the age of 13, an app based on his Club Penguin blog, Sayman soon gained to media attention and began to travel the world sharing his story. In the profile, he delves into the irony of being paid to travel and tell this personal story on success, all the while his parents were struggling financially at home.

Sayamn also explains how he became the primary bill-payer for the household and what that was like for a teen in school.

I’m a fan of the British newspaper The Guardian, whose news coverage and features are often excellent (disclaimer: I’ve written a few articles for it myself), but a piece it ran last night is just plain bizarre. It attempted to explain the company’s slowing sales – temporary or not – by suggesting that software engineers no longer want to work there.

Tellingly, Apple is no longer seen as the best place for engineers to work, according to several Silicon Valley talent recruiters. It’s a trend that has been happening slowly for years – and now, in this latest tech boom, has become more acute.

The evidence presented for this? One freelance developer, one unnamed “startup executive,” one software designer and two recruiters. Among the reasons given are the culture of secrecy (doh!) and the fact that “Apple notoriously doesn’t serve free food, which was unusual in 2012 and, in 2016 Silicon Valley, shocking for highly prized and pampered engineers accustomed to perk.”

The one sensible reason given was that some engineers want to work on new stuff, rather than the latest iteration of an already successful product. This is true, but it’s hardly news that one employer isn’t for everyone …

Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images via the Guardian

The TIOBE index uses search engine rankings to track popularity of programming languages. In January, Swift overtook Objective-C to become the 14th most popular language in the TIOBE index. The surge in popularity was spurred by the release of Swift into open-source in December. With developer interest growing, Ryan Olson was interested in how much Apple is using Swift for its own apps.

Apple today has announced that its App Analytics feature now supports tvOS apps. This means that developers can get more detail on how users are responding to and using their apps on the fourth-gen Apple TV. Developers can see how many views their App Store product page is receiving, track marketing campaign, get app usage information, and track in-app purchase success.