A New Design

The iOS 7 UI has been completely redesigned. Throughout the system, a sharpened focus on functionality and on the user's content informs every aspect of design. Translucency, refined visual touches—and fluid, realistic motion—impart clarity, depth, and vitality to the user experience. Whether you're creating a new app or updating an existing one, keep these qualities in mind as you work on the design.

Apps compiled against the iOS 7 SDK automatically receive the new appearance for any standard system views when the app is run on iOS 7. If you use Auto Layout to set the size and position of your views, those views are repositioned as needed. But there may still be additional work to do to make sure your interface still has the appearance you want. Similarly, if you customize your app’s views, you may need to make changes to support the new appearance fully.

For guidance on how to design apps that take full advantage of the new look in iOS 7, see iOS 7 Design Resources.

UIKit Dynamics

Apps can now specify dynamic behaviors for UIView objects and for other objects that conform to the UIDynamicItem protocol. (Objects that conform to this protocol are called dynamic items.) Dynamic behaviors offer a way to improve the user experience of your app by incorporating real-world behavior and characteristics, such as gravity, into your app’s animations. UIKit supports the following types of dynamic behaviors:

• A UIAttachmentBehavior object specifies a connection between two dynamic items or between an item and a point. When one item (or point) moves, the attached item also moves. The connection is not completely static, though. An attachment behavior has damping and oscillation properties that determine how the behavior changes over time.

• A UICollisionBehavior object lets dynamic items participate in collisions with each other and with the behavior’s specified boundaries. The behavior also lets those items respond appropriately to collisions.

• A UIGravityBehavior object specifies a gravity vector for its dynamic items. Dynamic items accelerate in the vector’s direction until they collide with other appropriately configured items or with a boundary.

• A UIPushBehavior object specifies a continuous or instantaneous force vector for its dynamic items.

• A UISnapBehavior object specifies a snap point for a dynamic item. The item snaps to the point with a configured effect. For example, it can snap to the point as if it were attached to a spring.

Dynamic behaviors become active when you add them to an animator object, which is an instance of the UIDynamicAnimator class. The animator provides the context in which dynamic behaviors execute. A given dynamic item can have multiple behaviors, but all of those behaviors must be animated by the same animator object.

For information about the behaviors you can apply, see UIKit Framework Reference.

Text Kit

Text Kit is a full-featured, high-level framework for apps that need to handle text that has all the characteristics of fine typography. Text Kit can lay out styled text into paragraphs, columns, and pages; it easily flows text around arbitrary regions such as graphics; and it manages multiple fonts. Text Kit is integrated with all UIKit text-based controls to enable applications to create, edit, display, and store text more easily—and with less code than was previously possible in iOS.

Text Kit comprises new classes plus extensions to existing classes, including the following:

• The NSAttributedString class has been extended to support new attributes.

• The NSLayoutManager class generates glyphs and lays out text.

• The NSTextContainer class defines a region where text is laid out.

• The NSTextStorage class defines the fundamental interface for managing text-based content.

For more information about Text Kit, see Text Programming Guide for iOS.

Sprite Kit Framework

The Sprite Kit framework (SpriteKit.framework) provides a hardware-accelerated animation system optimized for creating 2D and 2.5D games. Sprite Kit provides the infrastructure that most games need, including a graphics rendering and animation system, sound playback support, and a physics simulation engine. Using Sprite Kit frees you from creating these things yourself and lets you focus on the design of your content and the high-level interactions for that content.

Content in a Sprite Kit app is organized into scenes. A scene can include textured objects, video, path-based shapes, Core Image filters, and other special effects. Sprite Kit takes those objects and determines the most efficient way to render them onscreen. When it comes time to animate the content in your scenes, you can use Sprite Kit to specify explicit actions you want to perform or use the physics simulation engine to define physical behaviors (such as gravity, attraction, or repulsion) for your objects.

In addition to the Sprite Kit framework, there are Xcode tools for creating particle emitter effects and texture atlases. You can use the Xcode tools to manage app assets and update Sprite Kit scenes quickly.

For more information about how to use Sprite Kit, see Sprite Kit Programming Guide. To see an example of how to use Sprite Kit to build a working app, seecode:Explained Adventure.

Game Controller Framework

The Game Controller framework (GameController.framework) lets you discover and configure Made-for-iPhone/iPod/iPad (MFi) game controller hardware in your app. Game controllers can be devices connected physically to an iOS device or connected wirelessly over Bluetooth. The Game Controller framework notifies your app when controllers become available and lets you specify which controller inputs are relevant to your app.

For more information about supporting game controllers, Game Controller Programming Guide.

Game Center Improvements

Game Center includes the following improvements:

• Exchanges give players an opportunity to initiate actions with other players, even when it is not their turn. You can use this feature to implement simultaneous turns, player chats, and trading between players when it is not their turn.

• The limit on per-app leaderboards has been raised from 25 to 100. You can also organize your leaderboards using a GKLeaderboardSet object, which increases the limit to 500.

• You can add conditions to challenges that define when the challenge has been met. For example, a challenge to beat a time in a driving game might stipulate that other players must use the same vehicle.

• The framework has improved its authentication support and added other features to prevent cheating.

For more information about how to use the new Game Center features, see Game Center Programming Guide. For information about the classes of the Game Kit framework, see Game Kit Framework Reference.

UIKit Framework

The UIKit framework (UIKit.framework) includes the following enhancements:

• All UI elements have been updated to present the new look associated with iOS 7.

• UIKit Dynamics lets you mimic real-world effects such as gravity in your animations; see “UIKit Dynamics.”

• Text Kit provides sophisticated text editing and display capabilities; see “Text Kit.”

• The UIView class defines the following additions:

  • The tintColor property applies a tint color that affects both the view and its subviews. For information on how to apply tint colors, see iOS 7 UI Transition Guide.

  • You can create keyframe-based animations using views. You can also make changes to your views and specifically prevent any animations from being performed.

• The UIViewController class defines the following additions:

  • View controller transitions can be customized, driven interactively, or replaced altogether with ones you designate.

  • View controllers can now specify their preferred status bar style and visibility. The system uses the provided information to manage the status bar style as new view controllers appear. You can also control how this behavior is applied using the UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance key in your app’sInfo.plist file.

• The UIMotionEffect class defines the basic behavior for motion effects, which are objects that define how a view responds to device-based motion.

• Collection views support UIKit Dynamics. Using this support, you can apply behavior objects to layout attributes to animate the corresponding items in the collection.

• The imageNamed: method of UIImage supports retrieving images stored in image asset catalogs, which are a way to manage and optimize assets that have multiple sizes and resolutions. You create image asset catalogs in Xcode.

• There is a new snapshot method on UIView and UIScreen creates a view that you can use to present your app’s content.

• The UIKeyCommand class wraps keyboard events received from an external hardware keyboard. These events are delivered to the app’s responder chain for processing.

• A UIFontDescriptor object describes a font using a dictionary of attributes. Use font descriptors to interoperate with other platforms.

• The UIFont and UIFontDescriptor classes support dynamic text sizing, which improves legibility for text in apps. With this feature, the user controls the desired font size that all apps in the system should use.

• The UIActivity class now supports new activity types, including activities for sending items via AirDrop, adding items to a Safari reading list, and posting content to Flickr, Tencent Weibo, and Vimeo.

• The UIApplicationDelegate protocol adds methods for handling background fetch behaviors.

• UIKit adds support for running in a guided-access mode, which allows an app to lock itself to prevent modification by the user. This app is intended for institutions such as schools where users bring their own devices but need to run apps provided by the institution.

• State restoration now allows the saving and restoration of any object. Objects adopting the UIStateRestoring protocol can write out state information when the app moves to the background and have that state restored during subsequent launches.

• Table views now support estimating the height of rows and other elements, which improves scrolling performance.

For information about the classes of this framework, see UIKit Framework Reference.

Store Kit Framework

The Store Kit framework (StoreKit.framework) has migrated to a new receipt system that developers can use to verify in-app purchases on the device itself. You can also use it to verify the app purchase receipt on the server.

For more information about how to use this new receipt system, see Receipt Validation Programming Guide.

Security Framework

The Security framework (Security.framework) adds support for syncing passwords between user's devices via iCloud. Apps can mark their keychain items for iCloud via a new keychain attribute (kSecAttrSyncronizable).

For more information about this attribute, see the framework header files. For general information about the keychain, see the Keychain Services Programming Guide.

Pass Kit Framework

The Pass Kit framework (PassKit.framework) includes new APIs for adding multiple passes at once, along with these additions to the pass file format:

• New keys specify the expiration date for a pass.

• You can specify that a pass is relevant only when it is in the vicinity of specific Bluetooth beacons.

• New attributes control how a pass is displayed. You can group passes together, display links with custom text on the back of a pass, and control how time values are displayed on the pass.

• You can now associate extra data with a pass. This data is available to your app but not displayed to the user.

• You can designate which data detectors to apply to the fields of your passes.

For information about how to use Pass Kit in your app, see Passbook Programming Guide. For information about the pass file format, see Passbook Package Format Reference.

OpenGL ES

OpenGL ES includes the following new extensions:

• The EXT_sRGB extension adds support for sRGB framebuffer operations.

• The GL_APPLE_pvrtc_sRGB extension adds support for sRGB texture data compressed in the PVRTC texture format.

• The GL_APPLE_draw_instanced and GL_APPLE_instanced_arrays extensions can improve rendering performance when your app draws multiple instances of the same object. You use a single call to draw instances of the same object. You add variation to each instance by specifying how fast each vertex attribute advances or by referencing an ID for each instance in your shader.

As always, check for the existence of an extension before using it in your app.

Also, textures can now be accessed in vertex shaders; query the value of the MAX_VERTEX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS attribute to determine the exact number of textures you can access.

MessageUI Framework

In the MessageUI framework, the MFMessageComposeViewController class adds support for attaching files to messages. For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files.

For information about the classes of this framework, see Message UI Framework Reference.

Media Player Framework

In the Media Player framework, the MPVolumeView class provides support for determining whether wireless routes such as AirPlay and Bluetooth are available for the user to select. You can also determine whether one of these wireless routes is currently active. For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For information about the classes of Media Player framework, see Media Player Framework Reference.

Map Kit Framework

The Map Kit framework (MapKit.framework) includes changes that are described in “Maps.”

For information about the classes of this framework, see Map Kit Framework Reference.

Image I/O Framework

The Image I/O framework (ImageIO.framework) now has interfaces for getting and setting image metadata.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For information about the classes of this framework, see Image I/O Reference Collection.

iAd Framework

The iAd framework (iAd.framework) includes two extensions to other frameworks that make it easier to incorporate ads into your app’s content:

• The framework introduces new methods on the MPMoviePlayerController class that let you run ads before a movie.

• The framework extends the UIViewController class to make it easier to create ad-supported content. You can now configure your view controllers to display ads before displaying the actual content they manage.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For information about the classes of this framework, see Ad Support Framework Reference.

Game Kit Framework

The Game Kit framework (GameKit.framework) includes numerous changes, which are described in “Game Center Improvements.”

For information about the classes of this framework, see Game Kit Framework Reference.

Foundation Framework

The Foundation framework (Foundation.framework) includes the following enhancements:

• The NSURLSession class is a new class for managing the acquisition of network-based resources in the background. This class serves as a replacement for theNSURLConnection class and its delegate; it also replaces the NSURLDownload class and its delegate.

• The NSURLComponents class is a new class for parsing the components of a URL. This class supports the URI standard (rfc3986/STD66) for parsing URLs.

• The NSNetService and NSNetServiceBrowser classes support peer-to-peer discovery over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

• The NSURLCredential and NSURLCredentialStorage classes let you create credentials with a synchronizable policy and provide the option of removing credentials with a synchronizable policy from iCloud.

• The NSURLCache, NSURLCredentialStorage, NSHTTPCookieStorage classes now support for the asynchronous processing of storage requests.

• The NSCalendar class supports new calendar types.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files and Foundation release notes. For general information about the classes of this framework, see Foundation Framework Reference.

Core Telephony Framework

The Core Telephony framework (CoreTelephony.framework) lets you get information about the type of radio technology in use by the device, the current signal strength, and the cell ID serving the device. Apps developed in conjunction with a carrier can also authenticate their apps against a particular subscriber for that carrier.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For general information about the classes of the Core Telephony framework, see Core Telephony Framework Reference

Core Motion Framework

The Core Motion framework (CoreMotion.framework) adds support for step counting and motion tracking. With step counting, the framework detects movements that correspond to user motion and uses that information to report the number of steps to your app. Because the system detects the motion, the system can continue to gather step data even when your app is not running. Alongside this feature, the framework can also distinguish different types of motion, including different motions reflective of travel by walking, by running, or by automobile. Navigation apps might use that data to change the type of directions they give to users.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For general information about the classes of this framework, see Core Motion Framework Reference.

Core Location Framework

The Core Location framework (CoreLocation.framework) supports ranging using Bluetooth devices. Ranging lets you determine the relative range of nearby Bluetooth devices and respond appropriately. For example, a museum might place Bluetooth beacons in its galleries and provide visitors with an app that displays information as the user enters and exits those galleries. The framework also supports deferring the delivery of location updates until a specific time has elapsed or the user has moved a minimum distance.

For general information about the classes of this framework, see Core Location Framework Reference.

Core Foundation Framework

The Core Foundation framework (CoreFoundation.framework) now supports scheduling stream objects on dispatch queues. For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files.

For general information about the interfaces of this framework, see Core Foundation Framework Reference.

Core Bluetooth Framework

The Core Bluetooth framework (CoreBluetooth.framework) includes the following enhancements:

• The framework supports saving state information for central and peripheral objects and restoring that state at app launch time. You can use this feature to support long-term actions involving Bluetooth devices.

• The central and peripheral classes now use an NSUUID object to store unique identifiers.

• You can now retrieve peripheral objects from a central manager synchronously.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For general information about the classes of this framework, see Core Bluetooth Framework Reference.

AV Foundation Framework

The AV Foundation framework (AVFoundation.framework) includes the following enhancements:

• The AVAudioSession class supports the following new behaviors:

  • Support for selecting the preferred audio input, including audio from built-in microphones

  • Support for multichannel input and output

• The AVVideoCompositing and related classes let you support custom video compositors.

• The AVSpeechSynthesizer and related classes provide speech synthesis capabilities.

• The capture classes add support and interfaces for the following features:

  • Discovery of a camera’s supported formats

  • Support for 60 fps recording

  • Video zoom (true and digital) in recordings and video preview, including custom ramping

  • Real-time discovery of machine-readable barcode metadata

  • Autofocus range restriction

  • Access to the clocks used during capture

• There are new metadata key spaces for supported ISO formats such as MPEG-4 and 3GPP and improved support for filtering metadata items when copying those items from source assets to output files using the AVAssetExportSession class.

• The AVAssetWriter class provides assistance in formulating output settings and there are new level constants for H.264 encoding.

• The AVPlayerLayer class adds the videoRect property, which you can use to get the size and position of the video image.

• The AVPlayerItem class supports the following changes:

  • Asset properties can be loaded automatically when AVPlayerItem objects are prepared for playback.

  • When you link your app against iOS SDK 7, the behavior when getting the values of player item properties—such as the duration, or tracks, orpresentationSize properties—is different than pervious versions of iOS. The properties of this class now return a default value and no longer block your app if the AVPlayerItem object is is not yet ready to play. As soon as the player item’s status changes to AVPlayerItemStatusReadyToPlay, the getters reflect the actual values of the underlying media resource. If you use key-value observing to monitor changes to the properties, your observers are notified as soon as changes are available.

• The AVPlayerItemLegibleOutput class can process timed text from media files.

• The AVAssetResourceLoadingDelegate protocol now supports loading of arbitrary ranges of bytes from a media resource.

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For general information about the classes of this framework, see AV Foundation Framework Reference.

Accelerate Framework

The Accelerate framework (Accelerate.framework) includes the following enhancements:

• Improved support for manipulating Core Graphics data types

• Support for working with grayscale images of 1, 2, or 4 bits per pixel

• New routines for converting images between different formats and transforming image contents

• Support for biquad (IIR) operations

For information about the new interfaces, see the framework header files. For general information about the functions and types of this framework, see Accelerate Framework Reference.

Address Book

• When an app is in a fresh privacy state and tries to present a ABNewPersonViewController, the user cannot dismiss that view controller properly even if they allow access to contacts. The user must force quit the app and relaunch.

• Requesting access to contacts:

  • Users are able to grant or deny access to contact data on a per-app basis. To request access to contact data, call the ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion function after calling the ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions function. The ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion function does not block the app while the user is being asked to grant or deny access. Until access has been granted, the ABAddressBookRef object will not contain any contacts and any attempt to modify contacts fails with a kABOperationNotPermittedByUserError error. The user is prompted only the first time access is requested; any subsequent calls to ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions will use the existing permissions. The completion handler is called on an arbitrary queue. If the ABAddressBookRef object is used throughout the app, then all usage must be dispatched to the same queue to use ABAddressBookRef in a thread-safe manner.

• Checking access authorization status:

  • An app can use the authorization status API to check if it can access contacts, calendars, reminders or photo library. This API is independent from the the request access API and will not prompt the user to grant or deny access. With this API an app can adjust the display of its UI elements that would access the data class. For example, if access to contacts is authorized or not determined then a UI button to pick a contact can be displayed.

  • For Address Book, call the ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus function. For Event Kit, call the authorizationStatusForEntityType: class method of EKEventStore. For Assets Library, call the authorizationStatus class method of ALAssetsLibrary. The meaning of the status values that are returned is as follows:

    • Authorization Status Not Determined - The user has not yet made a choice regarding whether this app can access the data class.

    • Authorization Status Restricted - This app is not authorized to access the data class. The user cannot change this app’s status, possibly due to active restrictions such as parental controls being in place.

    • Authorization Status Denied - The user explicitly denied access to the data class for this app.

    • Authorization Status Authorized - This app is authorized to access the data class.

Apple TV

• In some cases, the screen may show the wrong resolution. Restart your Apple TV to return it to the correct resolution.

• FIXED: Netflix videos may not resume where you left off.

• FIXED: The History list in the YouTube app gets cleared when you exit and reenter the app.

• Apple TV may be slow to respond while a download is in progress in the background.

• Apple TV may restart while using the Remote app.

• Apple TV may restart when changing the system language.

• Photo Stream does not load when logging in a second time. Restart Apple TV to resolve.

• Music does not play during photo slideshows.

• New Behaviors:

  • Pick remote speakers in Settings > AirPlay.

  • Set an onscreen code for AirPlay in Settings > AirPlay.

  • Save multiple iTunes Store accounts in Settings > iTunes Store.

  • Press and hold the Select button to rearrange icons on the main menu.

  • Hide the main menu icons in Settings > General > Parental Controls.

Bonjour

• The NSNetService class and CFNetService APIs do not include P2P interfaces by default. To browse, register, or resolve services over P2P interfaces, an app needs to use the Bonjour DNSService*() APIs noted below.

• Setting the interfaceIndex parameter to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny in the following API's will not include P2P interfaces by default. To include P2P interfaces, you must now set the kDNSServiceFlagsIncludeP2P flag when using kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny or set the interfaceIndex to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexP2P. The affected APIs are:

  • DNSServiceBrowse

  • DNSServiceRegister

  • DNSServiceResolve

  • DNSServiceRegisterRecord

  • DNSServiceQueryRecord

Dictionary

• There is a known issue with dictionaries when attempting to define a word in any language other than English or Japanese. When the reference library is presented, the user is presented with the option to download a dictionary - that download may not begin. The user can tap outside the popover on an iPad or tap the "Done" button on the iPhone or iPod touch in order to dismiss the download request.

Event Kit

• Requesting access to calendars or reminders:

  • Users are able to grant or deny access to event and reminder data on a per-app basis. To request access to event and/or reminder data, call the requestAccessToEntityType:completion: method of EKEventStore. This will not block the app while the user is being asked to grant or deny access. Until access has been granted for an entity type, the event store will not contain any calendars for that entity type, and any attempt to save data will fail.

  • The user will only be prompted the first time access is requested; any subsequent instantiations of EKEventStore will use the existing permissions. The completion handler is called on an arbitrary queue.

Game Center

• When creating a new Game Center account in-app on the iPad, the popover for selecting the month for your date of birth shows up with no content to select.

• The authenticate method of GKLocalPlayer has been removed. Authentication will automatically commence when the completion handler is set.

iCloud

• When creating an iCloud account, you can use any email based Apple ID, or you can use your existing iCloud account. If you had a MobileMe account that you have not yet moved to iCloud, you must move it first by visiting http://me.com. Moving to iCloud is only available for a limited time. Logging into a MobileMe account is not supported in iOS 6.

  • icloud.com email addresses are now available for iCloud mail users. Users signing up for new Apple IDs, or enabling Mail on their iCloud account for the first time, will automatically receive an @icloud.com email address instead of a me.com email address. iCloud users with @me.com addresses that have been used with iOS 6 beta 3 will receive an @icloud.com email address that matches their @me.com address.

  • icloud.com email cannot be sent from www.icloud.com. Users should use http://beta.icloud.com at this time if they wish to send email from their icloud.com address using a web browser.

• Provisioning profiles must be enabled for iCloud in the iOS Provisioning Portal. To enable a provisioning profile for iCloud, navigate to the App ID section of the iOS Provisioning Portal and configure your App ID for iCloud. After enabling the App ID for iCloud, regenerate your provisioning profiles to enable them for iCloud.

• The setSortDescriptors: method of NSMetadataQuery is not supported.

• In iOS 6, files that are protected via Data Protection cannot be used with iCloud Storage APIs.

• File names are case-insensitive in OS X but case-sensitive in iOS. This can lead to problems when sharing files between the two platforms using iCloud. You should take steps on iOS to avoid creating files whose names differ only by case.

• The behavior of coordinated read operations on iCloud Documents has changed.

  On previous iOS releases, when your app performed a coordinated read operation on a file or package, and the iCloud daemon noticed that there was a newer version of the item available, the coordinated read operation blocked until the newer version of the item was downloaded and written to the disk.

  Starting in iOS 6 beta 3, when you start a coordinated read operation on a file or package for which you already have a local version, the coordinated read will be granted as soon as possible, and the new version, if any, will download in the background. This call will block for downloading reasons only if you do not have any version of the file available locally.

  Additionally, when the file is conflicted, the iCloud daemon will not wait until it has all the conflict losers of the file available to make the file available to your app. It will make the different versions of the conflicted file available as soon as it can. Your app can use the existing file coordination and the UIDocument callbacks to be notified when the conflict losers have been downloaded and are available.

iMessage & FaceTime

• FIXED: The Answer and Decline buttons are missing when receiving calls in landscape orientations.

iTunes

• iTunes 10.6.3 is required for iOS SDK 6.0.

• FIXED: When restoring from an iTunes backup, the device intermittently shows up as a new device after rebooting. If that happens, set up the device as a “new device” when prompted to restore for the 2nd time. All data should have been restored correctly but sync settings including App arrangement in iTunes are lost.

Maps

• In iOS 6 and later, Map Kit is built on a new infrastructure hosted by Apple. Earlier iOS releases will continue to use Google’s service.

  • API compatibility will be maintained (see known issues below).

  • Maps are now supported in the Simulator.

  • Map data will continue to evolve—only a limited amount of high resolution satellite imagery is currently available.

• FIXED: If Maps is not running in the background, a "Maps cannot connect to the internet" error is displayed when it is launched from a 3rd party app.

• FIXED: If Maps has not yet been launched, the current location does not show up when it is launched from a 3rd-party app.

• Routing apps that do not specify a coverage file during development will always be displayed in the Maps routing search results.

• Testing and debugging of coverage files for routing apps is only supported during development through the Xcode "Run" workflow. (You can specify the coverage file for a given Run scheme using the Options pane of the Run section of the scheme editor.) Apps that are archived and distributed (outside of the App Store) onto devices will not have access to the app's coverage files.

• Maps does not zoom into the current location when launched from a 3rd party app.

Newsstand

• Only simple http downloads will work with Newsstand.

Passbook

• FIXED: An airplane icon appears between the origin and destination for all transit types.

• The "Description" field is now a required field for a Pass. All passes created without it will fail to validate and will not ingest.

• FIXED: The Passbook database has been reset. You’ll need to add your passes again.

• Passbook in the simulator no longer requires https/ssl when using a webServiceURL when ingesting a pass.

• Unable to show boarding passes on lock screen.

Reminders

• FIXED: There are issues when adding and editing reminders in the Reminders app on iPhone devices:

  • The Done button is missing when adding a new reminder.

  • The app crashes when you tap the Edit button to edit a reminder.

Security

• In iOS 5, signing a certificate with an MD5 signature is not supported. Please ensure that certificates use signature algorithms based on SHA1 or SHA2.

• In iOS 6, there are improved privacy controls for Calendars, Reminders, Contacts, and Photos.

  • Users will see access dialogs when an app tries to access any of those data types. The user can switch access on and off in Settings > Privacy.

  • Developers can set a "purpose" string for each class of isolated data. iOS displays this string to users to help them understand why their data is being requested. These strings can be added using Xcode's Project editor, in the Info tab. The relevant key names begin with the string "Privacy -".

  • There are changes to the Event Kit and Address Book frameworks to help developers with this feature.

Simulator

• The app delete confirmation alert panel takes a while to show up in iOS Simulator.

• FIXED: Tapping the buy button in the view of an SKStoreProductViewController object in iOS Simulator causes the app to crash.

• No privacy alerts are displayed in iOS Simulator for apps that access Photos, Contacts, Calendar and Reminders.

• Downloading in-app purchase hosted content in iOS Simulator is not supported.

• When attempting to play an MP3 sound in the Simulator, you will hear a popping sound instead.

• FIXED: Using the iOS 5.1 SDK with the iPad (Retina) profile will result in a SpringBoard crash. The iOS 5.1 SDK works with all other profiles and the iPad (Retina) SDK works with the iOS 6.0 SDK.

• FIXED: Ads of type ADAdTypeMediumRectangle do not appear in iPad Simulator.

Shared Photo Stream

• User must go to Settings > iCloud to ensure that they receive Shared Photo Stream Notifications.

• In order to share a Photo Stream with iOS 6 beta, you must invite someone using their iCloud email address or they will not receive the invitation.

• Upgrading from iOS 6 beta 1 to beta 2 will cause your device to re-download all of your Shared Photo Streams.

• The Shared Photo Stream feature is set to OFF when updating from iOS 6 beta 1 to a later release. The default setting should be ON.

• Turning off Shared Photo Streams may leave camera in an unresponsive state, force quitting camera will resolve this issue.

Social

• Weibo shows up in the Settings app only if a Chinese keyboard is enabled.

• The requestAccessToAccountsWithType:withCompletionHandler: method of ACAccountStore is now deprecated. To access user accounts, please use the requestAccessToAccountsWithType:options:completion: method.

  In the options parameter of this new method, pass nil to access Twitter and Weibo accounts. To access Facebook accounts, pass a dictionary with the following keys (which are documented in ACAccountStore.h):

  • ACFacebookAppIdKey

  • ACFacebookPermissionsKey

  • ACFacebookPermissionGroupKey

  You should no longer add this dictionary to your app's Info.plist file, as was required in beta 1.

SpringBoard

• FIXED: After restoring a device in iTunes or performing an "Erase All Contents and Settings", the current wallpaper may not appear until the device is rebooted once.

Status Bar

• It is now possible to set status bar tint parameters in your app’s Info.plist file. You might do this to ensure that the status bar color matches the navigation bar color of your app during startup. To set the status bar tint, add the UIStatusBarTintParameters key to your Info.plist file. The value of this key is a dictionary with the appropriate values describing the navigation bar your app has at startup time. Inside the dictionary should be the UINavigationBar key, whose value is also a dictionary. That dictionary contains the initial navigation bar's style (with the Style key) and whether it's translucent (with the Translucent key). If your navigation bar uses them, you can also specify its tint color (with the TintColor key), or the name of its custom background image (with the BackgroundImage key).

UIKit

• In iOS 5.1, the UISplitViewController class adopts the sliding presentation style when presenting the left view (previously only seen in Mail). This style is used when presentation is initiated either by the existing bar button item provided by the delegate methods or by a swipe gesture within the right view. No additional API adoption is required to obtain this behavior, and all existing API, including that of the UIPopoverController instance provided by the delegate, will continue to work as before. If the gesture would be insupportable in your app, setting the presentsWithGesture property of your split view controller to NO disables the gesture. However, disabling the gesture is discouraged because its use preserves a consistent user experience across all apps.

• FIXED: In iOS 6, changes have been introduced so that you no longer need to set a delegate and implement a method for Single-Finger and Single-Tap gesture recognizers, in an effort to make them work well with the UIControl objects.

• In iOS 6 and later, the UIWebView class paints its contents asynchronously.

• FIXED: Developers trying out Auto Layout with UIScrollView objects might notice jitters in the scroll indicators on devices with Retina displays.

• Autorotation is changing in iOS 6. In iOS 6, the shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method of UIViewController is deprecated. In its place, you should use the supportedInterfaceOrientations and shouldAutorotate methods.

  • More responsibility is moving to the app and the app delegate. Now, iOS containers (such as UINavigationController) do not consult their children to determine whether they should autorotate. By default, an app and a view controller’s supported interface orientations are set to UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAll for the iPad idiom and UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAllButUpsideDown for the iPhone idiom.

  • A view controller’s supported interface orientations can change over time. Even an app’s supported interface orientations can change over time. The system asks both the topmost full screen view controller (typically the root view controller) for its supported interface orientations whenever the device rotates or whenever a view controller is presented with the full screen modal presentation style. Moreover the supported orientations are retrieved only if this view controller returns YES from its shouldAutorotate method. The system intersects the view controller’s supported orientations with the app's supported orientations (as determined by the Info.plist file or the app delegate's application:supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow: method) to determine whether to rotate.

  • The system determines if an orientation is supported by intersecting the value returned by the app’s supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow: method with the value returned by the supportedInterfaceOrientations method of the topmost fullscreen controller.

  • The setStatusBarOrientation:animated: method is not deprecated outright. However it now works only if the supportedInterfaceOrientations method of the topmost full screen view controller returns 0. This puts the responsibility of ensuring that the status bar orientation is consistent into the hands of the caller.

  • For compatibility, view controllers that still implement the shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method do not get the new autorotation behaviors. (In other words, they do not fall back to using the app, app delegate, or Info.plist file to determine the supported orientations.) Instead, the shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method used to synthesize the information that would be returned by the supportedInterfaceOrientations method.

• FIXED: In certain situations, the Auto Layout system might not engage automatically for a view. To workaround this problem, override the requiresConstraintBasedLayout class method in your view and return YES from your implementation.

• The willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:duration:, willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration:, and didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation: methods are no longer called on any view controller that makes a full screen presentation over itself—for example, by calling presentViewController:animated:completion:.

  • You should make sure that your apps are not using these methods to manage the layout of any subviews. Instead, they should use the view controller’s viewWillLayoutSubviews method and adjust the layout using the view’s bounds rectangle.

• In iOS 6, the viewWillUnload and viewDidUnload methods of UIViewController are now deprecated. If you were using these methods to release data, use the didReceiveMemoryWarning method instead. You can also use this method to release references to the view controller’s view if it is not being used. You would need to test that the view is not in a window before doing this.

• FIXED: Calling any of the attributed string drawing methods without specifying a value for the NSFontAttributeName attribute is likely to throw an exception. The workaround is to set a value for the NSFontAttributeName key before drawing or sizing an NSAttributedString object.

• Setting values for the shadowOffset or shadowColor properties of a UILabel object, whose attributedText property contains a valid attributed string, is unsupported. Use the NSShadowAttributeName attribute of the attributed string to set the shadow instead.

• Due to compatibility concerns, the NSBaselineOffsetAttributeName attribute is no longer supported in iOS 6.

• The NSTextAlignmentNatural value is unsupported and will throw an exception when used with the textAlignment property of UILabel or supplied as the alignment parameter to the drawInRect:withFont:lineBreakMode:alignment: method of NSString.

• The setContentStretch: method of UIView has been deprecated in this beta release. To achieve the same effect, use the resizableImageWithCapInsets: method of UIImage and display the image with a UIImageView.

• The resizableImageWithCapInsets: method of UIImage effectively resizes images by tiling. As a performance optimization, it uses stretching rather than tiling when the user would not be able to tell the difference, like when a single column or row is being stretched. But in certain circumstances, one might want to actually stretch some region of an image. In iOS 6, the resizableImageWithCapInsets:resizingMode: method allows the caller to specify a tiling or stretching resizing mode.

• The UICollectionViewLayout class has changed:

  • The class now supports the customization of the animations created during rotation. The names of methods for customizing insert and delete animations have also changed so that the same hooks can be used for rotations as well as for insertions and deletions.

  • The class has changed some method names. Specifically, decoration views are no longer referred to by "reuse identifier" but rather by "element kind." Apps that are using decoration views will need to modify their code and rebuild to accommodate this.

• FIXED: In iOS 6, a bug was fixed where UIWebView.isLoading was set to NO before the main frame finished loading. Now, UIWebView.isLoading is set to NO when the main frame is done loading.

• The bottom edge of a UILabel view is now different from its baseline.

  Previously, auto layout was interpreting the bottom of a UILabel to be the same as its baseline. While convenient in many cases, it caused problems if you wanted to place the top edge of one label against the bottom edge of another. In such a scenario, the bottom label would overlap the top one, and descenders from the top label could crash into ascenders from the bottom label. Now, auto layout interprets UILayoutAttributeBottom as the bottom of the text box (presuming the label is not bigger than its intrinsic content size), and UILayoutAttributeBaseline as the baseline of the text. If you have already created code for laying out labels according to the bottom or center point, your text will move around a little and you will need to adjust your constraints.

• Apps with table views in their nib or storyboard files, and that were built using previous versions of iOS 6 beta, will require a clean build with beta 3 and newer.

• Here are some notes regarding auto layout support for UIScrollView:

  • In general, auto layout considers the top, left, bottom, and right edges of a view to be the visible edges. That is, if you pin a view to the left edge of its superview, you're really pinning it to the minimum x-value of the superview’s bounds. Changing the bounds origin of the superview does not change the position of the view.

  • The UIScrollView class scrolls its content by changing the origin of its bounds. To make this work with auto layout, the meaning of the top, left, bottom, and right edges within a scroll view now mean the edges of its content view.

  • The constraints on the subviews of the scroll view must result in a size to fill, which is then interpreted as the content size of the scroll view. (This should not be confused with the intrinsicContentSize method used for auto layout.) To size the scroll view's frame with auto layout, constraints must either be explicit regarding the width and height of the scroll view or the edges of the scroll view must be tied to views outside of its subtree.

  • Note that you can make a subview of the scroll view appear to float (not scroll) over the other scrolling content by creating constraints between the view and a view outside the scroll view's subtree, such as the scroll view's superview.

  • Here are some examples of how to configure the scroll view:

    • Mixed approach:

      1. Position and size your scroll view with constraints external to the scroll view—that is, the translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints property is set to NO.

      2. Create a plain UIView content view for your scroll view that will be the size that you want your content to have. Make it a subview of the scroll view but let it continue to translate the autoresizing mask into constraints:

         UIView *contentView = [[UIView alloc]

         initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,contentWidth,contentHeight)];

         [scrollView addSubview:contentView];

         // DON'T change contentView's translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints,

         // which defaults to YES;

      3. Set the content size of the scroll view to match the size of the content view:

         [scrollView setContentSize:CGMakeSize(contentWidth,contentHeight)];

      4. Create the views you want to put inside the content view and configure their constraints so as to position them within the content view.

         Alternatively, you can create a view subtree to go in the scroll view, set up your constraints, and call the systemLayoutSizeFittingSize: method (with the UILayoutFittingCompressedSize option) to find the size you want to use for your content view's size and the contentSize property of the scroll view.

    • Pure auto layout approach:

      1. In this case translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints must be set to NO on all views involved.

      2. Position and size your scroll view with constraints external to the scroll view.

      3. Use constraints to lay out the subviews within the scroll view, being sure that the constraints tie to all four edges of the scroll view and do not rely on the scroll view to get their size.

         A simple example would be a large image view, which has an intrinsic content size derived from the size of the image. In the viewDidLoad method of your view controller, you would include code like the following:

         UIScrollView *scrollView = [[UIScrollView alloc] init];

         UIImageView *imageView = [[UIImageView alloc] init];

         [imageView setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:"MyReallyBigImage"]];

         [self.view addSubview:scrollView];

         [scrollView addSubview:imageView];

         scrollView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = NO;

         imageView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = NO;

         NSDictionary *viewsDictionary = NSDictionaryOfVariableBindings(scrollView,imageView);

         [self.view addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"H:|[scrollView]|" options:0 metrics: 0 viewsDictionary:viewsDictionary]];

         [self.view addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"V:|[scrollView]|" options:0 metrics: 0 viewsDictionary:viewsDictionary]];

         [scrollView addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"H:|[imageView]|" options:0 metrics: 0 viewsDictionary:viewsDictionary]];

         [scrollView addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"V:|[imageView]|" options:0 metrics: 0 viewsDictionary:viewsDictionary]];

         This would give you a scroll view that resized as the view controller's view resized (such as on device rotation), and the image view would be a scrolling subview. You don't have to set the content size of the scroll view.

Safari & WebKit

• WebKit on iOS now supports the requestAnimationFrame and cancelAnimationFrame methods in JavaScript, as described here http://www.w3.org/TR/animation-timing/.

  • Note that because the specification is still at the Working Draft state, these methods have the webkit prefix, so they are window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame, window.webkitCancelAnimationFrame.

• The default app cache quota has been increased from 5MB to 25MB.

• The JPEG subsampling threshold was increased from 2 MP (megapixels) to 5 MP on all supported hardware except iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th gen).

• Support has been added for <input type="file"> tags in web forms. Users can upload existing photos and videos from their photo library or take a picture or video using the camera. Previously this form control was always disabled.

• With Safari 6.0 on OS X, developers can now use the Web Inspector (web development tool) with attached iOS devices and iOS Simulator. Developers can use the Web Inspector to debug Safari and the UIWebView class in their own apps built and run from Xcode. This replaces the Debug Console banner in Safari.

• In iOS 6 and later, web data (SQL Web Storage and LocalStorage) from a UIWebView object can be stored in a directory that will be backed up. To enable backing up this data, set the WebKitStoreWebDataForBackup key to YES in your app’s user defaults. This should be done only if your app relies on web content data that cannot be reloaded. If your UIWebView object opens links to arbitrary web content, this key should be set to NO. Toggling the value of this key will not preserve existing web view data.

• In iOS 6 and later, Safari no longer registers for the common feed: RSS/ATOM scheme. Apps that can view those types of feeds are encouraged to register for that URL scheme.

• WebKit no longer always creates hardware-accelerated layers for elements with the -webkit-transform: preserve-3d option. Authors should stop using this option as a way to get hardware acceleration.

• Experimental CSS3 Flexbox support will be disabled. Please switch from using -webkit-flexbox and -webkit-inline-flexbox to -webkit-box and -webkit-inline-box.

• As of iOS 6, embedded YouTube URLs in the form of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 will no longer work. These URLs are for viewing the video on the YouTube site, not for embedding in web pages. Instead, the format that should be used is described in https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters.

• In iOS 6, the keyboardDisplayRequiresUserAction property was added to the UIWebView class. The property defaults to YES, which means that calling focus() on a form element will not bring up the keyboard. By changing the property to NO, a JavaScript call to focus() on a form element will focus the element and automatically bring up the keyboard.

• As of iOS 6, calling focus() on a form element in a web app will focus the element.