How to get the iOS 12 developer beta on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

At this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple unveiled the latest version of its mobile operating system — iOS 12. While the update mainly focused on delivering a faster and more responsive OS across a range of older iPhones and iPads, it also packs a host of new apps and features. 

As usual, the public beta doesn’t launch until later in the summer, and the final version won’t be released until the fall, alongside new iPhone devices. But for those who can’t wait that long, you can still try the developer beta, but it will cost you some cash. Here’s how to install it right now.

Compatible devices

First, make sure your device is capable of running the iOS 12 beta. Like iOS 11, iOS 12 is only compatible with 64-bit devices — which means 32-bit devices like the iPhone 5 won’t be able to run the update.

Here are the supported iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices:

• iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X
• iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3, iPad Mini 4 iPad 9.7-inch, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch, iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPod touch (sixth generation)

Purchase a Developers Account

To download the iOS 12 developer beta, you’ll have to purchase a membership for Apple’s Developer Program. You can enroll either enroll as a single person or with an organization. Either way, you’ll need to provide basic personal information such as your legal name and address. The membership does come at a cost though — you’ll have to shell out $100 per year.

Included in the membership are software and tools — you’ll have the ability to download and install the latest beta OS releases. This includes iOS 12, macOS Mojave, watchOS, and tvOS. For those looking to develop their own apps, you’ll also have the ability to invite users to try them via TestFlight Beta testing before releasing them on the App Store, and more.

Once you’ve created your account, you’ll have to register your device on Apple’s Developer site. After entering your login and password information, you’ll then be able to access the Developer portal.

Back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Before you update to the iOS 12 beta, you should make sure to back up your device’s data. That way if you lose anything while downloading the new OS, it’ll be easy to restore things back to the way they were.

You can choose to back up data on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch via iCloud or via iTunes on a PC or Mac.

Here’s how to back up an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using iCloud:

• Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network.
• Open Settings, select your name, and tap iCloud. (If you’re using iOS 10.2 or earlier, you’ll have to scroll down and tap iCloud).
• Tap iCloud Backup. (For those on iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap Backup). Also, make sure that iCloud Backup is turned on.
• Tap Back Up Now.
• You should also make sure to check the backup is completed. You can do this by opening Settings, tapping on your name, go to iCloud > iCloud Storage > Manage Storage and tap on your device from the list.

If you choose to back up your device using a computer, you can use the built-in backup function via iTunes.

Here’s how to back up an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using iTunes:

• Make sure your iTunes is updated to the latest version, open it up, and plug your iOS device in.
• Follow the onscreen steps if a message asks for your device password or to Trust This Computer.
• Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when it appears in iTunes.
• You can save Health and Activity data from your iOS device or Apple Watch by selecting Encrypt and creating a passcode. If you don’t want to save your Health and Activity data, you can just click Back Up Now.
• After the process is done, you can check to see if the backup finished successfully by clicking iTunes Preferences > Devices (on a Mac) or Edit > Preferences > Devices (on a PC).

Downloading iOS 12 beta

To download the beta, go to developer.apple.com while on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and click on the Downloads section. You’ll then be brought to a list of all different betas — you’ll want to tap download next to iOS 12. Once you agree to the terms and services, you’ll be able to tap Install followed by Restart to finalize the download on your device.

Installing iOS 12 beta on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Once your device restarts, head over to Settings > General > Software Update. You’ll then be able to tap Download and Install, which will prompt you to enter your passcode. After agreeing to the Terms and Conditions, your device will begin to download the beta. After the download is complete and your device reboots one more time, you’ll officially be running iOS 12.

Do be aware that there are some quirks in betas, so we don’t recommend installing iOS 12 on your primary phone at the moment. We’ll update this post when the public beta is available.

Editors’ Recommendations

• iOS 12 will make your iPhone faster and less annoying. Here’s what’s coming
• Measure, Apple Books, Shortcuts: Our favorite new and updated apps in iOS 12
• The latest version of MacOS now supports storing your messages in Apple’s cloud
• Common iOS 11 problems and advice on how to handle them
• Need a do-over? Here’s how to factory reset an iPhone, from X on down

My five problems with the iPhone that iOS 12 doesn’t fix

Apple

Dear Apple: Thanks for the Memojis and all. You created tools to let us stop wasting our time on our iPhones and then gave us an even sillier way to spend our time. But no matter: In general, the iPhone is a perfectly-crafted piece of hardware.

But that software? Mmmm … It’s getting a little funky, my friends. Despite all the fanfare at Monday’s WWDC event in San Jose where Apple announced iOS 12 — which promises to make your iPhone faster and less annoying — there’s still a bunch of basic, obvious stuff that’s wrong with the iPhone.

Here’s my list of five glaring failures in the platform that iOS 12 won’t do a darn thing about. Should I hold my breath for lucky 13?

1. What’s up with Wi-Fi?

Every morning, I get on the subway and try to log on to the public Wi-Fi system. Every day, it’s a crapshoot. The Control Center makes it easy to turn Wi-Fi on and off, but that’s really only half the battle, isn’t it? I need to select a network and join it. Walk into a hotel and try to get on the network, and you’ll have to unlock your phone, open the Settings app, invariably back out of whatever submenu you were in, scroll to the Wi-Fi section, wait for it to populate, and finally click to select a network.

What the hell.

Siri can detect that I order the same mocha Frappuccino every morning and proactively help me order one, but the iPhone can’t let me quickly access the Wi-Fi menu?

2. Settings in general are terrible.

And speaking of the Settings menu, why is it so miserably designed? Each individual app has a submenu within the Settings menu, but most also have settings built into the apps themselves, and in general those are far more useful. Still, features replicate. Take the Facebook app, for example. Want to hush Facebook notifications? You can do it either from the app’s settings menu or the iPhone’s main Settings app. Or from the Notifications subsection of Settings, which takes you to the same place as the app. Do they all do the same thing? Who knows?

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The Settings menu is grouped into sections, but the groupings are just weird to my eyes. Gray bars separate subsections, but Apple doesn’t name them – that would be too easy. The first big group is clearly “Networking,” but beyond that it devolves quickly into “stuff we connected for some unclear reason.” Sure, Notifications and Control Center go together, I guess. “Controls.” Under that is really common stuff? Toward the bottom is the third-party apps you’ve installed, but some Apple apps are ghettoized there too. Like I said, weird.

3. Why don’t volumes work in any logical way?

Up late and bored a few nights ago, I grabbed my iPhone X to check the news. The insomniacs among us likely share a similar routine: In the Control Center, I turned the volume to zero. Then I clicked that little half moon icon: Don’t disturb me, but far more important, don’t disturb my wife, who’s fast asleep. Then I flipped the little hardware switch on the left side of the phone, which sets the ringer to silent. Three different ways to turn off the volume. Three. Different. Ways.

Feeling safe, I popped open the browser and hit my favorite news site, and followed a link in a story. YouTube opened. A video started playing. Loudly.

I … I don’t understand.

4. Force touch exists.

The 3D touch settings feature that Apple created adds really interesting functionality. Press and hold the camera button and you’ll get the option to rearrange icons – and the same holds true for every icon on the home screen. Deep press the icon and you’ll get a neat submenu with some common features. It’s cool, but you’d have no way to know it’s there other than randomly trying.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Control Center is a key issue here. If you were trying to find the mystery shortcut to Wi-Fi (which I’m still convinced exists somewhere), you might consider deep pressing the Wi-Fi button. Do so and you’ll stumble across a handy submenu with some extra features. That doesn’t work on the Do Not Disturb icon, however. The Timer and Flashlight submenus actively make me want to use these features; the Alarm menu is nonexistent, despite how obviously useful it could be.

Apple: Give us a little icon to show when there’s more down there. Please.

5. Deleting iMessages leaves me iAnnoyed.

I know, I sound like a cranky old man when I complain about text messaging, but that’s my whole point: Things that ought to be no brainers with the iPhone at this point have been over-engineered and over-designed to the point that the simple has become complex. Take iMessages. Say your ex sends you a boozy message or 18 at the crack of dawn – something really classy. To delete it, you can swipe left from the main screen, but this will delete the entire messaging history. Maybe you want to save one or two?

Click a message to enter, long press an individual message, find the “more” menu at the bottom of the screen, and you can delete individual messages or all of them. Why not a Force Touch? Who knows? Why is it multiple steps like this? Who knows? Why is that person still texting you, anyway?

My point is, the basics should be obvious. How to make a phone call. How to turn the volume on and off. How to silence an annoying notification. And too often, iOS buries them through complications that have us jumping through hoops. I’d love to see the simple things addressed, before Apple continues development on animated dancing icons.

I’m holding my breath until iOS 13 comes out. I’m looking forward to some notifications about it. If it can find them.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Common iOS 11 problems and advice on how to handle them
• iOS 12 will make your iPhone faster and less annoying. Here’s what’s coming
• 28 iOS 11 tips and tricks to help you navigate Apple’s latest update with ease
• Here are five new features we want to see in Apple’s iOS 12
• How to block text messages on iOS and Android

MacOS Mojave hands-on review

The MacOS Mojave developer preview is out now, with a beta just around the corner. So, how does it stack up to MacOS High Sierra?

Well, where MacOS High Sierra did most of its work behind-the-scenes, MacOS Mojave leaps onto center stage, basking in the spotlight. Instead of bundling together a bunch of file system and security updates, Mojave revels in the revamping the MacOS user experience.

Lights out

MacOS Mojave is all about front-end updates, new visual elements, new apps, and all sorts of new stuff to get your hands on. First among which is a feature that Mac users have been clamoring for: Dark Mode.

What exactly is ‘Juneteenth?’

Available in your System Preferences, under General, the new Dark Mode swaps your Mac’s familiar frosty gray-and-whites for a classy evening look. With Dark Mode enabled, your menu bar and dock look less like translucent frosted glass and more like translucent smoked glass.

Apps from Apple take this transformation one step further, trading white backgrounds for a few shades of gray-and-black. It also changes the trash can icon. The day-time theme trash can is silver, the night-time theme trash can is what I can only assume is space gray.

Apple also rolled out a “dynamic wallpaper” that changes depending on the time of day where you are.

Taking this day-and-night theme a step further, Apple also rolled out a “dynamic wallpaper” that changes depending on the time of day where you are. Start out with a sand dune at dawn and end the day with a sand dune alone beneath a shroud of stars.

They don’t seem like much, but these new features change the character of your MacOS experience — in a good way. The nuts and bolts of the operating system are unchanged but the texture becomes definitively modern, tasteful, and slick.

Setting up shop

Mac users have a variety of opinions about the Mac App Store but the consensus seems to be somewhere between “it’s awful” and “it could be better.” Thankfully, Apple is taking those criticisms seriously and rolled out a revamped App Store experience with MacOS Mojave.

What’s in store for the app store? (I’m sorry.)

The biggest change here is how the store is organized. The bar on the left lets you jump between major categories and browse through regularly updated lists of carefully curated apps, like the iOS App Store ever since iOS 11. It’s a small change but a welcome one, making the App Store more accessible and putting apps on display more prominently.

We’re going to see more iOS apps on MacOS in the near future. At least, that’s the hope.

Along with the new App Store, you’ll also get a couple new apps in the Mojave update — an Apple News app, a new Stocks app, an Apple Home app, and finally the Voice Memos app is making its MacOS debut. These apps made their way to MacOS via Apple’s new slightly unified back-end framework.

MacOS apps are typically built with Apple’s AppKit, and iOS apps are made with UIKit, but some behind-the-scenes changes bring these two development tools closer together, which means we’re going to see more iOS apps on MacOS in the near future. At least, that’s the hope.

News also has a new icon — N, for News.

In addition to some new apps, a major change is coming to an old favorite: FaceTime. Finally, you can ditch Skype entirely — if you haven’t already just replaced it with Discord — and use FaceTime for all your group video chat needs. The new FaceTime supports group calls with up to 32 people — which sounds like a total nightmare.

For regular-sized group conversations, involving just a couple people, it works well. Unfortunately, you’re still stuck FaceTiming with just Apple devices so most of the time you’re probably going to be stuck using Skype anyway — or Discord, which is an excellent alternative. It’s great that FaceTime supports group calls now, but let’s be real: It should have had that feature a long, long time ago.

Stacks and screenshots

This one’s another quality of life change but it’ll make a difference for anyone who takes a lot of screenshots — like we did for this review. Just right click on your desktop and you can have your files automatically arrange themselves into stacks.

Also known as ‘not-folders.’

Stacks aren’t folders, but they play a similar role. By clicking on one of these stacks, they automatically expand so you can open the file you want to open, and once you do, they close right up again.

Screenshots also got a bit of a makeover in the MacOS Mojave update. They behave like they do on iOS, which means once you snap one (with Command + Shift + 3) it slides over to a little corner of your screen where you can just pop it open and make any changes you want before saving it to the desktop.

Not bad, not bad at all

For something as simple as an operating system update, Mojave manages to pack enough quality-of-life changes in that you’ll definitely find something to like about this update. Even though Mac users enjoyed the back-end changes Apple made in the last MacOS update, the Mojave update feels a lot more people-focused. With that in mind, it’s no surprise to see Safari receive some major security updates. Now, you’ll get a warning box every time a website requests information from Safari, and Apple redesigned the browser’s back-end to make it harder for ads to track you from site to site.

Apple has lavished so much attention on its iOS products for so long, that it’s easy to feel neglected as a MacOS user. That’s why these small changes feel so important. The Mojave update serves as a reminder that Apple is paying attention to MacOS users, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

Editors’ Recommendations

• MacOS Mojave brings Dark Mode, stacking, and a redesigned App Store to Macs
• iPhone apps are finally coming to your MacBook. Eventually. Sorta.
• Here’s what we want from MacOS in 2018
• Live updates: How to watch Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote
• The latest version of MacOS now supports storing your messages in Apple’s cloud

Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 is made for Windows PCs with ‘innovative form factors’

At its keynote presentation at Computex 2018, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 850, a new chipset made exclusively for Windows PCs. While the first generation of Qualcomm-powered laptops shared the Snapdragon 835 with Android phones, the next generation will get its own chip. Qualcomm says the 850 is separate from the 845, and has been optimized for use with Windows PCs, including for form factors outside of traditional laptops.

One of the most fascinating details in the presentation was the inclusion of support for “innovative form factors.” When asked about what that could mean, Qualcomm stated that we should look forward to some more innovation in the kinds of machines we’ll see.

“The first generation of the platform was fairly traditional,” said Miguel Nunes, a senior director at Qualcomm. “What you’ll see on the 850 is a lot more aggressive design from a form factor standpoint. We’re even working with OEMs on even next-generation products, so you’ll see some creative designs in the future.”

Beyond that, we didn’t get much of a hint as to what these new designs would be. From some of the photos included, the most eyebrow-raising design includes what is either an oversized Touch Bar or a touchpad that’s been moved above the keyboard. Beyond that, these look like the usual assortment of convertible and detachable 2-in-1s.

Qualcomm’s Always Connected PCs were always known for two primary things: Battery life and LTE connectivity. The Snapdragon 850 continues those features, claiming a 20 percent increase in both battery life and gigabit LTE speeds. Thanks to the new X20 modem, Qualcomm can now boast LTE speeds of up to 1.2Gbps, as well as increasing throughput in areas with a weaker cellular signal. Nunes called this next generation of gigabit LTE the “foundation building block as networks prepare for the move to 5G.”

In addition, Qualcomm states that the Snapdragon 850 includes a 30 percent increase in performance, which should please those disappointed by the lackluster CPU performance in the first generation of Qualcomm PCs.

On a technical level, there’s not much difference between the Snapdragon 850 and the 845, other than the fact that one has been optimized for Android phones and the other for Windows PCs. Nunes insisted that there was a lot that goes into optimizing the platform to work in a PC form factor versus a phone form factor.

“It goes into how the software gets managed, how it’s tailored to the PC user experience, how it throttles, how it aggressively ramps cores — it’s a whole solution,” said Nunes.

The first generation of Always Connected PCs was fairly limited. It was just three devices: The higher-end HP Envy X2, the detachable Lenovo Miix 630, and the more-affordable Asus NovaGo. Despite the fact that claimed battery life was impressive across the board, we haven’t yet been able to test them out. Performance was always a concern for Qualcomm devices, but the reception doesn’t seem to have dissuaded Qualcomm or OEMs from pushing forward with new devices.

Editors’ Recommendations

• HP reopens pre-orders for its first ‘always connected’ Windows 10 PC
• The best touchscreen laptops
• Microsoft is giving Always Connected PCs a performance boost and more apps
• Asus ROG Phone shrinks your gaming PC and puts it in your pocket
• HP’s first Qualcomm-powered PC, the HP Envy X2, suffers a slight delay

With 12, iOS gains Snapchat-like camera for texts, but with Memojis instead of AR

Apple

Messaging is evolving from thumbed-out text messages to visual communication from built-in cameras inside everything from Snapchat to Facebook Messenger. And now Apple is joining the trend with a handful of camera-focused updates for iOS 12. The Apple Messages app will soon have a built-in camera with filters, stickers, and Memoji avatars, Apple announced during WWDC on June 4. The latest OS will .

While Apple Messages isn’t (yet) gaining the augmented reality masks, the changes feel similar to Snapchat and Facebook Camera. Visual communication has been on the rise since emojis, but it’s a trend that’s accelerated because of the visual tools inside social networks and messaging platforms. A study by Facebook last year suggested that those who use forms of visual communication rate their conversations as “great” more often than non-visual communicators.

Apple Photos

Apple

The iOS 12 update to Photos is also partially focused on sharing. After the update, Photos will suggest photos to share with friends. The app will use factors like facial recognition to suggest sharing photos with the friends you spent the day with, all inside a new section Apple calls For You. 

On the receiving end of a shared photo? Photos will soon suggest images to share back. The share back suggestion comes from photos or video of the same event, Apple says.

The search inside Photos will also see enhancements. Inside the search tab, the app will soon suggest Events, People, Places, Groups, Categories and recent searches before you type into the search bar. If the category suggestions aren’t enough, the search bar will also allow users to search for multiple terms at once.

The photo announcements come from the opening keynote of WWDC — Apple will likely dive into more detail and share additional features for the new operating system during the weeklong event designed for developers. The new mobile operating system will roll out this fall, while developers can get their hands on a beta version now.

Editors’ Recommendations

• At WWDC 2018, Apple to show off its latest software innovations
• iOS 12 will make your iPhone faster and less annoying. Here’s what’s coming
• MacOS Mojave brings Dark Mode, stacking, and a redesigned App Store to Macs
• Live updates: How to watch Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote
• Report: Apple going all OLED all the time with new iPhones

Android Security Bulletin: Everything you need to know!

Fixing the latest bugs and exploits in Android every month.

Google has detailed the latest Android Security Bulletin and released the fixes for Nexus and Pixel devices.

These are exploits and other security concerns that affect Android as a whole. Issues with the operating system, kernel patches, and driver updates may not affect any particular device, but these need to be fixed in the Android base by the folks maintaining the operating system code. That means Google, and they’ve detailed the things they have improved for this month.

Updated factory images for Pixel and Nexus devices that are supported are available, and over-the-air updates are rolling out to users. If you don’t want to wait, you can download and flash the factory image or OTA update file manually, and here are some handy instructions to get you started.

How to manually update your Nexus or Pixel

The company that made your phone uses these patches to send an update out to you.

These changes have been released to the people making Android phones for at least 30 days, but Google can’t force anyone to deliver them to you. If you’re using a phone from Samsung, LG, or anyone besides Google, you’ll need to wait for them to send an update and shouldn’t try to flash any of the above files.

Of course, Google has safety checks in place to prevent any problems on your phone because of any security exploits. Verify Apps and SafetyNet are at work anytime you add an app to your phone, and seamless updates to Google Play Services will keep them up to date regardless of any hold up from a manufacturer or carrier. Details and incident numbers can be found in the yearly Android Security Review (.pdf file).

Highlights for June 2018

June 2018’s update comes with two patch dates: 06/01/2018 and 06/05/2018.

• Once again the Android Media Framework sees patches to prevent the latest exploits from gaining elevated privileges, as does the Application Framework.
• LG, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and NVIDIA all provide important fixes for their assorted binaries across all devices, and critical issues with the bootloader were patched by Qualcomm and LG.
• Google also patched a number of Nexus and Pixel-specific issues in this month’s bulletin as well as made usability tweaks for those devices. Those can be seen here.

Previous bulletin highlights

Here are summaries and highlights of recent patches from the monthly Android Security Bulletin. As with the current bulletin, these issues were also mitigated by Google’s Verify Apps, Safety Net, and seamless updates to Google Play Services.

Highlights for May 2018

May 2018’s update comes with two patch dates: 05/01/2018 and 05/05/2018.

• The most severe issues addressed are in the Android runtime and Media framework, and would allow a remote user to gain elevated privileges if not fixed.
• Qualcomm and NVIDIA both provide important fixes for their assorted binaries across all devices, and Qualcomm has addressed a critical bug in the WLAN driver of their chips.
• Google also patched a number of Nexus and Pixel-specific issues in this month’s bulletin, which can be seen here.

Archives of all previous Android Security Bulletins are available at the Android Security website.

See the Android Security website for details on all bulletins

Updated June 2018: Google has detailed the latest Android Security Bulletin and released June 2018 security updates for the Pixel and Nexus devices.

Every Android phone with ARCore right now

Google’s AR platform is now available to more than just the Pixels.

You don’t need to own a Pixel from Google to take advantage of ARCore anymore! Google is working with partners like Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, Xiaomi and others to bring augmented reality to all types of phones at all price ranges.

Here’s the complete list!

Phones with ARCore support

Asus

• Zenfone AR

Google

• Pixel and Pixel XL
• Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
• Nexus 6P
• Nexus 5X

Huawei

• P20, P20 Pro
• Mate RS

LG

• V30 and V30S
• LG G6
• LG G7
• LG V35

Motorola

• Moto G5S Plus
• Moto G6 Plus
• Moto Z2 Force

Nokia (HMD Global)

• Nokia 6 (2018)
• Nokia 8 Sirocco

OnePlus

• OnePlus 5
• OnePlus 3T

Samsung

• Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
• Galaxy S8 and S8+
• Galaxy Note 8
• Galaxy S9 and S9+
• Galaxy A5 (2017)
• Galaxy A7 (2017)
• Galaxy A8 and A8+ (2018)

Sony

• Xperia XZ Premium
• Xperia XZ1
• Xperia XZ1 Compact

Xiaomi

• Mi Mix 2S

Excited to get started with ARCore? Make sure you have the framework app installed and get ready for some exciting new apps to head your way!

Updated June 4, 2018: This article was updated with a complete list of all the phones that support ARCore.

How to sign up for YouTube Music

Get started with the new YouTube Music in just a few taps.

The YouTube Music app has technically been around since 2015, but it was only recently that Google shifted its focus from Play Music and made YouTube Music its own proper streaming service.

YouTube Music is showing a lot of promise with its new direction, and now that it’s got a brand-new desktop site and redesigned Android app, it’s absolutely worth checking out.

To do so, here’s what you’ll need to do.

Download YouTube Music

Before you can sign up for YouTube Music, you’ll need to first download the app. Doing so is just a few taps away, and the process is as follows:

Open the Google Play Store.
Search for YouTube Music and tap on the first result.

Tap the green Install button.

Once the app is done downloading, you can launch it by tapping the green Open button or by finding and tapping on the new YouTube Music icon in your app drawer.

Sign up for YouTube Music

With YouTube Music successfully downloaded, it’s time to actually sign up for the service.

Upon opening the app, tap the blue Sign In button.
Tap the Google account you want to use with YouTube Music.

Tap on your profile icon at the very top right of the app.

With that done, you’ll now be on your Account page. From here:

Tap the large Get YouTube Red banner at the bottom of the screen.
Tap the blue Try It Free button.
Enter your payment details.

Once the payment goes through, tap the red Let’s Go button.

That’s it! You’ve officially signed up for YouTube Music!

Have any further questions? Drop a line in the comments below.

YouTube Music review: A mixtape full of promise

Apple Revamps App Store Guidelines, Sets New Rules for Remote Mirroring Apps Like Steam Link

Alongside the debut of iOS 12, which is available to developers for beta testing as of today, Apple has introduced new App Store Guidelines.

There are several tweaks that have been made to the App Store Guidelines, and one notable change appears to have been introduced specifically because of the Steam Link debacle that saw Apple approve and then renege on the Steam Link app for iOS.

A new guideline, 4.2.7, says that all Remote Application Mirroring apps, such as Steam Link, must comply with a specific set of rules. Such apps are not allowed to offer a user interface that resembles an App Store view or a store-like interface, nor can they include the ability to purchase software not already owned by the user. Apple is allowing transactions to be made by remote mirroring apps, as long as purchases are made on the host device rather than the iOS device.

The UI appearing on the client does not resemble an iOS or App Store view, does not provide a store-like interface, or include the ability to browse, select, or purchase software not already owned or licensed by the user. For the sake of clarity, transactions taking place within mirrored software do not need to use in-app purchase, provided the transactions are processed on the host device.

With the clarification of Apple’s stance on games streamed from a PC or Mac, the Steam Link app may be able to launch on iOS devices after all. Valve has not yet commented on the policy changes, and it’s not clear what Valve will need to tweak to comply with the new rules.

There are multiple other changes to the App Store Guidelines. A modified 3.1.1 rule, for example, says that non-subscription apps may offer a free time-based trial period using a free in-app purchase option that temporarily unlocks app functionality. This will allow all apps in the App Store to offer free trials, rather than just subscription apps.

Apps that offer auto-renewing subscriptions, meanwhile, are prohibited from attempting to trick users into purchasing a subscription under false pretenses or engaging in bait-and-switch practices. Such apps will be removed from the App Store.

Apps are no longer allowed to encourage users to disable Wi-Fi, turn off certain security features, and make other modifications to system settings that are unrelated to the core functionality of an app.

All apps (including third-party ads) are now forbidden from running unrelated background processes like cryptocurrency mining.

A new rule, 2.3.12, states that all apps are required to “clearly describe” new features and product changes in their “What’s New” text. Apps can continue to use generic descriptions for bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements, but anything more significant must be listed in the notes.

Apps are also now required to obtain explicit user consent and provide a clear visual indication when recording or making a record of user activity, and there’s a new rule that says apps can use Unicode characters that render as Apple emojis within apps and app metadata, a change from earlier this year when some apps were rejected for using emojis in their App Store descriptions. Emojis can’t be embedded directly into an app binary, however.

There are many other smaller guideline changes concerning content ratings, iCloud documents, data security, cryptocurrency, and more, with the full list of App Store Guidelines available on Apple’s website.

Related Roundup: iOS 12Tags: App Store, App Store Review Guidelines
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Announces 2018 Apple Design Award Winners

Apple tonight announced the developers and apps who received an Apple Design Award, marking what Apple thinks are some of the best apps for various Apple platforms.

This year, Apple chose a total of 10 apps that work across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV, with the winners listed below:

• Agenda – A unique date-based note-taking app for iOS and Mac devices.
• Bandimal – A music composing app that’s designed for kids and uses cute animal-based graphics.
• Calzy – A modern calculator app for iPhone, iPad, iMessage, and Apple Watch.
• iTranslate Converse – A translation app that’s designed to translate foreign languages in real time.
• Triton Sponge – An app that uses an image processing algorithm to calculate a real-time estimation of surgical blood loss.
• Florence – An interactive storybook game.
• Playdead’s INSIDE – A 2D puzzle platformer with impressive graphics and complex puzzles from the makers of LIMBO.
• Alto’s Odyssey – A desert-based endless runner that’s a followup to the first ultra popular Alto’s Adventure game.
• Frost – Frost is a dreamlike Puzzle game where the goal is to draw paths to guide spirits to their home planets.
• Oddmar – Oddmar is an action adventure platformer game that stars a viking named Oddmar who is trying to redeem himself and earn a place in Valhalla.

Apple plans to make a video of the Apple Design Awards ceremony available online in the near future, and it will be available on the Apple Design Awards website.

All Apple Design Award winners receive a unique cube-shaped award along with an iMac Pro, a 15-inch MacBook Pro, an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, an iPhone X, a 4K Apple TV, an Apple Watch Series 3, and a set of AirPods.
Discuss this article in our forums