Latest Contributions by AnshumanMathur2

  AppStudio   for ArcGIS is a cross-platform application development tool which enables our customers to create apps that work on a range of devices and platforms. Be it mobile devices running Android or iOS, or desktops with Windows,   m acOS or Linux,   we strive to   provide   a   seamless   experience   to our customers.   In order to ensure that   your apps continue to work on all your devices, w e   proactivel y   test   each update   of   our   supported   platforms   to   capture new issues and   attempt to   resolv e   them before you can find them !   While   testing our apps with   iOS 13, we found   a couple of   issue s which need your attention .       Accessi ng  the  photo gallery on iOS 13     We found that on iOS 13, any app that tries to open the iOS photo gallery freezes while accessing it. On further investigation, we found that this was caused due to an underlying bug in the Qt Framework, the details of which can be found in the   Qt bug reports website   . This bug has been resolved and the fix will be available in Qt 5.12.6. However, since   AppStudio   for ArcGIS   4.0 is built on Qt 5.12.3, we have been working with the Qt Company to obtain a patch for this bug and we have already applied the patch to our cloud Make build servers.    How   does   this affect you and what do you need to do?   This bug only affects apps running on iOS 13 and that allow users to access the photo gallery to browse photos saved on their iOS device. If you have recently built such apps using   C loud Make   from   AppStudio   for ArcGIS 4.0, a simple re-build of your app should fix this issue.      If you are using   Player   to test or deploy your apps, we will patch the player and resubmit to the app store.   So   a simple update to player from app store should fix this issue.   If you are planning to build your iOS app using   L ocal Make , please contact us at   appstudiofeedback@esri.com. Since the fix for this issue needs to be applied to the Qt installation, our team can provide guidance and support to you to implement the fix.       New requirement while publishing   iOS   apps to Apple   App   Store     Recently Apple has updated the requirements that apps need to fulfil before they can be published on the App Store. Starting with iOS 13, apps that need to access Bluetooth need to include a new Product List key –   NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription . The details of this new key are available in Apple’s   developer documentation    .  With this hotfix, we have updated our cloud Make build servers to include this key in iOS apps that are built using cloud Make. If you intend to use local Make to build your iOS app and publish   it   to App Store, our team can guide you to ensure that your app meets this requirement.     I hope this   has been helpful and w e look forward to you r   feedback   at   appstudiofeedback@esri.com .       New to   AppStudio ? Check out  this website     to learn more about what   AppStudio   for ArcGIS can do to you and your organization.   Become an   AppStudio   for ArcGIS developer! Watch  this video     on how to sign up for a free trial.   Follow us on Twitter  @ AppStudioArcGIS     to keep   up-to-date   on the latest information and let us know about your creations built using   AppStudio   to be featured in the  AppStudio Showcase    . The   AppStudio   team periodically hosts workshops and webinars; please  sign up     for the   AppStudio   newsletter if you are interested in information regarding   AppStudio   events.     ... View more

In   order   to improve the security and performance of Android apps, Google continuously updates its policies for apps published on the Google Play store. With the recent changes announced in th is   blog   post   https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html , Google has laid down a road map for the target API level requirement for Android apps.   Target API level requirements for Android Apps From August 2018, Play store requires new apps to target Android API level 26 (Android 8.0) or higher in order to be published. From November 2018, all apps, including updates to existing apps, need to target Android API level 26 (Android 8.0) or higher to be published in the Play store.     How does this impact AppStudio users?   If you have recently tried to submit your apps to Google Play store, you might have encountered the following warning message:   In order to get Android apps built using AppStudio to meet   the   requirements of   the   Google Play store, we have updated our   c loud Make servers to target Android API level 26 by default for Android apps. If the Play   S tore submission for your app has failed because of the target API level requirement, please rebuild your app using the Make tool in AppStudio and then submit it again to the Play   S tore.  Please note that from August 2018 , the   Google Play   S tore only requires new apps to target Android API level 26. However, if you already have apps that are published in   the   Google   Play   S tore with   the   target API level   below   Android API level 26, and plan to   publish   update s t o them, you can still do so   until   the   1st   of   November 2018. After this date, any updates to existing apps also need to target API level 26. In   this   case, you will need to rebuild your app with AppStudio 3.0 or later to fulfil l   the requirement of   the   Google Play   S tore.   I hope this has been helpful in getting your Android apps to the store ,   and we look forward to making your experience with AppStudio better. ... View more

While publishing your iOS app to Apple’s App   S tore  or TestFlight , w hat should you do if you encounter the following error?   Error ITMS-90717: “Invalid App Store Icon”   T his is caused due to transparen t pixels and/or  alpha channels present in the app icon.  As per   iOS   app icon specifications, developers are  required   to  us e  an app icon with a simple, opaque background .  Please refer to the link below to study all the guidelines for creating an app icon.   https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/icons-and-images/app-icon/   If you are using Adobe Photoshop to create the app icon image, even if there are no t ransparent parts of the image, you still need to make sure  that  you uncheck 'Transparency'  before  exporting the .png file.    You can check  whether your image has alpha channels using  Finder  ->  right clicking on your app icon .png files -> Get Info -> More Info -> alpha channel.   If you are using any other tool to create your app icons, make sure to apply the appropriate settings to remove transparent pixels and alpha channels from the icon image .   N ote :   T his restriction only applies to iOS apps .   T ransparency in app icon  is  permitted on other platforms.  With AppStudio 3.0 , you can  now provide platform specific app icons . Open appinfo.json in your  AppStudio project and specify   the  file as  needed for platform.   In AppStudio, Select your app, click  on the Edit icon on the side panel to open Qt Creator, then sel ect appinfo.json file on the left panel.   The following snippet shows how to provide platform specific app icon.   "resources" : {         "android" : {             "appIcon" : "assets/android_appicon.png"         },         "appIcon" : "appicon.png" ,         "ios" : {             "appIcon" : "assets/ios_appicon.png"         },         "linux" : {             "appIcon" : "linux_appicon.png"         },         "macos" : {             "appIcon" : "mac_appicon.png"         },         "uwp" : {             "appIcon" : "uwp_appicon.png"         },         "windows" : {             "appIcon" : "windows_appicon.png"         } },     I hope this blog post is helpful and please let us know if you have any questions in the comment below . ... View more

AppStudio for ArcGIS is going through some major updates, starting from the upcoming release of version 3.0. Below are the significant changes that you will find in the upcoming release of AppStudio.     Deprecation of ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6   AppStudio for ArcGIS provides users with the ability to create their own GIS-enabled, cross-platform native apps. In order   to   provide these GIS capabilities to your apps, AppStudio relies heavily on the ArcGIS Runtime.    Currently, AppStudio allows users to create apps using either ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6 or ArcGIS Runtime 100.1. As the older ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6   technology   gets progressively replaced by the newer ArcGIS Runtime 100.x, we’re   keeping up with the changes and plan   to deprecate support for ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6   fully   over the next few releases of AppStudio   s tarting from version 3.0 .   So what is t he road ahead ,   and how does this impact users?   AppStudio for ArcGIS 3.0 will only include libraries for ArcGIS Runtime 100.2.1. Users who wish to create   new   apps with the ArcGIS Runtime 100.2.1   or edit their existing 100.x based Runtime apps will be able to do so. Users can also use all other tools such as Player, cloud make, local make, console etc. as usual.   For users who   have existing   apps with ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6, we advise you to continue using AppStudio version 2.1 and not upgrade to version 3.0. The   Cl oud Make environment for building apps with ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6 will still be maintained and you will be able to send build requests from AppStudio version 2.1.   On the AppStudio website, the three   t emplates and all samples will continue to work on latest ArcGIS   R untime   i .e. will be upgraded from 100.1 to 100.2.x to take advantage of all the new features and bug fixes.   More   information about building apps using the ArcGIS Runtime 10.2.6 will   be   provided in release blog posts for AppStudio for ArcGIS 3.0.     Discontinuing   build   support for 32bit iOS apps   AppStudio   for ArcGIS   3.0 will drop support for 32-bit iOS apps.   If you have created AppStudio iOS apps before you might have not realized ,   but it did support both 32 bit and 64 bit variants of your app and any dependencies such as ArcGIS Runtime. Following the device statistics and latest technology trends we decided to drop building apps for the diminishing 32 bit iOS devices out there.    J ust targeting   64-bit   devices for iOS apps   will not only help optimize an app’s performance on supported devices, but also conserve your device memory.   As a side effect you will also see significant reduction in app binary size (~50% savings). For more details about the existing iOS devices that support arm64 architecture, refer to this link.    ArcGIS Runtime 100.2.1 AppStudio   for ArcGIS   3.0 now supports ArcGIS Runtime 100.2.1. This will allows users to create and build apps   with   ArcGIS Runtime 100.1 or higher .   See   https://developers.arcgis.com/qt/latest/qml/guide/release-notes.htm Qt 5.10 and iOS 10 AppStudio   for ArcGIS   3.0 comes with an upgrade   to   the Qt framework from version 5.9.1 to 5.10 . Qt 5.10 includes 100+ bug fixes along with lots of new features, including Text-to-Speech. For more information, refer to:   https://wiki.qt.io/New_Features_in_Qt_5.10 . To benefit from this, the minimum supported iOS version in AppStudio has changed to iOS 10.   Other Enhancements AppStudio for ArcGIS  3.0 comes with bug fixes as well as improvements in desktop tools, including UI, improvements  in Cloud Make, support  for high precision GNSS devices, and support  for Android Runtime Permission Model. Beta Program As you can see some of the changes outlined above might seem scary at first, so we want you to test drive these new changes with us and give us feedback. We are introducing a beta program for AppStudio for ArcGIS 3.0.   We encourage you to participate in the beta program to try out new features, report bugs you may find, and ensure your AppStudio apps work well.   More information about the Beta Program   will be   available in   a   Beta Release Blog Post   which will be coming soon . ... View more