What's new in App Store Connect

♪ Voiceover: Hello, and welcome to WWDC.

Daniel Miao: Hi, everyone.

Welcome to our session on What's New in App Store Connect.

My name is Daniel Miao, and I'm an engineering manager on the App Store Connect team.

So as with every WWDC, we have a ton of exciting new features for you.

Today, I'll talk to you about how to use App Store Connect to configure and test App Clips as well as how to take advantage of new Game Center features like Challenges and Recurring Leaderboards.

I'm also going to give you some exciting updates about both in-app purchases and the App Store Connect API.

So, as you heard in the keynote, an App Clip is essentially a small part of your App that's discoverable at the moment you need it, and is focused on performing a specific task.

From a technical standpoint, an App Clip is simply a binary that you package alongside your app and runs on device just like an app.

The App Clip binary is delivered to the device when it's invoked, and we limit the size of the binary to make sure the Invocation of the App Clip feels very fast.

Now in order to deliver a great App Clip experience, there are a few major areas to think about.

First you'll want to beta test your App Clip to make sure you're providing a solid user experience.

Then, when you're ready to release your App Clip to the rest of your users, you'll set up App Clip Card Metadata to provide meaningful information to your customers about what your App Clip does.

And finally, you'll need to properly define domain associations to enable your App Clips to launch.

But before we get into these, I want to spend a few minutes talking about a concept that's foundational to all of these areas.

And that's what an App Clip Invocation is and why it's important.

I'll start off with an example of invoking an App Clip from Safari.

Here, we're on the forestexplorer.org website.

The first thing you'll notice is this banner at the top of the page.

We call this the Safari App Clip Banner.

It appears when a website is associated with an App Clip.

In Safari we invoke the App Clip by tapping the OPEN button in this banner.

And this brings up what we call the App Clip Card.

This Card contains more information about the App Clip before it's launched on the user's device.

Tapping the open button on the app the Card launches the App Clip itself.

And once your App Clip is running, a link to your full app on the App Store will briefly appear at the top of the screen.

There are many ways to invoke an App Clip.

As you just saw an App Clip can be invoked from Safari.

But App Clips can also be invoked from Messages, Maps, via NFC tags and QR Codes, and based on a user's location.

But no matter how it's invoked, almost every App Clip Invocation will be associated with an Invocation URL.

A simple example of an Invocation URL is a URL of the web page that we just saw in our last example, forestexplorer.org.

A second example is a piece of functionality that we're introducing to Forest Explorer.

Users will be able to use our App Clip to reserve campsites from Apple Maps.

Here you see the Invocation URL, camp.forestexplorer.org/reserve and then the ID of the campground for the reservation.

Now users will also be able to check into the campsites that they reserve by scanning and NFC tag at the campsite.

This URL contains the ID of the campground along with the specific campsite number.

So the Invocation URL serves two main purposes.

The first is when an App Clip is displayed, the Invocation URL is used to determine what metadata is shown on the App Clip Card.

Then, when the App Clip is launched on the user's device the Invocation URL is passed into the App Clip to deep link the user into a specific piece of App Clip functionality, similar to how you can deep link into Apps today.

So, now that you're a bit more familiar with how an App Clip is invoked, let's talk about how to deliver and beta test your App Clip.

So after you finished developing your App Clip in Xcode, you'll generate a build.

This build contains both your app and your App Clip together.

An App Clip can not be packaged separately from your full app.

The build is then delivered into App Store Connect.

You can find the build in the TestFlight view of App Store Connect.

And you'll know that it's a build that contains an App Clip because it has an extra row containing the same information you're used to seeing with apps, but specific to the App Clip.

When you click into the build details for this build you'll see a new App Clip Invocation section on the page.

From here you can configure up to three Invocation URLs for your testers to test.

To do this you provide a title, which appears in the TestFight App along with the Invocation URL itself.

Now once the App Clip Invocations have been configured, clicking save will make them available to testers immediately.

Now let's look at what testers will see.

In the App detail view, you'll see a new App Clip section.

Here we see a list of App Clip Invocations that we just set up in App Store Connect.

Tapping the TEST button will launch the App Clip associated with the current build and pass the configured Invocation URL into the App Clip to support deep linking.

Now one thing to note is that TestFlight is the only App Clip Invocation case that does not show an App Clip Card before launching the App Clip itself.

If testers encounter any issues with this App Clip, TestFlight Feedback will be available to collect information from testers just like it is for apps.

So once beta testing is complete, it's time to think about the metadata that will display to your users on the App Clip Card.

The App Clip Card contains a header image, a title, a subtitle, and a call to action.

Toward the bottom of the Card, you'll also see more information about the full app and a link to the app on the App Store.

The App Clip Card is part of the overall App Clip experience.

It's easy to get started with App Clips by setting up a default set of App Clip Card metadata in App Store Connect.

In fact, the default metadata is required for all App Clips.

And of all the Invocation methods that I spoke about earlier, this metadata will only appear when an App Clip is invoked from Safari or from Messages.

And for many of you, this is all you'll need to set up before releasing your App Clip to the world.

To configure your default experience in App Store Connect, you'll start on the iOS version page.

Here, you'll enter the default experience metadata, including the header image, subtitle, and you'll choose a call to action verb.

When you're App Clip is invoked from Safari or from Messages, you'll see this metadata appear on the App Clip Card.

Now you might be wondering how Safari knows that a web page is associated with your App Clip in order to invoke your default App Clip experience.

Well to make this association, you simply include a metatag on the web page itself with the name "apple-itunes-app".

This is the same tag that's used for Safari Smart App banners today.