News

Apple Provides Developer Guidance for New iPad Pro

• By David Ramel
• October 31, 2018

Apple published guidance for developers targeting the newly announced iPad Pro, explaining how to work with new features such as an "all-screen design."

The guidance comes in the form of two "Tech Talks" videos: Bringing Your Apps to the New iPad Pro and Designing for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

To take advantage of new features such as the all-screen design, developers can use the iOS 12.1 SDK that comes bundled with the Xcode 10.1 IDE -- available here -- to ensure their apps appear correctly within the rounded corners of the display and along with the Home indicator.

"Learn about the new common inset compatibility mode and what it means for apps running in multitasking mode," Apple said. "Find out how to provide support for Face ID and for the second generation Apple Pencil with its double-tap feature."

Apple advised three steps to update apps and optimize their UI for the 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation):

• Run and Test in Simulator. Make sure your apps take advantage of the edge-to-edge Liquid Retina display by respecting safe areas and supporting adaptive layouts. Read the updated Human Interface Guidelines, download Xcode 10.1, and test your app in Simulator.
• Enable full screen native resolution. Your app will run in Full Screen Display Mode on iPad Pro if your project’s base SDK is set to iOS 12.1 or later and you have a Launch Storyboard or iPad Pro launch image.
• Verify all parts of your app. Make sure that your UI displays correctly and no elements are mispositioned, overlapping, incorrectly scaled, or clipped. If you discover issues, use the safe area guides and layout margins to correctly position UI elements.

The company said as of March 2019, all iOS apps submitted to its App Store must be built with the iOS 12.1 SDK or later, and also provide support for the all-screen design of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation) and iPhone XS Max.