One particular change visible in IT which is due to worldwide spread of the COVID disease is remote work. Not too long ago, it was a benefit which only some could enjoy. Nowadays it has become the standard for the majority of IT workers. Consequently, micromanagement from bosses is gone and programmers, testers, analytics, and many more of us need to be able to work independently and cooperate just over telcos. I bet the time will show the true characters of people and the real agility of companies, and many will fail.
In my humble opinion there will be two major focuses in IT in 2021, automation and innovation. So, if you have not done it yet, you had better find out what RPA means and think about how to catch the train.
Apple is picky about the app review process and requires a lot of attention from developers to assure the review passes. As usual, there are important changes for new releases to keep in mind.
Developers should not leave any dormant code in their apps. This is not a huge deal, as it is usually the correct approach anyway. However, those who rely heavily on AB testing, will need to ensure that disabled features are removed from distribution packages before being pushed to the Apple store.
If your iOS app displays an advertisement in the app, it needs to stay within the main app executable, and should not be included in extensions anymore.
If you struggled in the past with purchase options available from Apple, you might welcome the change in paragraph 3.1.3. Apple opens the door for more purchase solutions other than in-app. Hurry up – time is money, right?
The PSD2 was already a fuss in fintech, so I am just reminding you that starting December 31, 2020 it is mandatory for online purchases. So as a reminder you can read Apple instruction on how to stay in business. For those who maintain the app profiles, don't forget to add App privacy labels as they are now required.
If you are looking for a detailed overview of changes in the App Review guideline, check this website. I found it quite handy as it shows diffs for each update.
On Android, there were some new generic rules for the new app review process:
and a few interesting updates for developers as well:
Enough of mobiles – one important note regarding websites and LetsEncrypt certificates. LetsEncrypt has a partnership with a well-known and accepted partner providing them with the root certificate "DST Root X3". However, this partnership ends on 11th of January 2021. In the meantime, Letscrypt has been building the trust within their own root certificate "ISRG Root X1" for years. Therefore, from the 11th of January any new LetsEncrypt certificate comes with LetsEncrypt’s own root certificate. So, where is the catch? Well, some older systems might have problems accepting it and may mark it as untrusted. The problem is mainly with older Android versions prior to 7.1.1. For the end-user, the way out is to either install the Firefox Mobile browser or dump your app. As a developer, your options are to use different certificate providers or update your app, however the stats say that the usage of older APIs is still significant.
AWS services continue to focus on the optimization. With Amazon’s policy to keep introducing improvements and cost savings, we need to keep an eye on the change logs. One thing I want to mention here is the introduction of the new EBS gp3. Compared to gp2, the gp3 offers the possibility to increase IOPS without the volume. Applications like MySQL, Cassandra, or Hadoop can benefit from it substantially.
I also want to share some news, which will mainly please devops hearts. One thing is the availability of CLI at the browser at the AWS console, a big win for command line lovers. The next one is the availability of Prometheus and Grafana as the managed services.
If you are losing your mind over constant surprising cost spikes, you can use the new service Cost Anomaly Detection. Next time you will stay ahead.
Until now, you could not link a cost report to a linked user. Well, now you can. Let’s spread the awareness of $$$ cost to others.
I hope you found this digest interesting and valuable and until the next issue, take care of yourself and your families and stay healthy.
