Newsstand iOS5 integration

[AvenNigera]

Hey Guys,

Does anyone know how "Newsstand" of iOS 5 could work?

Newsstand A custom newsstand for all your subscriptions. Read all about it. All in one place. iOS 5 organizes your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions in Newsstand: a folder that lets you access your favorite publications quickly and easily. There’s also a new place on the App Store just for newspaper and magazine subscriptions. And you can get to it straight from Newsstand. New purchases go directly to your Newsstand folder. Then, as new issues become available, Newsstand automatically updates them in the background — complete with the latest covers. It’s kind of like having the paper delivered to your front door. Only better.

We would like to use baker/laker but we need a "folder" which will include all magazines which anyone can download every month a new mag for free or for some cents. The question is does anyone know that we can develop or build the mag with laker/baker and use the "Newsstand" App when its published to get the functions of abonnements and the possibilities to download a new one in the background, to buy a new one, to have a list of all in one folder (not every magazine is one app) and so on?

Thanks alot

Aven

[nin9creative]

So, I suppose at this point instead of continuing work on my Bakershelf branch I should contribute some code back to the shelf branch! LOL I would spend more time trying to retrofit the newer version of Baker 3.2.2 with what I did prior.

As for your question above, I think minimally it has to support having a Free subscription option, have all the right icons set up, updating the cover art when new issues are available. I haven't seen a good document that outlines the minimum requirements.

However earlier on in the Bakershelf branch I think @mpena2099 was trying to get his app approved and something came up with the background downloading or resumption of downloading if you quit the app...

Would need to do some more research. However I do know for a fact that you don't have to implement push notifications.

[Simbul]

Thanks for that insight. Do you reckon that "free subscription" concepts has got anything to do with In-App Purchase, or is it separate based on your experience?

[nin9creative]

11.12 Apps offering subscriptions must do so using IAP, Apple will share the same 70/30 revenue split with developers for these purchases, as set forth in the Developer Program License Agreement. 11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the App, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected 11.14 Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the App, as long as there is no button or external link in the App to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the App 11.15 Apps may only use auto renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage) and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected.

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[folletto]

Thanks. For me the most important part is:

However I do know for a fact that you don't have to implement push notifications.

Because the guidelines doesn't help really much. Like: does a "Free Subscription" require any coding at all (11.12)? The answer seems yes in theory, but in practice seems no...

[danupoyner]

I thought you'd be interested to know that I found out the reason the app was crashing (shelf branch) when I opened one of my books is because I had -baker-index-height set to 'null'. As soon as I put in a value (eg 200) it opened fine.

Also, can we confirm the final size for the book thumbnails? As far as I'm aware, Newsstand requires 100x150 images. The shelf currently uses something a bit wider than that I think.

[Simbul]

According to the Newsstand FAQs, the longest edge of the Newsstand icon should be

• at least 90px for iPhone
• at least 126px for iPad and all high resolution images should double the size.

The iOS Human Interface Guidelines, somewhat confusingly, specify that Newsstand cover icons should be at least 512px on the longest edge (double for hi res). This image will then be scaled to the size specified above.

All in all, I think we'll fix this when we properly implement cover management.

[anjimi]

Hi all, I'm just catching up with where the Newsstand stuff is up to. I've been busy working on content for our magazine app which I've been testing with Baker 3.2. I'd like to try using the shelf branch now and have just downloaded the latest files from the shelf branch. Are there any instructions on how to implement and test the shelf with multiple issues? Would the first issue of our magazine be included in the books folder of our app or do I need to implement downloading of the first issue, and then subsequent issues after that?

I apologise if this information is already to be found somewhere, but I can only find mention of part of the process, and I'm not sure how to proceed.

[folletto]

It's not complete yet, but this is a good starting point, check if it works for you: https://github.com/Simbul/baker/wiki/Newsstand-vs-Bundled-publications-support-in-Baker-4.0

[anjimi]

Thanks Davide, I had seen this page but it doesn't offer any instruction on how to implement issue downloads. I saw a comment on https://github.com/Simbul/baker/issues/522 which mentions hosting a .json file on your own website, but I can't find anything further on implementation of this, and where this is referenced in the shelf app.

[folletto]

I quickly added a page, check this: https://github.com/Simbul/baker/wiki/Newsstand-shelf-JSON

[anjimi]

Great! Thank you for that, I'll try that today.

[Simbul]

To answer your other question, note that, when Newsstand is enabled, Baker will not display any of the bundled books. In fact, you can delete the books folder from the Xcode project entirely.

(I have added this to the wiki page as well)

[tstegart]

I love the shelf guys, great work!

Some first impressions:

When you're in a book, the button to get back to the Baker shelf says "Baker Shelf." You might want to consider changing this to something more generic, like "Library." Only because end users are not going to know what Baker is, therefore most developers will need to change it, either to eliminate the word Baker or to add in their own name. It seems uneconomical to build into the app something everyone will want to change, and I'm sure you guys will not want to answers questions on how its done every few months, which is probably inevitable.

You might want to consider adding in an "About" button in the shelf. The shelf currently lacks any way other than books to display information to the user. At least the example I downloaded didn't have one. Is this planned? I'm thinking about privacy policies being the big issue here as something you would like the user to be able to access before they download books. But also contact info, a support email (in case the server is down and none of the books work) and just basic info on how the app works (especially what the consequences of clicking the subscribe button are). Any information that won't change from issue to issue is a good idea to display in the shelf. Are we sure an app will get accepted without this info being available?

I suggest the about button link to a downloaded book, and if it cannot download it, it uses a bundled book (or uses a json parameter to determine what to do). This way people can design their "about" sections to match their magazines look and feel and have a way to give more information.

Questions: Can the big baker logo in the shelf be replaced with a logo of any size? Or are there dimension restrictions? When lots of issues are added, does the shelf paginate itself, or just scroll to show them all. Is it sideways or vertical scrolling?

Some suggestions for future versions: A preview function. A preview button opens up a modal window of a specific size that downloads a preview. It could be the same size on landscape and portrait view to same some coding trouble. If it can download an html file, people can design their own preview pages.

Thats all I have from my initial preview. Its looks great! Thanks to everyone who put in all the hard work.

[folletto]

Hi @tstegart thank you very much for the detailed feedback! That's great! :+1:

Let's see...

1. Yes, the title will be editable or generic. It's an excellent point. :)
2. The about button isn't part of version 4.0, you're the first asking for such a thing (and there are apps in the store without it) but let's see what other people think and keep track of it: open a new issue so we have it. That will also allow anybody that wants to contribute to develop that and send us a Push Request. :)
3. Preview is something that almost no other platform provides, and it would be overkill to add right now both for us and authors, but that said it's surely an interesting feature, and it's worth its own issue. ;)

About your questions:

1. The full background is an image, so it's COMPLETELY CUSTOM. :)
2. The shelf scrolls, vertical. Try it. ;)

[tstegart]

Thanks @folletto!

I'll start a new issue for the About button, thanks. The preview suggestion was definitely just for the future, I don't want to delay 4.0 :)

The background is an image, but does it repeat itself when you have a lot of issues? Do you need to make the background image the same size as however many issues you have, or is it set to fill the full screen, and if you have more issues then it repeats or just ends?

Can I ask what is left on the to-do list before the shelf is functional to be used to submit an app? I know its not done, but I'm wondering what is left? T

[folletto]

Ok. :)

1. The background is fixed everything scrolls above it but the top part is always free (try it), we found it's the best solution to achieve flexibility and customizability with the lowest possible effort. :)
2. For the todo list just check the milestone 4.0 here on GitHub, click "Milestones" at the top of this page. :)

[olvr]

The shelf functionality is looking great.

It has me thinking, it looks like currently the two options you are aiming towards are 1. Full Newsstand integration and 2. Bundled publications only.

Are you thinking of allowing use of the shelf functionality in a stand alone app without any Newsstand integration too?

It would be useful to have the shelf functionality without any Newsstand integration for publications that don't meet the Newsstand requirements.

Might it also be a simpler target to include shelf functionality first then meet all the specific Newsstand requirements later?

[folletto]

We evaluated that options and while we agree it would be great... it's overkill trying to push it out right now, since it's the least required one and will require a lot more code to be written.

Shelf functionality... it's already there: the problem isn't "shelf" but "How do you manage the updates?". That's the big problem. :)

[Simbul]

Newsstand support with free subscription (and no push notifications) has been completed in c951ecae84e225d685ed3b893eba5a989c1e3203, thus I'm closing this issue :)

[tstegart]

Awwww yeeaaaahhh!