May 2016 archive

May 09

Is the Internet Fragmenting? Join the Discussion Live – Tuesday, May 10, at 3:30pm US EDT (Featured Blog)

Is the global, open Internet moving away from a network of networks that is universally accessible to a series of networks fragmented along policy, technical or economic lines? As some governments pass laws related to data localization and restriction of cross-border data flows, what will the impact be? What about the increasing use of DNS and content filtering? What other factors have the potential for causing fragmentation? More...

May 09

Is The Internet Fragmenting? Join a panel discussion Tuesday, May 10, at 3:30pm US EDT

Is the Internet fragmenting?  Is the global, open Internet moving away from a network of networks that is universally interoperable to a series of networks fragmented along policy, technical or economic lines? As some governments pass laws related to data localization and restriction of cross-border data flows, what will the impact be?  What about the increasing use of DNS and content filtering? What other factors have the potential for causing fragmentation?

Dan York

May 06

TDYR 301 – About Apple’s June 1 Requirement for IPv6 for iOS Apps

This week Apple declared that as of June 1 all apps submitted to the AppStore must be able to work in an IPv6-ONLY network. In this episode I talk about what that means... More text info at http://www.circleid.com/posts/20160505_apple_requires_all_ios_apps_work_on_ipv6_only_networks/

May 05

Apple Requires All iOS Apps to Work on IPv6-Only Networks as of June 1 (Featured Blog)

Yesterday Apple declared that as of June 1 all iOS apps submitted to the AppStore MUST support IPv6-only networking. Back at their June 2015 WWDC event, Apple announced that all iOS 9 applications must support IPv6 - the news this week is reinforcing that requirement... As Apple continues to point out, the vast majority of application developers will not need to do anything to support IPv6. More...

May 05

Apple Requires All iOS Apps To Work On IPv6-only Networks As Of June 1 (Featured Blog)

More...

May 05

Starting June 1, Apple Requires All iOS Apps To Work in IPv6-ONLY Networks

Apple iOS 9 logoBack at their June 2015 WWDC event, Apple announced that all iOS 9 applications must support IPv6. This week Apple declared that as of June 1 all apps submitted to the AppStore MUST support IPv6-only networking.  From Apple’s blog post:

At WWDC 2015 we announced the transition to IPv6-only network services in iOS 9. Starting June 1, 2016 all apps submitted to the App Store must support IPv6-only networking. Most apps will not require any changes because IPv6 is already supported by NSURLSession and CFNetwork APIs.

If your app uses IPv4-specific APIs or hard-coded IP addresses, you will need to make some changes.

As Apple continues to point out, the vast majority of application developers will not need to do anything to support IPv6.  If developers use the standard networking APIs provided by Apple, they should not experience any problems in an IPv6-only network.  It should “just work”.  It’s only when developers use IPv4-specific APIs or addresses that there is a problem.

Why This Matters

This is an extremely important step.  As I wrote last year after WWDC 2015, this requirement means that iOS apps will work in the IPv6-only networks that we are starting to see appear.

More than that, this requirement will drive millions of developers to test their apps in an IPv6-only network.  This kind of testing will increase basic knowledge developers have of IPv6 – and will lead to better networking knowledge all around.

Additionally, for an application to work on an IPv6-only network, this also means that the site or service to which the application connects needs to be accessible somehow over IPv6.  Now, this doesn’t matter for many apps that work only an iPhone and don’t need network connectivity.  But for apps that do connect back to a site, that site / service will need to be reachable over IPv6.  This should wind up causing more developers to explore how to make their web sites and services available over IPv6 – which should in turn cause requests to ISPs and hosting providers for IPv6 access.

All in all it is a great move to help drive IPv6 usage!

Getting Help

Apple suggested that people read their developer documentation “Supporting IPv6 DNS64/NAT64 Networks” and watch the WWDC 2015 video “Your App and Next Generation Networks“.  I previously provided a summary of this video along with screenshots of the major points.

We would of course also suggest you visit our Start Here page to find IPv6 resources for your type of organization. Specifically for app developers we suggest:

The key point is to start NOW if you haven’t already, as any AppStore submissions after June 1 will require IPv6-only testing.

Thank you, Apple, for making this hard requirement!  It will only help as we continue to work to transition the Internet from the “beta” of IPv4 to the “production” IPv6 network!

More discussion of this topic:

 

May 05

TDYR 300 – The Thrill of Receiving a Print Copy of BusinessWeek

Yesterday I was thrilled to receive a print copy of Bloomberg BusinessWeek - in this episode I talk about why...

May 04

TDYR 299 – Do You “Pay Yourself First” In Creating Content for Blogs or Podcasts?

How do you create your own personal content (articles, blog posts, podcasts, etc) in the midst of all the other demands of life? Do you "pay yourself first" as Jeremiah Owyang once recommended? What do you do?