If you’re running into an error where your Ad Tracking request manager isn’t showing up after you update to iOS 15, here’s what you do.

You probably have some code that looks similar to this:

    if (@available(iOS 14, *)) {
        [ATTrackingManager requestTrackingAuthorizationWithCompletionHandler:^(ATTrackingManagerAuthorizationStatus status) {

}

This is Objective-C… sorry for the formatting.

If you had this code in didFinishLaunchingWithOptions, that’s the issue. You should move it to applicationDidBecomeActive instead. I have that whole code block of requesting this in it’s own method, so changing where it was called was pretty straightforward.

TL;DR – put the following line in your app-ads.txt file:

google.com, pub-3940256099942544, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

Long version: When I upgraded to iOS 15 and Xcode 13, I went to upgrade all my apps. I test them all with Admob test ads, the way you should. When I got done with the changes I made, started getting the error:

Google> Cannot find an ad network adapter with the name(s): (
"com.google.DummyAdapter"
). Remember to link all required ad network adapters and SDKs, and   set -ObjC in the 'Other Linker Flags' setting of your build target.



Which isn’t very helpful. At first I thought there was a bug in a Pod dependency, or one of the libraries. I downloaded an example app from Admob, and that worked. So I thought there was a bug in my code. I looked for “-ObjC” in the ‘Other Linker Flags’ – yup, it was there. I looked all over the web for a solution to this, only to find there were many other people with the same issue.

The guidance from Admob on their forums? That error occurs when there are no ads available (or if the -ObjC isn’t there in the linker flags). So….how do they NOT have test ads? I mean, that’s something that’s always available, right?

Since I do this in my spare time, I let this slide for months. Yesterday, I looked into it again, and spent several hours looking around to see what might be the case. Eventually, I searched for “Admob not showing test ads”, and ran across a thread on Reddit in the r/admob forum. Down at the bottom, user ahmedbilal12321 had the same problem, and solved it by adding the line:

google.com, pub-3940256099942544, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

to the app-ads.txt. This is specifically added so your apps can show test ads.

This is something I didn’t do when I started using app-ads.txt earlier in the year, and test ads showed up for me. Sure enough, this is also in the Admob documentation for test ads – I bypassed that in the documentation when I was searching for a solution.

I added that line to app-ads.txt, waited until Google scanned the file, tried it out, and….. it didn’t work. It was pretty late last night at this point, and I figured that after Google scanned the file, it was going to take some time for it to filter through the rest of the system.

I tried it a few minutes before I wrote this post, and it worked.

That thread was the only place I’ve seen this mentioned. I wanted to post something in hopes it will help someone else. Thanks to ahmedbilal12321 for posting that!

Several other users (specifically on Stack Overflow) have posted they ran into this problem, and ran REAL Admob ads in their apps to test to see if it’s working. DO NOT DO THIS. It will get you suspended or even banned. Add the test identifier for the simulator and any devices you might test on as admob suggests AND run using the test banner/interstitial/whatever ads they provide as tests. DO BOTH. If you do one, and not the other, it can also get your suspended or banned.

Apple is sent out “See you on the 7th” invitations to the press, which has been widely interpreted to mean that that this is the day new iPhones will be announced. I interpret “See you on the 7th” to be a reference to the additional camera that is rumored to be on the new iPhone.

The main thing people have been already been complaining about is that the new iPhone will likely not have a standard headphone jack. I can think of a couple of reasons that they would remove this. I’ll preface this by saying that they wouldn’t just randomly remove something like that unless they felt the benefits outweigh all that complaints they’ll likely have.

The headphone jack takes (relatively speaking) a lot of room in the phone. There are a number of things that they could do with this extra room. The first thing that comes to mind is extra battery space, which translates to more battery life.

Second, along with a second camera, it’s likely that the new iPhone will have a second microphone. This could be leveraged in a couple of different ways. Noise reduction is one. Another is greater fidelity for doing speech recognition. Apple has already said that additional microphones would be of benefit to Siri and this could be applied to speech recognition in general, especially for “simple” dictation of notes and reminders.

There hasn’t been a lot of changes in robot vacuums over the last ten years, until now. Dyson’s new vacuum sports a 360 degree camera which it uses to determine reference points for where it is in the room. It has the suction tech Dyson vacuums are known for. It can also be controlled with an iPhone.

It’s a bit taller than a Roomba, so it’s not going to be able to go under a low couch. It’s going to be interesting to see how much this thing costs.

I upgraded to an iPhone 5s a couple of months after the new phones were released. After going a couple of weeks without one, I thought it’d be a good idea to get a new case before I dropped the phone on the floor and cracked it.

There are so many iphone cases on the market right now
that it was hard for me to figure out which one to get. The iPhone 5s’ sleek design is great, and the weight of the thing is pretty amazing, especially to someone like me who waited a long time to upgrade. (I was sporting a 3GS, believe it or not). I really wanted to get a case that was ultra thin, but after looking into it, I decided that something that was a bit bigger would be better. A thin case might look great, but if what you’re trying to do in the end is just protect the phone, a thin case might not be the best way to go.

What I decided on was an OtterBox Defender in Grey/White. They have a LOT of different color cases to choose from.

It’s been a few months since I’ve had it, and I’m very pleased with how it’s held up. No scratches at all on the outer casing, and the thing came with a built in screen protector, so I didn’t have to fork out the extra money for one of those.

The article “How to Become an App Store Millionaire: Make a Hit App, and Don’t Make Anything Else” – like Steve Martin’s advice of how to become a millionaire and not pay taxes “First, get a million dollars”. Both are easier said than done.

Link – via All Things D.

That chip in the case of my iFrog case I bought at the AT&T store appeared not to long after getting the case. The same thing happened to my wife’s case. I’m very disappointed in the quality.

I brought a Casecrown case, same color, and so far I’ve been happy with it. I won’t be buying from iFrog again.

Just FYI.

Update: For my iPhone 5s, I bought a OtterBox Defender iPhone case