As announced in June, new Time Allowances in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, or later, give parents more flexible ways to manage the time their kids spend in apps across categories, including Entertainment, Games, and Social Media.

To support this, the age rating questionnaire in App Store Connect now includes questions about your app’s social media capabilities. A social media capability is defined as the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method. The Time Allowance category for Social Media is based on whether your app or game offers social media capabilities, regardless of the app category selected in App Store Connect. Apps with these capabilities will display a new Social Media content descriptor on their App Store product page. If you indicate that your app or game includes social media capabilities but they are disabled for anyone under 13, it won’t be included in the Time Allowance category for Social Media for users under 13. For more details, refer to Introducing Time Allowances.

You can review and answer these questions starting today. As previously shared, beginning in September 2026, responses will be required when submitting new apps or updates to the App Store, or when submitting apps for notarization for alternative distribution.

Set an app age rating

Age rating values and definitions

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Welcome Alex Haro, CEO of Hubble

• Chris welcomes Alex Haro, co-founder and CEO of Hubble, to discuss the ambitious task of connecting billions of Bluetooth devices directly to space
• The “banner level spec”: Hubble enables any off-the-shelf Bluetooth chip to communicate with low Earth orbit satellites using a software-only firmware update
• Alex describes the system as a global “Find My” for enterprise that also handles sensor readings and arbitrary data
• Addressing the “Bluetooth in space” skepticism: Alex explains that while the standard is optimized for high-fidelity audio, the chips can be repurposed to emit a custom software-defined waveform in the 2.4 GHz band
• The true innovation is on the satellite side: massive antenna arrays with thousands of elements perform advanced digital beamforming to pick up weak signals (0-20 dBm) from hundreds of kilometers away
• The “Dinner Table Analogy”: Traditional networks “yell” to be heard, but Hubble has the device talk slower (lower bit rate) and enunciate (error correction) while the satellite uses thousands of “microphones” to isolate a single voice
• Why Bluetooth instead of LoRa? Hubble co-founder and CTO of Ben Wild, is the architect of Amazon Sidewalk. He chose Bluetooth because it is globally ubiquitous and the 2.4 GHz band is unlicensed worldwide
• Technical trade-off: While LoRa uses spread spectrum chirps, 2.4 GHz allows for much smaller antenna arrays on the satellites compared to the 900 MHz band
• The hybrid network approach: Devices use the same SDK to communicate via a crowdsourced terrestrial network (apps and gateways) or directly to satellites when out of range
• Constellation roadmap: Hubble currently has four production satellites in orbit (covering the globe twice daily) and aims for 64 satellites by 2029 for continuous real-time coverage
• Removing the GPS chip: By using Angle of Arrival (AoA) on the satellite, Hubble can determine a device’s location to within tens of meters, reducing BOM costs and power consumption
• Future “Reverse GPS”: Once multiple satellites are overhead, Hubble can combine AoA with Time of Flight (ToF) measurements for even higher accuracy
• Network capacity: Each 10km satellite beam can handle roughly 100,000 simultaneous devices before hitting saturation, with terrestrial gateways offloading density in major metros
• Dealing with the “grumpy engineer”: Alex discusses lowering friction for developers by investing in the Zephyr Project and partnering with Texas Instruments to pre-flash the Hubble stack on Bluetooth SOCs
• Stack coexistence: The Hubble SDK allows the radio to time-slice, maintaining a standard Bluetooth connection to a phone while sending satellite packets during idle periods
• Payload specs: Data packets are 13 bytes, transmitted at 400 bits per second
• Business model: Pricing starts around $2 per device per month and scales down with volume to hit the “price elasticity” needed for tracking billions of assets
• Enterprise use cases: From tracking shipping pallets to monitor loss, to cold chain monitoring for pharmaceuticals and agriculture
• The SpaceX experience: Alex describes the “visceral” feeling of the double sonic booms from the Falcon 9 landing during their launch party
• Find out more at hubble.com (or hub of BLE)

Download audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/theamphour/TheAmpHour-728-SpaceAgeBluetoothWithAlexHaro.mp3

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Microsoft has established some high enterprise pricing and licensing hurdles going into its FY27. Directions' Advisory Services Director Lane Shelton talks with Mary Jo Foley about the obstacles and potential opportunities.



Download audio: https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/season5ep12shelton.mp3