How soon should developers fix bugs in their Apps?

I hope they do it as fast as they could. Especially if the
app is paid for.

But imagining how many apps are out there, plus more
incoming and undergoing reviews, I'd say Apple's review
team/screening are really bombarded.

Apple wants to encourage developers to get it right the first time, and test, test, test, before submitting an app. Not to expect to bombard the review team with fixes every few days because the developer didn't spend a few days (or weeks) carefully testing to make sure they got it right.

Ad Hoc allows a developer to have as many as 100 beta testers.

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Apple should make a beta market place that you can download at your own risk, i think it would make the process go faster

Apple isn't interested in speed as much as quality. They should have no interest associating their name with apps that a developer hasn't tested to prime time quality. There are already thousands of mediocre apps in the store... Apple certainly doesn't need many more below average quality apps.

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Good question. I spent $5 on a new gas mileage/auto maintenance tracker because the old one hadn't been updated in a long time. The old one didn't even tell me my MPG on each tank, which I figured was something pretty simple to do. So I picked up Gas Cubby after reading some good reviews.

I do wonder what motivation someone has to update after releasing a hot-selling app. You could just do nothing and still rake in some cash or do a little and probably rake in about the same. At some point, developers will have to make 2.0 products to have incentive to really fix some stuff.

major review system problem

When Apple fixes the review system so that bad reviews of old versions are clearly labeled as such, developers will have a lot more incentive to update their apps with fixes to any bugs that were reported in these old reviews. Then potential new buyers will see that the version numbers are different from the old bad reviews.

Right now, it's confusing because a developer can fix a bug, but still have the top review denigrate the app because of a bug that was fixed in an update a long time ago.

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A lot of the the 1-time gimmick apps spent over a month in review, so Apple was even less interested in time-to-market.


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What I think is developers of paid apps (not free) should be given one "free" fix. Often their app took a couple weeks (or longer) to get approved, in that time they found/fixed bugs, or in the first couple days of an app's release people complain about bugs that the developer can fix quickly and safely. In that situation they should be allowed to put up a fixed version within the first week of an app's release without having to be re-approved. And if anybody abuses this (by adding material that Apple doesn't allow in the non-approved "fix") they should be immediately banned from the service and forfeit any sales amounts (Apple can just add that to the legal agreement they already make developers agree to, to make it all legal).

While it would be best if apps weren't released until they were bug free, that's just not possible. *All* software released contains bugs - including ones that the developer knows about. But there comes a time in the development cycle where they have to determine whether a bug is worth fixing, because the fixing of that bug could cause more bugs, some which could be worse than the original. As well, unfortunately not many developers have full dedicated testing teams, even some large developers. And with the extremely low prices iPhone apps sell for, I could easily see developers wanting to put more money to making their app more useful and full-featured than into testers.

DreamPod said:

What I think is developers of paid apps (not free) should be given one "free" fix. ... In that situation they should be allowed to put up a fixed version within the first week of an app's release without having to be re-approved. And if anybody abuses this (by adding material that Apple doesn't allow in the non-approved "fix") they should be immediately banned from the service and forfeit any sales amounts...

Click to expand...

That would be way way too easy for someone with only one free app, or with a compromised dev account, to abuse.

As a customer, I would like Apple to review and inspect everything as thoroughly as possible before any App store distribution to my device.

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firewood said:

That would be way way too easy for someone with only one free app, or with a compromised dev account, to abuse.

As a customer, I would like Apple to review and inspect everything as thoroughly as possible before any App store distribution to my device.

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Click to expand...

That's why I said paid apps only; for paid apps developers have to agree to a number of legal agreements and actually have registered with the government as a business. It would take an incredibly stupid person to go through all that, and pay the $99 to Apple, to try and abuse the system. Remember, even if an app sells $50,000 worth on its first day, developers are only paid once per month; plenty of time for someone to complain and Apple take all that money (give it back to the customers) before the developer got one cent.

And I don't get why you are bringing "compromised" dev accounts into this - a compromised account would already be a problem, and is VERY unlikely it would end up with an app submitted, let alone updated. First off, you cannot change the email address or identity of an account without talking directly to someone at Apple, and any attempt to submit would end up with an email sent to the account holder. Second, to test any app on your device you need to give Apple your device ID, from which they could get the serial number and find out who bought that device. And finally, it's a completely separate account with separate password for submitting apps than creating them.

DreamPod said:

for paid apps developers have to agree to a number of legal agreements and actually have registered with the government as a business.

Click to expand...

Actually, individuals can sell on the App Store as well. They just need to fill out the tax and banking forms.