Apple Releases iOS 4.2.1 Golden Master to Developers

[lordandrei]

Why skip to 4.2.1 when 4.2 wasn't released.

I am really glad to see they are trying to iron out as many kinks as possible before releasing this. I'm a little curious why they chose to go to 4.2.1 and not just keep it at 4.2 with a different build number.

Can someone wiser than me tell me why they would add a .1 before the general release of .0?

Note: I don't work for Apple, this is just a possible explanation:

Many companies have tied process to versioning. In other words a bug fix that requires a rebuild of one component may not necessitate a full retest of the component. Thus you can have 4.2GM, 4.2GM+fix.

If the fix is deep enough that it causes a sufficient change to reopen testing or to regression test (did this fix break anything already working) they may need to increment the version number to match documented process.

Thus:

• 4.2 Beta: Apple Q/A testing
• 4.2 GM: Official Q/A testing is done, ad hoc widespread testing and distributed dev testing
• critical wifi bug that affects just the iPad discovered
• 4.2 GM+iPadFix (test only that fix as the code change was minor despite the bug being critical)
• critical bug discovered via adhoc (maybe a 3rd party dev) that requires a fix to the entire release.
• 4.2.1 beta (unreleased/unannounced/unleaked): Apple Q/A testing
• 4.2.1 GM: As above.

Please note again. This isn't necessarily why it happened, but as a corporate software architect with 20 yrs and about 4 major company's. This is a Good hazarded guess as to why.

-Andrei Freeman
(Who recently went to the street initially with a 1.0.1, not 1.0)

 

[AidenShaw]

IMO, we won't see 4.2

Note: I don't work for Apple, this is just a possible explanation:
...
Thus you can have 4.2GM, 4.2GM+fix.
...
This is a Good hazarded guess as to why.

Another possibility:

• 4.2.1 is really 4.2GM+fix - but since so many people installed pirated copies of the GM it would be a support nightmare to have to ask "do you have the real 4.2, or a pirated copy of the GM" on every trouble call. Change the version number to be able to unambiguously know.

My bet is that 4.2 will never be released - because the "V4.2" version number has been made useless to support folks.

 

[dtommyd]

Donny?

What's so special about 4.2 that everyone is waiting for it to come out?

Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story, Donny?
The Dude: Walter...
Donny: What?
Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story?
Donny: I was bowling.
Walter Sobchak: So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know...
The Dude: (interrupting) Walter, Walter,.....

 

[Dias]

Even GM seems to be affected by a lot of bugs, I wonder whether it's still scheduled for November.

 

[Edd.Dantes]

Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story, Donny?
The Dude: Walter...
Donny: What?
Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story?
Donny: I was bowling.
Walter Sobchak: So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know...
The Dude: (interrupting) Walter, Walter,.....

Sorry but I had to comment on this...

You, sir, are a light in a dark world.

There is nothing in that movie that could not solve all of the world's problems.

And remember... "that rug really tied the room together"

Words to live by.

 

[Bosunsfate]

Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story, Donny?
The Dude: Walter...
Donny: What?
Walter Sobchak: Were you listening to The Dude's story?
Donny: I was bowling.
Walter Sobchak: So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know...
The Dude: (interrupting) Walter, Walter,.....

So simply put and well said.

+1000

Now if only people would simply abide.

 

[meatballs]

The Big Lebowski references aside, what is supposedly so great about 4.2? I have no issues with 4.1 at all. Golden masters meh, who cares except developers?

 

[tempusfugit]

The Big Lebowski references aside, what is supposedly so great about 4.2? I have no issues with 4.1 at all. Golden masters meh, who cares except developers?

Airplay and (until it was pulled?) AirPrint.

4.2 was always the version to bring the iPad in sync with the iPhone. Its really the iPad that could use all of the features forthcoming... (multitasking, folders, threaded email, etc)

4.1 is good enough for me.

 

[Bosunsfate]

The Big Lebowski references aside, what is supposedly so great about 4.2? I have no issues with 4.1 at all. Golden masters meh, who cares except developers?

Apple announced a few months ago the proposed content for the 4.2 release. That release will be made public, but for now this is what Apple is saying about it. iPad - iOS 4.2

What people can't contain them selves for is just waiting for Apple to make the release public. What you see here are a lot of people trying out the testing versions before the public release...and to no surprise it has lots of bugs...

So, just wait for the public release and hopefully you'll find a number of the new features useful to you.

 

[meatballs]

Ok so 4.2 will be big for the iPad and not the iPhone, got it. When I hear iOS I think iPhone, they haven't even started selling the iPad where I live. Airplay seems like a pretty cool feature

 

[Surf Monkey]

Ok so 4.2 will be big for the iPad and not the iPhone, got it. When I hear iOS I think iPhone, they haven't even started selling the iPad where I live. Airplay seems like a pretty cool feature

It'll be big for the Apple TV as well.

 

[Celtic-moniker]

The Big Lebowski references aside, what is supposedly so great about 4.2? I have no issues with 4.1 at all. Golden masters meh, who cares except developers?

For us iPad owners:

Multi-tasking.
Folders...
Multi-tasking.

er.

Multi-tasking....
um...
Multi-tasking.....

And......

Bloomin' ek! Does there really need to be anything more than just the Multi-tasking for the iPad! God, that's enough just to get excited about!

 

[Celtic-moniker]

Best post in this thread

From an Aussie as well wow suppose you need a sense of humour with your cricket team

Our Cricket team IS out sense of humor.

Merv Hughes, Shane Warne, and a captain like Ponting... Think you can take that seriously?

(watch the yanks scratch their head over that one. "Wha? I thought we were the whole world").

 

[3goldens]

For us iPad owners:

Multi-tasking.
Folders...
Multi-tasking.

er.

Multi-tasking....
um...
Multi-tasking.....

And......

Bloomin' ek! Does there really need to be anything more than just the Multi-tasking

for the iPad! God, that's enough just to get excited about!

Some have had multi tasking since day one! You could have had too!

 

[fpnc]

People are asking about the need to increment the GM build from 4.2 to 4.2.1. It's pretty simple, if a code build had already been declared GM (officially, not just a GM candidate) then you have to increment the version number if you need to roll ANY type of change into another release. Otherwise, you'd effectively have two GMs with the same version number but with different code. It makes no difference if the "GM" was released to the public or not, if an internal Apple build was officially pronounced "GM" then you can't use the same version number for any other release. The only common exception to this rule is when you are rolling a release for a new product, under those conditions the major and minor version numbers may remain the same but the build number may change (to account for the code that was added to support the new product).

I worked at Apple for quite a few years (in software development) and that was the way it was always done (any deviations that may have occurred were probably the result of an extreme situation, not likely to be repeated since it could be viewed as technically a mistake). However, it is also VERY rare to have an official GM that ends up not being released to the public. In any case, I suspect that the only iOS version that will be seen by the general public is 4.2.1 (although a public release of 4.2 is not completely out of the question).

 

[lordandrei]

Another possibility:

• 4.2.1 is really 4.2GM+fix - but since so many people installed pirated copies of the GM it would be a support nightmare to have to ask "do you have the real 4.2, or a pirated copy of the GM" on every trouble call. Change the version number to be able to unambiguously know.

My bet is that 4.2 will never be released - because the "V4.2" version number has been made useless to support folks.

I'd have to disagree because historically most builds eventually leak. I wish it weren't the case because a pre-release build really isn't completely stable and won't be supported in the wild.

I'm still hedging my bets that 4.2_iPad fix was different from 4.2.1 and something else reared its ugly head to cause this.

I also would not be surprised if someone inside took lumps either in engineering or testing for missing this issue and causing an 11th hour rebuild of this nature.

 

[Mattsasa]

For us iPad owners:

Multi-tasking.
Folders...
Multi-tasking.

er.

Multi-tasking....
um...
Multi-tasking.....

And......

Bloomin' ek! Does there really need to be anything more than just the Multi-tasking for the iPad! God, that's enough just to get excited about!

I know!!! its taken foreever.

I was finally able to get 4.2gm onto my ipad..... I had to sacrifice many of my jail-broken features and cydia, and 90% of my apps that I have not paid for

 

[twoodcc]

hopefully 4.2 is released soon. does airplay work with this one?

 

[petvas]

hopefully 4.2 is released soon. does airplay work with this one?

The ATV2 needs to get updated also in order to be able to accept Video Airplay.

 

[dtommyd]

The Big Lebowski references aside, what is supposedly so great about 4.2? I have no issues with 4.1 at all. Golden masters meh, who cares except developers?

Not just developers- These guys said it too but I have an iPad which will change alot of things from printing to sending video to the Apple Tv2. The ATV2 is my second reason for wanting the update. The ATV itself is fairly WHACK without some more bells and whistles. The ATV2 can't be fully hacked until the bugs are worked out. I bought it because I wanted to watch movies on my network. play iOS games, Boxee(?), web on TV, Streaming +++ Alot of things that I'm not waiting a year for.
Those are my big reasons - my brother in law has a 3g iPhone that needs 4.2 to make the 3g "more usable". Then beyond that, we're supposed to get OSX apps in the next 60 days (?) which will be based on 4.2 (prolly 4.3). Apple has alot riding on it and if they have an "antenna mishap" their F'd. This has to be good and it has to be done before Thanksgiving in my opinion. If they miss Black Friday they are screwed. If it's buggy they are screwed. I'd assume Apple's programers have a gun to their back like a Chinese cartoonist until 4.2 comes out. (metaphorically speaking of course).

http://twitter.com/DtommyD

 

[therickt]

Even GM seems to be affected by a lot of bugs, I wonder whether it's still scheduled for November.

I doubt it, but hope so

 

[jason917]

People are asking about the need to increment the GM build from 4.2 to 4.2.1. It's pretty simple, if a code build had already been declared GM (officially, not just a GM candidate) then you have to increment the version number if you need to roll ANY type of change into another release. Otherwise, you'd effectively have two GMs with the same version number but with different code. It makes no difference if the "GM" was released to the public or not, if an internal Apple build was officially pronounced "GM" then you can't use the same version number for any other release.

Dude, they already released the same GM with a different build (8C134 and 8C134b). They almost certainly only changed the number to 4.2.1 because so many people made press releases saying NOT to update to 4.2. They've released new GM builds more than once with the iOS SDK. 4.0 had 3 GM releases with different build numbers before it came out. How short memories are...

 

[jason917]

ISO standards - https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11446240/

Those standards apply only to RELEASED software. The beta/gm stuff is considered apple internal and confidential even when released to developers. They can do anything they want, it just wouldn't be useful. For instance, they could call everything they release to developers 4.2 GM and only the build number changes, but that would be silly and confusing, so they don't.

The only time they have to change the version number to comply with the ISO standard is with released software. So if they released 4.2 to users, they can't just push a new build number, they have to do 4.2.1.

GM is still a confidential developer release, so ISO standards don't apply. Apple can do whatever they want internally and they don't have to conform to ISO if they don't feel like it (internally), even if they usually do.

 

[jason917]

Then beyond that, we're supposed to get OSX apps in the next 60 days (?) which will be based on 4.2 (prolly 4.3). Apple has alot riding on it and if they have an "antenna mishap" their F'd. This has to be good and it has to be done before Thanksgiving in my opinion. If they miss Black Friday they are screwed.

First, apple never gave any timeframe whatsoever to when the Mac App Store would be released. They just said "soon". It may happen in the next 60 days, but don't just say it like they actually said it.

Second, the Mac App Store has nothing at all to do with iOS. It's not connected to any iOS release. It will require Mac OS X 10.6.6, and applications developed for it have access to all Mac OS X frameworks and absolutely none of the iOS frameworks. You develop apps for the Mac App Store using the AppKit framework, not the UIKit framework so its release is not tied in anyway at all to the next release of iOS.

Finally, there is no impetus on developers at all to release 4.2 before Black Friday. There is no iPad hardware refresh at all and the software installed doesn't matter. iPads currently in stock now for Black Friday will almost certainly have 3.2.2 installed anyway, even if 4.2 comes out today. Statistically speaking, no people will make the decision on Friday to buy an iPad or not based on whether iOS 4.2 was released before that day.

If it's buggy they are screwed. I'd assume Apple's programers have a gun to their back like a Chinese cartoonist until 4.2 comes out. (metaphorically speaking of course).

This statement is racist and just stupid. It's not funny at all.

 

[Amino Man]

First, apple never gave any timeframe whatsoever to when the Mac App Store would be released. They just said "soon". It may happen in the next 60 days, but don't just say it like they actually said it.

Second, the Mac App Store has nothing at all to do with iOS. It's not connected to any iOS release. It will require Mac OS X 10.6.6, and applications developed for it have access to all Mac OS X frameworks and absolutely none of the iOS frameworks. You develop apps for the Mac App Store using the AppKit framework, not the UIKit framework so its release is not tied in anyway at all to the next release of iOS.

Finally, there is no impetus on developers at all to release 4.2 before Black Friday. There is no iPad hardware refresh at all and the software installed doesn't matter. iPads currently in stock now for Black Friday will almost certainly have 3.2.2 installed anyway, even if 4.2 comes out today. Statistically speaking, no people will make the decision on Friday to buy an iPad or not based on whether iOS 4.2 was released before that day.



This statement is racist and just stupid. It's not funny at all.

Lighten up dude.

Also, Apple said that they hope to have the Mac App Store open within 90 days. That is why people say 60 days.