I sympathise with you, and the OP, it just makes me sad that app devs are being blamed for something well beyond their control.
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Developers Frustrated at Apple for Just One Day's Notice to Submit Apps Ahead of iOS 14 Release Today
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I sympathise with you, and the OP, it just makes me sad that app devs are being blamed for something well beyond their control.
You’re missing the point entirely. Even if you’ve kept ahead and ensured your app works fine with iOS 14 - as my team has - you’re stuck because Apple doesn’t give you enough time to ensure your app is reviewed and released before customers download the builds on iOS 14.
This isn’t a case of bashing Apple; it’s just a ****** move for any company to do.
But they knew it would be released in September after the keynote at some point. Why not just give yourself the keynote date as the deadline? No sympathy
That’s not an unreasonable position, but unfortunately is incorrect. Each beta can break APIs used by apps in different ways, even ones which are considered ‘stable’. There’s no way of knowing whether they’ll be broken in the GM or future betas and sometimes you’re awaiting Apple to get back to your feedback.
How exactly do you submit an iOS 14 app without the right tools?
Apple could easily have given another week before iOS availability and another beta which could have broken more things than fix. Trying to predict Apple is a futile exercise.
That’s correct but you’re still stuck with less than a day’s notice to get the build reviewed etc. That’s the big problem here, not the time needed to actually fix the issues.
It's almost a law of software that big updates always break things, which are fixed by smaller updates or by other compensation (in this case apps being updated). If you want your stuff to work, you should wait for most other people to update before you do. If you don't care, then go ahead and get the latest and greatest.
In this case, it's likely that most apps are fine and a few aren't. So luck of the draw, for both the customers and the devs.
That’s what we did at my company - we assumed iOS 14 would be released in mid-September. The issue is that even with that foresight we have no way to submit the build until today, despite having a working build for months. That’s ******.
Which I understand is a problem, but that part of the problem is out of developer’s control and affects all developers nearly equally.
Apple making friends everywhere... This is going to end really bad for them. They will be force to open the platform and erase some default apps for sure, and pay a big amount of money for their dominant position. They are acting as if nobody matters except them, just like yelling to be fined. This arrogant actitud will be payed ( may be that's the reason to earn so much money at the cost of their customers, to face all these situations in the near future ). The institutions has "to lower the fumes" to Apple.
Totally, but the issue here is that Apple really could have given developers a week notice... I don’t see the problem with saying “iOS 14 ships next week” for example.
I really think some of these comments are uncalled for. Developers have explained in comments why the sudden release of the os is bad from a developers perspective. I'm guessing most of the commenters (myself included) have no real understanding of the review process and certainly didn’t understand that apps could only be submitted after the final version of Xcode was released. I'm with the devs on this one. It wouldn't have hurt anyone for the os to be released a week later.
Right but I don’t really think you defeated my point here. But just to be clear, you disagree that an app that has been corrected following each beta will face less problems (but nevertheless could still face some problems) compared to an app that has not been touched since the latest iOS 13 update?
I’m genuinely asking because I am not a developer and also because someone else replied to me and also gave a response contrary to yours.
Agreed. I saw some people posting that it was a two part problem: (a) not having enough time to prepare their app for iOS 14; and (b) the approval process taking too long making it unlikely that the updated app would be in the App Store in time for the iOS 14 release.
My comments were focusing on problem (a).
To jump in, that poster does have a point that APIs can easily break between builds but in my experience they do become more stable towards the end (maybe excluding iOS 13).
Sorry for not getting this point clear
Yes - the API (the protocol for app-system communication) instabilities between betas can be frustrating for developers and sometimes (and there’s a lot of these sometimes) there are annoying regressions which work in one beta and break, then suddenly work again. If one were to spend time trying to fix these, one wouldn’t achieve much. It really depends on what the developer is fixing.
It’s entirely possible that an app doesn’t Break during any of the betas except the final beta, which may or may not be the GM OR it might break in the GM and not in the betas (I’ve had that before).
What I’m saying is that broken apps during beta phase isn’t a clear indication of whether they’ll be working at the GM time.
Sorry for not getting this point clear
Yes - the API (the protocol for app-system communication) instabilities between betas can be frustrating for developers and sometimes (and there’s a lot of these sometimes) there are annoying regressions which work in one beta and break, then suddenly work again. If one were to spend time trying to fix these, one wouldn’t achieve much. It really depends on what the developer is fixing.
It’s entirely possible that an app doesn’t Break during any of the betas except the final beta, which may or may not be the GM OR it might break in the GM and not in the betas (I’ve had that before).
What I’m saying is that broken apps during beta phase isn’t a clear indication of whether they’ll be working at the GM time.
Ok, understood. We are on the same page now. It was my belief that if developers had worked on their apps following each beta, that they’d therefore minimize the time and work that would need to be put in upon release of the gold master (and thus I was having trouble empathizing/sympathizing with those developers who had waited until now to modify theirs apps). I see that is an incorrect assumption.
Yeah, kinda like (no, exactly like) MR members here who expect Apple to be so perfect every which way when the company is made up of humans that go to work like everyone else. And the members here have no idea what goes on "in the kitchen" at Apple's labs when creating hardware and software. It's just easy to trash Apple without any real knowledge of what's really going on.
Yep agreed. I am mostly a Windows developer but have released iOS apps in the past. Also, in the Windows world for very large corporations, you have testing even on (old service packs) Windows Updates. Even minor ones sometimes. It runs through (typically) automated testing to make sure the app still works for smaller updates. For larger ones, they are usually delayed for a very long time. Most companies are not on Windows 10 2004 due to this very reason as it requires SO MUCH testing post release/GM/RTM versions.
My experience is anecdotal, sometimes it does work, sometimes it doesn’t. Where it works is if you’re using new APIs, they become more stable over each beta. Of course, there’s nothing which you can do with this piece of code except wait until it’s ready for submisinon, at GM time.
It is not like you have any idea what it takes to develop an app, and you are talking complete nonsense, since developers only had 24 hs to submit.
silver25u said:
I will guess we forgot that Apple only began accepting app submissions written for iOS14 YESTERDAY... making your comment pointless, irrelevant, and stupid. Doesn't matter if you've had months or even years to develop if you can't actually submit it before the day of release.