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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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Yes, we could and have done exactly that. The point is that you can never be entirely sure until you get your hands on the GM. Until that time, things can change with every build. There will be changes between the last beta and the GM, or especially between the latest beta and the GM. They sometimes keep unannounced features out of the beta releases so it remains a surprise for the actual announcement, then all those changes suddenly arrive in the GM.
Now most apps will be fine, but the point is that you want to be sure, and you cannot be sure until you have the GM.
OMG. It isn’t the apps aren’t ready it’s that they have to be build with the GM build of xCode to even be allowed to be submitted. That build wasn’t even available until LAST NIGHT. Then the app has to be tested after being built with that Xcode to verify no last minute unexpected bugs before being submitted to Apple for testing... testing that takes time! You all are under the impression that because there were betas the last few months that developers could submit their apps already... they couldn’t. No app with iOS 14 could even be submitted before last night!!!!
You would think this would be the case! Unfortunately, perhaps because Apple had new devices to announce and was worried about leaking details in Xcode settings, we actually had not received a developer tools build to go with Beta 7 or Beta 8 at all!
The first time we received updated developer tools in 3 weeks was yesterday. The developer tools were effectively two betas behind the iOS versions running on devices, and bug fixes often involve both the new iOS version and the new developer tools version, so we just didn't know yet.
Is this person a bot or something? I refuse to believe someone this oblivious to literally everything can actually exist.
Well they can only submit their apps once the golden master is released, which was yesterday, and things don’t always go so smoothly with the final build. Sometimes changes in the iOS code break the app and they have to fix it before release. Usually they’d have 7-10 days to make these changes between the golden master and public release, but now they have less than 24 hours. Sure they can wait an extra week before submitting it, but apps that release their updates on the same day as iOS usually have more publicity, have their apps featured on the App Store homepage, etc.
Yeah, let's see. they've become more aggressive in forcing you to update.
I do find it odd like... 'New ios14 widgets!, but we didn't notify developers so you won't be able to use it right away'
Sucks for developers and consumers who can't use the new advertised features.
Surely you are only talking about whatever of your offerings are specific to new features in OS14. Fundamentally OS14 will run anything compatible with OS13 (etc). It’s not as if iOS suddenly appeared from nowhere. It’s going to take the average user a couple of weeks to update in any case.
Also any clever stuff you are releasing for the new hardware - well it’s gonna be a while before the new iPhone, isn’t it?
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so, does this suggest that all those whingeing are going to release apps with spécial new iOS reliant features??? No, I thought not.
Others have touched on it, but it is a 2 part problem.
The following post explains most of the issue.
The more I read the thread the more I am learning about the whole process. Thank you for Clarifying.
I see comments saying that developers had plenty of time to have iOS 14 features ready but they forget that during the Betas, there were lots of bugs that made it impossible to finish features in time. We are also developing an App Clip for our App "Glimpse: Collect Memories" and although we have this feature ready, we couldn't test everything smoothly and we're not yet confident to release it.
Maybe someone should call "Tim" at Epic, perhaps Fortnite might slip under the radar now.
I know next to nothing about coding or programming but at the very least I recognize that there are differences between betas and official releases. From my very limited understanding, I know that an app that works perfectly on the final beta version still needs testing and debugging and that one day is not a reasonable amount of time to accomplish that. Maybe the Xcode (whatever that is) is so similar to the previous version that a working app on the final beta will translate to a perfectly working app on the GM. If I were developer though, I would still want to test all aspects of my app thoroughly to make sure my users have a fully-functional app.
I struggle to see how this was a good decision on Apple's part. Maybe it was an attempt to appease people who would be disappointed about the lack of iPhone 12 news. Apple has almost always timed their iOS releases so that new hardware and updated apps would be available at roughly the same time. It's not surprising that developers have been thrown for a bit of a loop and are understandably frustrated.
I struggle to see how this was a good decision on Apple's part. Maybe it was an attempt to appease people who would be disappointed about the lack of iPhone 12 news. Apple has almost always timed their iOS releases so that new hardware and updated apps would be available at roughly the same time. It's not surprising that developers have been thrown for a bit of a loop and are understandably frustrated.
As a developer I totally get the frustrations here, and it does not help the optics that Apple feels like developers need them more than they need developers.
Not only that, but what if their app has bugs in iOS 14 or flat out doesn't work?
Yes, they've had 2 months to fix it and test it, and they probably have already done so. But now, they need to re-test everything with GM, submit it, and wait a week for approval. In the meantime, their users upgrade to iOS 14 tomorrow, discover the app isn't working, and get upset. If it's an app for a paid service, they may cancel subscriptions or demand refunds. Apple's timing isn't just an inconvenience for developers, it will possibly cause them monetary loss.
Not giving developers a week with the GM to test, fix bugs, and submit apps is completely irresponsible on Apple's part, and I hope any developer who suffers monetary loss as a result of it sues the **** out of them.
Famous last words.
Never assume everything will be backwards compatible and work completely. I am not an iOS developer, but I am sure there are people out there who had a perfectly functioning iOS 13 app that become buggy or completely non-functional in iOS 14 until they made changes.
So there are two elements here. One is that iOS 14 does actually change a number of things about how an app might run. Normally, apps that are built against an older set of developer tools run just fine on a newer iOS without any changes, because the way it works is that they'll run like they're on the older system. However, there are exceptions to that.
One of those is WebKit, which gets used not just by web browsers, but inside almost every "cross-platform" app very heavily. Quite a few changes to the way WebKit works broke apps this year, and those apps could still get downloaded by users or run today after an update and just not work, because the timeframe to submit a fix if you needed an iOS 14 API to do it has been so limited.
The other thing, which I mentioned before, is that small apps that mostly have a base of enthusiastic iOS users, like the people on this forum, _do_ build for new features as soon as possible, because that's what our customers want. We are desperate to get those new features out the door to you, and almost everyone quoted in this article is from that category of developer.
People are bashing devs but they aren't entirely aware of the whole process.
But now my mind is blank for days past and how GMs came out - was it at least a week or two before the GM was pushed out to users? I seem to recall updating to the latest iOS version, heading to the app store, and then there were piles of new app updates as the devs and Apple had time to release/review apps.
But now my mind is blank for days past and how GMs came out - was it at least a week or two before the GM was pushed out to users? I seem to recall updating to the latest iOS version, heading to the app store, and then there were piles of new app updates as the devs and Apple had time to release/review apps.
I think an apt reference to building apps for the Apple ecosystem is the notion of being on a treadmill. Apple continually changes UX design and APIs that cause developers to continually update apps just to stay current.
This builds on that reference in that now Apple suddenly jerks the treadmill faster, causing a little unnecessary chaos.
This builds on that reference in that now Apple suddenly jerks the treadmill faster, causing a little unnecessary chaos.
GM was typically seeded the day of the event, then pushed to users 1-3 days before new hardware (10-14 days after the event). Giving devs at least a solid week.
Just a thought, could this possibly sway people to use the generic Apple widgets, such as news+.
Since testing the beta I’ve been using the Apple news app a lot, as I have the news widget on my Home Screen due to a lack of other options!
From launch there’s going to be very few, if any, third part widgets...
Since testing the beta I’ve been using the Apple news app a lot, as I have the news widget on my Home Screen due to a lack of other options!
From launch there’s going to be very few, if any, third part widgets...
I'm going to shout this until I'm blue in the face:
YOU DO NOT RELEASE CODE THAT HAS ONLY BEEN TESTED ON BETA OPERATING SYSTEMS.
Anyone who says otherwise shouldn't be allowed to write a hello world program, much less a full featured iOS app.