Developers Frustrated at Apple for Just One Day's Notice to Submit Apps Ahead of iOS 14 Release Today

[roar08]

Non-devs posting opinions in this thread === non-taxpaying voters.

 

[Cscottrun]

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.

Gotcha. Honestly, sounds like a change in deadline that many employees face at their jobs (not just developers). It sucks but it happens. I'm sure many devs will have to or have pulled overnighters. I know it has happened to me many times in my field (real estate). Doesn't mean what Apple did was right though. All signs and info from Devs suggest their should have been a longer period before the release of the GM to the public.

 

[AndiG]

Funny to hear all those people arguing pro Apple - but not a single one seems to have a clue what is going on or what it's all about.

- First of all, you need that final Xcode build for app submission, no beta XCode allowed - by Apple.
- With every new XCode build you have to test again (for iOS13 we had an Xcode release with major bugs).
https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/05/apple-xcode-critical-update/
- With every iOS release you have to test again.
- Testing needs some time.
- Apple needs to approve your app - no way is this guaranteed to be not rejected or approved within 24hours.

All of you users - you expect apps to be always perfect and stable. And you start to ask silly questions like "what's is all about - 24 hours are more than enough?".

 

[jahall05]

/s I assume? If so ignore the rest of my post, if not just know that's not how it works. Developers can test reliably only against the GM seed which literally dropped yesterday. Also Apples approval process isn't instant, so many apps won't work on day one.

has to be a bot. She replies before anyone else does most times and to EVERY post and it’s always a summary of why Apple is king and everyone who ever has any issue with them sucks.

 

[gk4]

Ok, so I read more of the thread and it's a timing issue in terms of releasing updates via various builds. I still want someone to explain why we have a Beta process in the first place. The whole point of Beta is to test the IOS program for bugs, provide feedback, and start working on app updates while the beta process is in motion. Apple even says don't download this on your main phone because it might do damage to the main phone. Basically, from the day WWDC happened to now, developers had some sort of program for the new IOS update. I would think it's like writing a semester long paper for school. You get the assignment on day one, the teachers tells you when it's due, and unless you procrastinate, you are working on that paper the entire semester and the good students would try to get it done early so they don't need to worry about rushing it with a day or two left.

Seems like you still aren't understanding it. If I set up iOS14 beta 1 and my phone and found that it crashes my app, I had the whole summer to fix that issue - you're right about that part.

But lets say I fixed the issue two days after discovering it, I can't do anything with that new app version. I can just put it in a box and let it sit there until I'm allowed to submit iOS 14 apps. So even though I instantly fixed the problem, Apple wasn't accepting my new app until yesterday. With the approval process, it likely wont be in the store for an extended time. So anyone who updates to iOS 14 within the next couple days will still get the broken version of my app because I wasn't allowed to upload the fixed version until just now (regardless of the fact that I actually made the fixes 2 months ago).

 

[guzhogi]

Customers will be installing on day 1, right?

Not necessarily. I work IT in a school district. We hold back on iPadOS upgrades (even point releases) a few weeks to make sure they work with our systems. Yes, there are betas, but betas aren't always the same as the released versions. Plus, there may be serious bugs with the release.

As for apps, many, if not most, aren't work critical. Sure it's nice to have access to all the latest features, but they're not always necessary

 

[yg17]

Seems like you still aren't understanding it. If I set up iOS14 beta 1 and my phone and found that it crashes my app, I had the whole summer to fix that issue - you're right about that part.

But lets say I fixed the issue two days after discovering it, I can't do anything with that new app version. I can just put it in a box and let it sit there until I'm allowed to submit iOS 14 apps. So even though I instantly fixed the problem, Apple wasn't accepting my new app until yesterday. With the approval process, it likely wont be in the store for an extended time. So anyone who updates to iOS 14 within the next couple days will still get the broken version of my app because I wasn't allowed to upload the fixed version until just now (regardless of the fact that I actually made the fixes 2 months ago).

Which is fine if your app is a free fart machine.

If your app is for a paid service, customers are going to be pissed. They don't care about Apple's release schedule or approval process. They are going to be coming to you for refunds, and will cost you money.

 

[Luis Freire]

Gotcha. Honestly, sounds like a change in deadline that many employees face at their jobs (not just developers). It sucks but it happens. I'm sure many devs will have to or have pulled overnighters. I know it has happened to me many times in my field (real estate). Doesn't mean what Apple did was right though.

Yes sure, we don't launch this feature today, we launch it next week or so but we could do it right on the same day iOS launched.

 

[thewhitehart]

Who gives a toss. If your app can’t work after 8 betas worth of development when the GM was practically imminent, the app is probably garbage.

What Apple did was wrong, but still, what can you do with your garbage app in seven days that you can’t do in 24 hours when your app was garbage from the get go?

 

[Mr. Dee]

So what were all those betas for?

 

[Techmaestro]

Weren't there 8 beta's with no real change between beta 8 and the GM??? Is Apple perfect? Not at all; but this Apple bashing is getting to be quite ridiculous!

 

[yg17]

Who gives a toss. If your app can’t work after 8 betas worth of development when the GM was practically imminent, the app is probably garbage.

What Apple did was wrong, but still, what can you do with your garbage app in seven days that you can’t do in 24 hours when your app was garbage from the get go?

You haven't read anything in this thread, have you?
[automerge]1600269521[/automerge]

So what were all those betas for?

For people who know literally nothing about software development to blindly defend Apple on this.

 

[dguisinger]

Who gives a toss. If your app can’t work after 8 betas worth of development when the GM was practically imminent, the app is probably garbage.

What Apple did was wrong, but still, what can you do with your garbage app in seven days that you can’t do in 24 hours when your app was garbage from the get go?

You know what was garbage? Your post....

Why do you feel the need to attack developers?

 

[PickUrPoison]

Not necessarily. I work IT in a school district. We hold back on iPadOS upgrades (even point releases) a few weeks to make sure they work with our systems. Yes, there are betas, but betas aren't always the same as the released versions. Plus, there may be serious bugs with the release.

As for apps, many, if not most, aren't work critical. Sure it's nice to have access to all the latest features, but they're not always necessary

Like I said, customers will be installing on day 1, right?

What you may or may not do at your school isn’t particularly relevant. There are over a billion iPhones and another 300+ million iPads in the installed base.

 

[nt5672]

Two of our apps at work broke between the last beta and yesterdays GMs, so it's not accurate to claim that people have had a week.

Plus Xcode was failing in key ways prior to beta 6. We did not even test beta 6 it was so bad.

 

[thewhitehart]

You know what was garbage? Your post....

Why do you feel the need to attack developers?

Playing Devil’s Advocate... I’d genuinely like to know.

 

[canyonblue737]

Typically developers had 7-10 days between receiving the final GM of iOS and Xcode to submit apps before the iOS was released to the public. In this case it was about 18 hours or less from release of the final Xcode (which is necessary to even compile the final version of an iOS 14 app) until the public gets iOS 14. How in the world is a developer supposed to compile, test, submit and wait for app approval and get the app out in 18 hours even pulling an all nighter? the answer is they can’t. Today there will be broken apps that stop working properly when people update to iOS 14 and people will blame the developers for “not being ready” when in reality they were and spent all night trying to submit their apps but there just wasn’t enough time given by Apple...

 

[BGPL]

Those saying it's not a big deal and "they had months" are obviously not developers. The OS can change significantly for an application based on beta and GM changes. It depends on the app obviously, some more than others. If you're taking advantage of the newest iOS features, it's going to be work between every build. As a developer you want to offer your updated app at the same time as the new iOS.

This isn't a big deal, but it shows two things:

1. Apple's annual iOS/MacOS major updates are proving to be too aggressive. Catalina was a plane crash that hasn't hit the ground yet. I would bet Big Sur will be more of the same.
2. Apple doesn't care about the developers. They care about earnings, nothing else.

It's a tough time to be a developer in the app store. Eventually it will bite Apple, but it could be another ten years.

 

[gk4]

Gotcha. Honestly, sounds like a change in deadline that many employees face at their jobs (not just developers). It sucks but it happens. I'm sure many devs will have to or have pulled overnighters. I know it has happened to me many times in my field (real estate). Doesn't mean what Apple did was right though. All signs and info from Devs suggest their should have been a longer period before the release of the GM to the public.

It's not about pulling an all nighter. Even if you do this and get your app done and uploaded by 6am, there is still the approval process which means your broken app is still the version that sitting in the store for most users.

 

[Cosmosent]

I don't understand what the BIG deal is.

It is what it is.

 

[macfacts]

Remember that story from yesterday Spotify claiming apple is not friendly to the dev community?

 

[Mlrollin91]

Like I said, customers will be installing on day 1, right?

What you may or may not do at your school isn’t particularly relevant. There are over a billion iPhones and another 300+ million iPads in the installed base.

To this point, my fiancee installed iOS 13 on release day last year, Blackberry Work had not been updated to support it. She had to go 4 days before it was updated. Created a pretty big headache.

 

[MikeZTM]

Isn’t app development the reason they have beta testing periods?

Apple does not allow developer to submit anything using beta SDK.
The final SDK was released yesterday.

I already have a branch that works with beta SDK and iOS 14 with some new features.

So I need to build my app against final SDK and run test for it then submit it to Apple and hope their review system isn't overflowed by app updates and causing huge delay.

Just imagine if my App's current version with iOS 13 SDK crash on iOS 14.
It will keep crashing until Apple finished the review.

A lot of apps does crash this way. That's a bad image for apple and frustrating day or week for end user also.

 

[APPLEGO]

Except it doesn't work that way. We always had a week to 10 days to test our apps with the final build.

You also can't be submitting to the store with beta builds of Xcode. We only got the final version of Xcode yesterday and when this happens review times always go way up. So if our app does not work on iOS 14 it could be days to over a week before we can submit a build with iOS 14 that corrects those issues.

Well, that is indeed unfortunate for developers and I deeply appreciate their hard workings in this process. However, as a consumer, I have a right to use and enjoy all the features the latest public release of system software (iOS/iPadOS 14 in this case) can offer. And at the same time, developers also have to make sure their applications to be optimized and work as expected under the most recent public release. I sympathize with developers for testing apps in such a short time frame and understand that Apple should take some or major responsibilities in this.

However, as a customer, I am not here to judge whose fault is for causing uncertainties in apps optimization/developing under new system. Actually, It is even not customers’ obligation to be involved between the 2 parties Apple and developers. I only know that customers are rightfully entitled to use apps in latest public release. If the latest system software works well but the apps fail to bring their promises, I will only uninstall those apps but not downgrade the system to “accommodate” developers’ incapability. If possible, I will even look for better and more optimized apps to replace those which perform miserably under the latest system software.

Remember, there are always better alternatives in app market. Only by keeping updating apps with new features and developing in accordance with latest guidelines, developers can remain competitive. Best wishes to you.

 

[yg17]

Playing Devil’s Advocate... I’d genuinely like to know.

Read the thread. It has been explained numerous times why this is an awful move on Apple's part.