Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

This article is missing the best part, that the new Xcode you have to use to build your app was released today at 11 AM, with a build number of ‘208. It was a really strange build in that it was missing components to build for Apple silicon: for that you need to use the old beta, which Apple has kept up on their website so you can juggle both. But that’s not all! Soon afterwards they changed the website saying the new Xcode was actually build <i>’209</i>. Around this time people had finished downloading the update, which was slow because everyone was freaking out about getting their app ready in time and grabbing it at the same time, and they realized that Xcode wouldn’t let them upload their updates. So everyone thought that of course build ‘209 was the right thing to get so they hit the website again to download the file…except Apple doesn’t do checksums, obviously, they do a really slow verification thing that every iOS developer hates with a passion and gives no useful information. In this case manually running the checksums told everyone that while Apple had updated the version they claimed to be have on their website, everyone was still getting build 208 and this build could not be used to submit updates. Then, later in the afternoon, Apple flipped the switch to allow build ‘208 to submit updates (which now need to go through review…). But that’s not all! In the evening at around 7 people started getting a different Xcode, the actual build ‘209 they claimed there were distributing all along…and now every developer is stuck with the decision of whether they should pull their old binary they uploaded and recompile with build ‘209 (as there are many differences between the two, based on a diff -r) or wing it. Totally uncool, totally unnecessary. If anything the blog post is not strongly worded <i>enough</i> about how much of a affront this is to developers.<p>Edit: and guess what, if Apple didn’t have advance notice of this do you think their own build process could have handled it? I’d bet money on “no”. XBS takes hours itself to spin up a new build, and with the usual testing a validation you see even the fastest updates taking at least a day. Back in iOS 7 it took them two to get critical fixes out the door, and patching the unc0ver 0-day took like a week for reference.

Honestly, this is why we need the Web. But Apple even blocks that since they don’t allow any browser engine apart from Safari, meaning that there is no<p>- Add to homescreen dialog - Background sync - Proper push notifications - Proper WASM support (a lot of features are missing)<p>Honestly, at this point, the government should step in, like they did at the end of the last century with Microsoft. Walled gardens hurt innovation a lot, and the App Store in combination with the restricted web on iOS are the ultimate expression of the former.

Maybe I am missing something, but iOS 14 has had beta versions out for developers for months; I had been running iOS14 and Big Sur for testing for weeks. Apple has always had developer previews and at some point, when mostly stable, they often release public previews to get a few interested users involved in testing as well.<p>They&#x27;ve been working with developers for a long time on the new App Clips functionality and that&#x27;s been open for developers to start working.<p>So I am not following what is this article is saying? It seems like they&#x27;re suggesting that Apple should release iOS a few days after announcing, but, that isn&#x27;t enough time for most developers to test and release updates for a major iOS update; but Apple never intended those few days to be the only time developers had.

Why is this an issue? Apps built with the old SDK will still work on iOS 14, and you can continue to submit apps built with the old SDK for a while. Nothing says your app _has_ to be built with the new SDK on day 1.

Don&#x27;t worry Apple hates users too.<p>I&#x27;ve once had a Windows update break software, and I was easily able to downgrade the broken update (and it wasn&#x27;t really MSvs fault entirely, graphics driver issue).<p>Multiple times I&#x27;ve had ipad updates break apps, and some apps have never worked again because the developers don&#x27;t bother updating the app, and Apple blocks downgrading because...

I don’t understand. Current apps will run just fine, won’t they? Also beta versions of iOS and XCode have been around for months - so it’s not like you’re starting from scratch today. And it’s not like you absolutely must release tomorrow, do you?

Can someone explain what the actual problem is?<p>I’ve been using the betas and all of my existing apps work fine.<p>I’m developing for ios14, and don’t see any particular reason for my app to be out today.<p>What actual adverse effects are there to this?<p>Is there a class of app that runs on ios13 but is broken on ios14?

I thought App developers would be testing against the beta version? I don&#x27;t really understand the problem. There&#x27;s public beta&#x27;s, it&#x27;s out of beta, and will go to the public tomorrow, apps will continue to work.

Considering all the bad press Apple is having with devs at the moment (from Spotify and EPIC, to this), I wonder how these behaviours haven’t back-fired yet.<p>At the end of the day, a platform without apps or developers dies (Windows Phone users say hi). If devs get so mad at some point and stop pushing new apps or updates, I wonder if Apple would change their position.<p>Of course, I suppose this is still hard because 1) they are the most profitable mobile platform 2) many companies kinda rely on mobile. But well, no one predicted 2020 who knows what will come

Is Apple moving to a model where all the apps that matter come from Apple?

I fail to see the point, as far as I know Apple has been vocal about iOS since WWDC and typically releases the OS relatively quick after events. The beta&#x27;s been out and available for every iOS developer for months in order to prepare for this.<p>There&#x27;s enough to rib on Apple on, but this really doesn&#x27;t seem like one?

Wait, what? Did Apple announce that GM is released to public beta, or did they announce that they are actually pushing out iOS 14 to over 1B devices as of tomorrow? Because the two are very different. If it’s the former, I agree with the author that it’s a complete disaster for a lot of development teams. There is really no sane reason to do something like this, so I just can’t imagine it’s true — it’s not like the OS update has to be pushed out ASAP because some magical new device or service requires it.

I like making my side projects cross-platform when possible. But I&#x27;m done trying to get code signing to work, I won&#x27;t pay Apple $100 to distribute free software, and I have no interest in using XCode, so I feel basically restricted to Linux and Windows only at this point.

I feel that, as industry, we need to move back to the rich, browser-based applications on the mobile phones. Apple-Google duopoly is just not the way to live. As tech community, we can take our power back. I think the good start is to start using web on mobile phones.

It&#x27;s not that hard to figure out what happened...<p>Apple set a hard deadline for themselves. This would have been some time back, with the purpose of coordinating various development threads, manufacturing, marketing, and the holiday season.<p>But the OS side slipped.<p>They must have been dealing with some pretty gnarly issues to give devs only hours with the GM seed and even less time with the version of Xcode you can use to actually release updates.<p>Makes we wonder what the issues are and whether the OS is the only thing that slipped? ...time will tell if they shouldn&#x27;t gone ahead pushed everything back. That would have been very costly, but an unstable OS release that, e.g., loses or exposes user data for lots of users would be costly as well. We&#x27;ll see.<p>&gt; Who is in charge of iOS releases at Apple that thought this was a good idea? Who is the head of Developer Relations that thought this was a good idea?<p>I think, obviously, nobody did. It wasn&#x27;t planned.

I&#x27;ve been using the betas, and haven&#x27;t had any problems with the apps.<p>What patches are required for apps to work on iOS 14?

When I read this, all I&#x27;m really reading is, Apple&#x27;s biggest cultural position on secrecy is also its biggest pain-point for external developers.<p>Secrecy is so ingrained in that company, at all levels, that it will never&#x2F;ever change without fundamentally changing what&#x2F;who Apple is as a company.<p>External developers, since the launch of the App Store, have been expected to be thankful that Apple even lets them on to their precious marketplace. There&#x27;s also no special treatment when at bigger companies either. The only thing I&#x27;ve experienced is that we were invited to port our product to iOS 7&#x27;s new flat UI just to be featured 6 weeks ahead of their rumored keynote date. They didn&#x27;t even give us an actual time to submit.<p>Bigger products I&#x27;ve worked on do get a developer relations support person who makes sure we&#x27;re able to meet Apple&#x27;s latest demands, but they are not connected to the engineering (R&amp;D) teams, so feedback is mostly downward. For example, they would ask why haven&#x27;t we ported things to Metal yet? If we inform them there is a bug or missing documentation, they will make sure they get engineering involved to fix the bug so we can continue porting to Metal.<p>Bugs are another huge pain point that developers complain about. Whenever there&#x27;s an issue, we&#x27;re told, file the bug and it magically goes off into a black void with no feedback until some point in the future when the OS release has shipped and then we get to find out whether they decided to fix the issue or to mark it &quot;Works as expected.&quot;<p>It really sucks that the company that builds the best tech is also the most toxic to partner with. They add undue stress and expect too much from their developer community. Partnerships should work both ways! Developers bring new experiences that light up the hardware, and make the platform better as a whole. However, Apple has somehow found a way to make the partnerships mostly one-sided and that will never change.<p>The only way out is really for all the coolest new features to land on Android and to put software in maintenance mode on iOS. Yet, I cannot fathom how that would ever happen either as that&#x27;s 50% of the population in the US you would make suffer for the cause.

A testament to the low software grade I’ve come to expect from Apple. I wonder if anyone inside Apple reads HN abiding NDAs or they simply have no clue.

The solution would be simple: Stop supporting Apple. Don&#x27;t release apps on their platform. As long as everyone is just blindly following their orders, nothing will change.<p>And change is possible: Microsoft didn&#x27;t care much about developers and users when IE was browser market leader and look what happened.

Apple isn&#x27;t one person any longer, just Steve. There are thousands of Apple employees following guidelines set by other hundreds of other managers and executives who don&#x27;t know what they are doing.

My take. Developers will be positively surprised today to find out how fast their app updates will hit the store if their app is already in the App Store. Apple could have released everything next Friday, including products that need the new iOS, but decided to pull the trigger right away. They MUST have a plan on why acting like this make sense. Still, it&#x27;s 2020, so maybe I&#x27;m wrong and it&#x27;s just another sign of the weird times we&#x27;re living.

What’s the supposed downside to running an app designed for iOS 13 on an iOS 14 iPhone?<p>File this one under “things that won’t matter and will be entirely forgotten in two weeks.”

There should be almost no effect on a developer because if you weren’t ready after 8 betas + GM seed, an extra week isn’t gonna help most.

Pretty simple answer. in August 2020 they became the first $2 trillion U.S. company. There is no repercussion for them at this point to treat everyone from Epic Games, to your run-of-the-mill Xcode devs, like trash.<p>In the case of the former, you can outlast these comparatively small players for <i>decades</i> with flush cash reserves and an army of bored attorneys with nothing better to do than watch your pittance of a legal team fight it endlessly until the last star falls from the heavens. Epic may want a fight, but its investors would capitulate sooner than people like Tim Sweeney think.<p>as for the latter, Apple has a fun track record of running small developers into the dirt. Either you sell your company to them, or they just build the same app in-house and blacklist you from the market.<p>Id also argue that the average apple afficionado outside of HN just doesnt care what apple does. Apple makes affluent status symbols and markets a premium brand identity, so developers like facebook and epic are hungry to tap into a market thats not only willing to drop more than a grand on a cellphone and accessories, but doesnt question often times predatory microtransactions. They want cash cows, apple runs the farm.<p>full confession though, i dont know how small devs fight this, and id be eager to know if anyone on HN has a cogent strategy? a boycott seems most effective.

Looking at the author&#x27;s github profile gives a pretty clear answer. You are dependent on Apple, they are not dependent on you.

Do developers get a pre-release of iOS to test on or how can you release a new version of your app before the targeted OS is released? Also, why do you need to release a new version at all? I&#x27;d expect the platform to stay largely compatible.<p>(Obviously, I haven&#x27;t developed anything for the Apple ecosystem, so these are genuine questions.)

I&#x27;m sure some people at Apple do care about developers, but these are not the people making the important decisions.<p>Apple knows they are in control of +60% of the app mobile revenue worldwide. It wouldn&#x27;t surprise me if management believed third party developers should consider themselves privileged to be on their platform.

My response to the Apple Developer Feedback Request<p>HOW CAN APPLE MAKE APP REVIEW BETTER?<p>App Review has become faster but still feels very unsafe and unreliable. It feels like being delivered to the whims of the gods. They may strike you down, kill your business and refuse to negotiate about it. Speaking about which, speaking with app review is infuriating! They will mindlessly reiterate the same quasi-legal lingo about how your app should confirm to this or that guideline completely ignoring whatever actual logical or societally relevant or otherwise actually meaningful argument is made on the other side. I understand it is not these people themselves - they must hate their jobs - but the rules they themselves are bound to - but the resulting experience is god awful.<p>HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH THE FOLLOWING APPLE DEVELOPER RESOURCES?<p>I used to like Apple - look up to your company. I was elated to be able to visit the WWDC. Even spoke with Tim Cook - however briefly. Watching the 15 Sept Apple Event I noticed I was getting more and more annoyed. I really resent the dishonesty. I feel that I am starting to actually hate what Apple has become to stand for.<p>-&quot;We treat all developers equally&quot;. - The tax evasions via Ireland. - Bullying a tiny company about a pear-shaped logo - Pretending to care about freedom of speech while supporting censorship and banning of apps in china. - the list goes on<p>Apple tries to present itself as a force of good - but has become a despicable company. It makes me sad. You are the one company that could <i>actually</i> be a force of good. Untouchable. You could really make a difference.<p>Yet you don&#x27;t.<p>Well not in a good way at least.<p>HOW CAN APPLE IMPROVE THE TOOLS AND SERVICES IT PROVIDES AS A DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM? Be as specific and descriptive as possible<p>Focus on quality more than on constantly churning out new features - it&#x27;s not necessary. You are Apple - you determine what happens. You used to stand for the best. It used to feel remarkable to use and work with Apple products. It&#x27;s now just above par. Why? You&#x27;re worth 2 trillion dollars already. Is 2.2 trillion more important than going back to actually making the best again.<p>HOW CAN APPLE MAKE THE APP STORE A BETTER PLATFORM FOR DISTRIBUTING YOUR APPS? Be as specific and descriptive as possible<p>&quot;This app is damaged and may harm your computer&quot; - stop that! At least <i>try</i> to be reasonable. Please!

Microsoft&#x27;s native development environments are a pain in the butt too, and they&#x27;re constantly introducing and then deprecating stuff.<p>If you hate Electron don&#x27;t blame Electron. Blame Apple and Microsoft.

Doesn’t the watch come out on Friday? With watchOS 7? Which requires iOS 14?<p>It sounds like due to hardware they were going to have to release iOS 14 in a day or two.

Because it&#x27;s Texas Hold &#x27;Em. Once you have the biggest pot, you can bully everyone else into giving you the rest of there&#x27;s.

I feel like I should spend that time testing and making my app ready for release rather than ranting and typing the article.

What&#x27;s the saying, hey, don&#x27;t like it just start your own Apple :-)

Apple has always been an asshole. I was an original Macintosh beta tester - I had a Mac summer of&#x27;83, 6 months before their release. Yet, I have never shipped commercial Apple software. Their developer treatment has never been ethical, and I simply never put up with it.

Read any Hacker News thread about the awful crap Apple is constantly pulling to see why they are acting like assholes- because their core fanbase (which is VERY big) will defend their actions regardless.

It’s only a fuck up if there are adverse consequences.

Because they can

I guess I have a minority view, but when were they not?<p>Steve Jobs was famously toxic (which is just popular term to describe someone with a cluster B personality disorder, aka &quot;psychopath&quot;). But he dresses like a rock star and creates beautiful things and so everybody is willing to forgive him.<p>This is kind of like the abused spouse who, after decades of abuse, finally realizes he or she was making excuses for a psychopath all along. Just file for divorce and get it over with. The abuser will make sure it&#x27;s a horrible experience for you, but you&#x27;ll be happier in the end.

Acting?

You don&#x27;t become a $2 Trillion company being friendly.

Why are people constantly personifying corporations? All you&#x27;re going to end up with is a sociopath as that&#x27;s what large companies are when you try to do that.<p>Apple isn&#x27;t a single person with evil intentions that thought: &quot;let&#x27;s make it very hard to work with this stuff&quot;, even if it might seem that way. It&#x27;s far more likely that:<p>- The alternative was worse<p>- An internal policy or rule had unforeseen side-effects in planning or releasing<p>- The team doing the work on the release and the team doing relations aren&#x27;t the same team and didn&#x27;t communicate properly<p>- A deadline was set and because it was only met just barely you get an odd release schedule<p>Does that mean that this release is a fun planned schedule? No. But it doesn&#x27;t mean the thousands of people working there are combined into one big person that wants to do bad things to you.

No one said you HAVE to update your app to iOS14 on day 1. Also, the beta versions have been out for months. If you’re not ready, it’s your fault.

At the risk of sounding frivolous: because it is an asshole. There&#x27;s a lesson in that, I think.

&gt; the final public release of iOS 14 ships tomorrow, which came as quite a shock to all third-party developers.<p>Really? This is the way they have done the releases for about 10 years now.

Apple has become an ecosystem to avoid at all cost. From denying the right to repair, design of devices to make it prone to catastrophic failures, making it difficult to recover own data (to force people to use cloud backup so they can look at all your data) and many more (like trying to make employees go through security checks without being paid for it)... Greed has blinded them.

&gt; The next major release of iOS is announced to be shipping on Friday (in a few days) or sometime the following week, like the next Tuesday.<p>&gt; But today, Apple announced that iOS 14 is shipping tomorrow.<p>So... the only difference is it&#x27;s not &quot;few days&quot; but &quot;one day&quot;? For an OS update everyone knew was coming because &quot;for as long as I can remember it goes something like this&quot;?<p>What&#x27;s the assholery?

First of all, the complainers do not speak for me, yet they seem to be speaking for everyone, that everyone has this problem because of 24-hour notice of the release of iOS14.<p>Anyone that has a work flow, even a personal workflow having nothing to do with actual earning of income, that updates as soon as an update is available, is an asshole to themselves, and a compulsive one at that. If there are no security patches, bug fixes or features that I desperately need, I don&#x27;t update. I&#x27;m still running iPadOS13.4 and <i>I may never update.</i><p>The problem here is not Apple&#x27;s. Apple can do as it wants, and is under no obligation to make things convenient for the egotistical developers. From my perspective, (and fallacy argument from authority here, but fwiw, I studied computer science, flunky career in systems administration, and I am perfectly aware I rarely did any computer science, but am also aware programming is not computer science, either... CS is just math, and that is all... I personally just liked the problem solving necessities that sysadmining provided me, along with a decent living... I enjoyed solving those puzzles), developing for iOS sounds easy as snot. Developing a killer app is more difficult in that it must be innovative, clever, beautiful, and useful. But 99% of the apps on AppStore, and including 90% of the games, are duplicates of stuff that has been around forever. Where is the innovation?<p>And I have very little sympathy for developers because most of them made my life a living hell for 20 years. It is that precious few that did the opposite that I love, nay, that I worship. What are the chances anyone in this group of developer blamers and complainers, borderline narcissist egoists, are among them? Slim to none.<p>Apple gave you excellent tools. You have your own source code. Get something done! It doesn&#x27;t matter how long it takes. But with the tools Apple provides, seems to me it is loading the tools, loading the source, grooming the source for the update, clicking a few radio buttons, compiling, and publishing. Shut up and get <i>something</i> done, or bail and go develop for another platform. Jeesh. Make install not war.

The profane language really isn’t necessary. It would be helpful to understand what portion of apps are negatively impacted by the new iOS version. If it’s insignificant, there’s really no strong incentive for Apple to specifically set a launch date with developers.<p>It’s besides the point by the profanity just weakens the argument. Presumably the iOS beta has been out long enough that developers could have pushed out an update if their app seriously breaks with the update.

Apple greatest asset is the accessibility to a large market. In return to the loyalty of the clients they do an excellent work in validating apps for isolation, privacy and vetting. Technology is not magic and bugs exist, so Apple chose this methodology for their store.<p>If companies are able to hijack this process by uploading assets it could be easy to exploit.<p>We are talking about a personal phone not a remote computer. Imagine if hackers got free reign in the private information of key political figures ?<p>I choose privacy thank you very much.