
Why is Apple acting like an asshole? - ig0r0
https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2020/09/15/why-is-apple-acting-like-an-asshole/
======
saagarjha
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 _’209_.
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 _enough_ about how much of a affront this is to developers.

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.

~~~
temp667
Question - why are apple downloads slow - I don't get it.

I've downloaded lots of stuff from google. Its rarely slow.

I use cloudfront on AWS - also rarely slow.

Apple - often slow. They have billions - is there something wrong with their
caching layer at ISPs etc?

~~~
lallysingh
Mac mini's don't have fast NICs, and they're probably still unable to use the
current Mac Pros for production reasons. The old Mac Pros keep rolling off the
rack.

~~~
Macha
Apple is likely not using Mac hardware for the majority of their datacenters:
[https://www.quora.com/What-OS-used-on-the-servers-in-
Apples-...](https://www.quora.com/What-OS-used-on-the-servers-in-Apples-North-
Carolina-Data-Center?share=1)

------
pojntfx
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

\- Add to homescreen dialog \- Background sync \- Proper push notifications \-
Proper WASM support (a lot of features are missing)

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.

~~~
nlitened
Why wouldn't you use Android then?

I would personally like to continue paying higher prices to protect myself
from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages with push
notifications, please.

~~~
romanoderoma
> I would personally like to continue paying higher prices to protect myself
> from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages with push
> notifications

are you really saying you would pay higher prices because you can' t press the
"no" button and never visit the same website again?

~~~
mirthflat83
Yes. I don’t want to press the “no” button for a 100 times.

~~~
cdeutsch
I can relate.

Every time I pickup an old iOS device the stupid thing is nags me to update
it, 100 times. And you can't just click no you have to click multiple things
to get it to fuck off.

~~~
romanoderoma
So, in practice, Apple vetting process doesn't even do what they say it does
and still grabs 30% from developers?

------
xvolter
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.

They've been working with developers for a long time on the new App Clips
functionality and that's been open for developers to start working.

So I am not following what is this article is saying? It seems like they're
suggesting that Apple should release iOS a few days after announcing, but,
that isn'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.

~~~
JonathonW
Past major iOS releases have usually given about a week between the release of
the final build to developers (with app submissions opening at the same time)
and the release to the general public. This gives developers time to validate
their code against the final build of iOS and submit updates if needed,
allowing plenty of time for App Review to do their thing. This is also the
first point where Apple will accept app updates which take advantage of new
features in the new iOS release, so giving devs some notice to finalize those
updates is nice as well.

Yes, developers should have already been working with the iOS betas and
already have some confidence that things will work against the final release--
but there is no substitute for actually testing against the final release
build. In this case, iOS 14 Beta 8 appears to be mostly identical to the GM
Seed build (what released to devs yesterday, and what will release to the
public today), but that, historically, has not always been the case-- in some
cases, bugs get fixed in between the last beta build and the GM seed; in
others, new bugs get introduced.

~~~
lttlrck
1 week is completely arbitrary. If they had 1 week notice as usual there would
most likely still be complaints because this is an unusual year...

~~~
saagarjha
Regardless, changing one week to one day is a real slap in the face to
developers.

~~~
S_A_P
I can’t see it that way even if I try really hard. If you want to be ios14
ready I personally would be code complete a long time before yesterday.

~~~
saagarjha
You can't be code complete for something that dropped yesterday. Each beta
build changes things.

~~~
S_A_P
You are saying that Apple introduced breaking changes between release
candidates and general availability??? Serious question.

------
kylec
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.

~~~
akmarinov
Some apps (Pokemon Go) just crash on launch on 14 without updates.

~~~
mrsuprawsm
Surely the developers had the 3 month beta period to identify these issues,
and ship fixes, right? As far as I understand it, it's possible to ship fixes
for a new iOS version before that iOS version actually launches, and indeed
that's the idea of the beta period.

~~~
emsy
I have applications and games from the 90s that still work in Windows 10. The
idea that developers have have to constantly push updates is unproductive in
my opinion.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
A ton of software from that era stopped working when XP was released. For
instance storing settings in an application's installation folder was common
until Microsoft stopped it. Anything that ran as a service but interacted with
the desktop was out of luck. This idea that everything from that period
continues to run is a myth.

~~~
emsy
I never said everything. But a lot of the software still works. Some work with
minor workarounds. Of course some programs will break with an update. But in
my opinion creating a culture where an update is expected for software that is
a couple of months old at best is really unhealthy.

------
dayjobpork
Don't worry Apple hates users too.

I've once had a Windows update break software, and I was easily able to
downgrade the broken update (and it wasn't really MSvs fault entirely,
graphics driver issue).

Multiple times I've had ipad updates break apps, and some apps have never
worked again because the developers don't bother updating the app, and Apple
blocks downgrading because...

~~~
rovr138
Windows has broken installations in the past,
[https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/02/16/windows-10-kb453269...](https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/02/16/windows-10-kb4532693-update-
is-now-causing-boot-failures/)

It’s not all roses over there.

~~~
thefz
As a Windows sysadmin I hate the OS with a passion, but at least on it you
have one of the best development platforms out there (.net).

~~~
scarface74
.Net hasn’t been tied to Windows for years.

------
josefrichter
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?

~~~
izacus
There's absolutely no guarantee current apps will run fine - Apple regularly
adds new restrictions and API changes which break existing apps. They also
tend to add a lot of new bugs every release which need to be worked around.

~~~
josefrichter
Has Apple ever added a major breaking change one day before release of new iOS
version?

~~~
esperent
Why does one day matter? Even if it was a month it's unlikely every single app
developer could get a fix in time.

~~~
josefrichter
> Why does one day matter?

That's what the original article is trying to suggest.

> it's unlikely every single app developer could get a fix in time

Are you suggesting to freeze iOS development?

------
zepto
Can someone explain what the actual problem is?

I’ve been using the betas and all of my existing apps work fine.

I’m developing for ios14, and don’t see any particular reason for my app to be
out today.

What actual adverse effects are there to this?

Is there a class of app that runs on ios13 but is broken on ios14?

~~~
amiantos
I think the rub is that a lot of the apps built at these massive companies use
unnecessary third party frameworks and build their apps in janky ways, so
while the content of their app doesn't appear to need anything special, it's
actually standing on top of a house of cards built out of 3rd party APIs that
are doing janky things that break between OS updates. If they just built their
apps fully natively, using UIKit exclusively, they likely wouldn't have any
problems between releases like you, I, and other devs see.

~~~
TheKarateKid
Yes, let’s have the company pay for an entire development team to learn Obj-C
or have additional hires, just so their apps can do on Apple’s platform what
it can do everywhere else just fine.

/s

~~~
zepto
Every single person I know who has switched from Android to iOS in the past
year or two has said that Apps work better on iOS.

Apps simply don’t work ‘just fine’ everywhere else.

~~~
TheKarateKid
The quality of iOS apps being higher has absolutely nothing to do with whether
the app was programmed in native Obj-C or using a framework. Most iOS apps use
a framework.

------
philliphaydon
I thought App developers would be testing against the beta version? I don't
really understand the problem. There's public beta's, it's out of beta, and
will go to the public tomorrow, apps will continue to work.

~~~
saagarjha
You cannot submit you application except using the toolchain that was released
today, which is occasionally different enough from the beta tools that your
app will no longer work. So now you have a broken app and just hours to fix
it, and then somehow App Review is going to get through it while a thousand
other people are submitting at the same time you are? No way.

~~~
0x0
Well you can always ship updates with the old iOS 13 SDK toolchain (Xcode 11)
the entire time. You could have tested on the iOS 14 betas, and if you found a
crash, you could try to implement a workaround and resubmit in the weeks and
months leading up to today.

Sometimes your crash is because of bad assumptions in your code, or sometimes
your crash is due to real Apple bugs creeping into the iOS APIs. Not saying
it's always possible to implement a workaround, but it's not as bad as the
blog post makes it out to be.

~~~
saagarjha
That is correct. But I know for many apps building for iOS 14 is a requirement
or bad things will happen™.

~~~
0x0
Care to elaborate? Did Apple break backwards compatibility with apps built on
the iOS 13 SDK with no way to work around it? Seems hard to believe that
everyone upgrading to iOS 14 will end up with no functional third party apps
today?

~~~
saurik
Apple does a lot of weird "quirks mode"-like BS by checking for what version
of a library or toolchain was linked against at build time (and with multiple
kinds of checks, which is annoying). I absolutely have experienced cases
numerous times where my app was fine if it just was allowed to run, but Apple
insisted "no, this app was compiled against an iOS SDK so it should get a
shitty and broken simulation of the older skeuomorphic properties panel, and
should do some ridiculous reverse display scaling on this new iPad we just
released"... and to be clear that this is merely the quirks mode BS, my
solution finally to not have to keep updating my copy of Xcode was to get
angry and write a tool to edit my binaries and update their load command
version references. I have no clue what Apple thinks they are accomplishing
with these checks.

~~~
saagarjha
> to be clear that this is merely the quirks mode

Most of the problems I hear this year are not the compatibility checks that
Apple had out in but UIKit just being broken for certain things. The
difference being of course that “compatibility quirks” is Apple knowingly
trying to fix something and doing a poor job as opposed to what’s happening
here where they just changed random stuff and thought it was compatible but it
the observed behavior is now different and breaks apps. For example, I have a
bog-standard navigation bar that’s been broken since iOS 13 (if I build for
that SDK) because Apple evidently thinks that they did their implementation
correctly but somehow the way I have put my table view in a navigation view in
a tab view (real complicated, I know) is something they couldn’t keep
consistent.

------
brunoluiz
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.

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.

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

~~~
Heliosmaster
many developers have really no choice (at least not individually). They don't
really have the means to vote with their wallets, as foregoing the whole iOS
market is.. not a choice.

What EPIC is doing is trying to rally people on their side of the fight.

This is the same reason why people (workers) have unions, in the traditional
job market. It's not really comparable because developers are not workers, but
there are some similarities: Apple benefits from the developers (immensely,
with your Windows Phone example) and the developers too.. but Apple has the
upper hand, by FAR.

~~~
zepto
Epic doesn’t care about anything except for their own profits.

~~~
anfilt
Just because it's in their self interests does not mean getting rid of the
forced walled garden does not benefit other developers.

At the end of the users own the devices not apple. It should ultimately be up
to the user.

~~~
valuearb
The walled garden has been hugely beneficial for developers, the relative app
sales rates between iOS and Android is proof of that. And iOS customers
overwhelmingly prefer the walled garden, it’s the main reason they buy
iPhones.

If the walled gardens was costing Apple customers instead of attracting them,
the iPhone would have failed years ago. Android devices are cheaper, more
diverse, and more flexible. There would be scant reasons to buy an iPhone.

That’s the very definition of choice.

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

~~~
unnouinceput
probably. And I like that, it means they will finally become the true vertical
company they wanted from beginning. Meaning they'll lose all developers and
become a niche company.

Meanwhile what I really want to see in developers world is the same in
cellphone area as is in PC area. Freedom of choice of what OS to put on my
phone. On PC I can have HDD partitions and install Win/Lin/Mac all in the same
hardware. This is my dream.

~~~
leptons
There are x86 tablets that dual-boot Android and Windows. Pretty sure now that
Windows runs on ARM there would be similar devices that do the same on ARM.

~~~
unnouinceput
I know they are. But my point is about that currently any PC, be it desktop or
laptop has that possibility right from the start. And I do mean any. Actually
is even better then any current. It's close to any in past 5 years at least
can do this. Can you say the same for smartphones/tablets?

------
pubkraal
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's
been out and available for every iOS developer for months in order to prepare
for this.

There's enough to rib on Apple on, but this really doesn't seem like one?

~~~
saagarjha
Apple has _always_ given one week to use the golden master tools and build to
run final tests on and submit your applications so they can be out before a
million people try to install it on iOS 14. If your iOS distribution person is
out on a camping trip for a couple days, you’re not hitting the deadline
anymore. If you live in certain parts of the world where you wake up 7 hours
after the event and Xcode takes fifteen hours to download, your don’t hitting
the deadline anymore. There is absolutely zero reason why Apple had to do
this.

~~~
metaloqui
Unless your app is broken by the iOS update there's no more urgency to release
an update than there is for point releases.

~~~
bigiain
I am in a slightly uncomfortable position of being _fairly_ sure none of our
apps were broken under iOS14beta6 last week, but still assumed I'd get the
traditional week between the new xCode GM and users getting iOS14 pushed out
to them.

~~~
saagarjha
Nit: last week’s release was beta 8.

------
spieglt
I like making my side projects cross-platform when possible. But I'm done
trying to get code signing to work, I won'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.

------
numair
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.

~~~
saagarjha
Latter: iOS 14 is going out to 2 billion devices tomorrow, probably 10 AM.

~~~
bigiain
My phone is offering to install it right now (In Australia, 19:35:00+10:00).
It's _possible_ I'm getting it early because I've been running the recent
betas on this phone.

~~~
saagarjha
That’s probably the GM, which went out today.

------
g42gregory
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.

~~~
varispeed
It is a matter of time they will make it difficult if not impossible or they
will start blocking websites unless authors start paying % per visitor.

~~~
g42gregory
Both Google and Apple currently subscribe to the "open internet" philosophy on
mobile phones. This was their selling point against the old, "walled garden
internet", vendors. If they change that and start blocking the sites, I think
we will see a serious backlash. We will begin to switch to Linux phones then.
:-)

------
jmull
It's not that hard to figure out what happened...

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.

But the OS side slipped.

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.

Makes we wonder what the issues are and whether the OS is the only thing that
slipped? ...time will tell if they shouldn'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'll
see.

> 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?

I think, obviously, nobody did. It wasn't planned.

------
bad_user
I've been using the betas, and haven't had any problems with the apps.

What patches are required for apps to work on iOS 14?

~~~
saagarjha
If you use some sort of thing that the new privacy things will block you need
to update to account for the new behavior. If you have new features you want
users to have you need to build with the new SDK. If you have fixes for your
app being broken (either because of you or Apple’s bugs) you need to fix them.

~~~
acqq
> If you use some sort of thing that the new privacy things will block you
> need to update to account for the new behavior.

I am not shedding a tear for the producers of the apps that used privacy
invading code all the time, and didn't stop since iOS betas exist, waiting
instead for "official iOS 14" to "do something" \-- which is probably forcing
the user to agree or not use the app.

I hope I'm wrong, and to accept that I'd need a specific example.

~~~
geoffpado
One of my apps, Black Highlighter [0], uses the photo library permissions to
display your library to actually pick a image to edit in the app, and also to
write your edited images back to the library. This is the _main functionality
of the app_ , and it's what people want to be able to do. I'm not doing
anything nefarious with people's images, I'm just… building an image editor.
Can I use other methods to let people pick an image? Sure. But until iOS 14,
they were a _demonstrably worse experience_. Even still, it's a bit odd,
because the initial screen of the app becomes a big blank view with a button
to display the system photo picker.

I did my due diligence and I added a new button to use the new iOS 14 system
photo picker months ago, when Apple first announced these changes. But until
today at 11am, I _could not ship those changes_. Period. Nothing I could do to
have a version available for users any time before today. In under 24 hours, I
have to update my CI system, generate a build, check to make sure nothing
broke, submit for App Review, and hope I get approved.

But wait! I also have two other apps that have iOS 14 functionality. So I've
got to do those as well. And these are just my side projects. I have a day
job, doing the same kind of work. And I'm the iOS CI "guru" there, so I've got
to do the exact same thing… make sure Xcode 12 is updated on all our build
agents, get actual builds out of them, submit to the store, etc.

All of the privacy work is done. It's _been_ done. But the difference between
≈24 hours to get final builds out the door and a week to get final builds out
the door is _huge_ when you've got multiple different projects to handle.
Especially when App Review is eating several of those hours all on its own.

So guess what? My projects are going to fall by the wayside, in favor of my
day job. Is it a big deal? Who knows. Maybe I'll get some bad reviews. That'll
suck a lot. Did it need to be this way? Absolutely not. Apple could have given
us the week that they normally do, and everything would have been fine.
Instead, they gave us a day, and that's just not enough time. So apps people
use and like are just going to be broken for a few days, and there's not a
thing developers can do about it.

###

[0]: [https://blackhighlighter.app](https://blackhighlighter.app)

~~~
acqq
Sorry, I still don’t understand why you believe that you has to ship an app
using new features in 24 hours if your app worked even without using them all
this time? Did I understand that the existing picker worked and will work in
your case? So where that 24 hour pressure comes from in your case? I didn‘t
understand that your app built with the tools for 13 would be broken on 14?
And if it would be, why?

~~~
tannedNerd
That’s thing it wouldn’t work. It would have broken permissions and would
never be able to properly function. Just like the location api changes etc. If
try to launch an ios11 app like Instagram in ios14 it would be completely
useless and nonfunctional because of just permission api changes. Not to
mention any of the million other things Apple changes. So ya that’s this 24
hours is a crunch because even if 15% update the first day that’s 150+ Million
Devices.

------
jarjoura
When I read this, all I'm really reading is, Apple's biggest cultural position
on secrecy is also its biggest pain-point for external developers.

Secrecy is so ingrained in that company, at all levels, that it will
never/ever change without fundamentally changing what/who Apple is as a
company.

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's also no special treatment when at bigger companies either. The only
thing I've experienced is that we were invited to port our product to iOS 7's
new flat UI just to be featured 6 weeks ahead of their rumored keynote date.
They didn't even give us an actual time to submit.

Bigger products I've worked on do get a developer relations support person who
makes sure we're able to meet Apple's latest demands, but they are not
connected to the engineering (R&D) teams, so feedback is mostly downward. For
example, they would ask why haven'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.

Bugs are another huge pain point that developers complain about. Whenever
there's an issue, we'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 "Works as expected."

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.

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's 50% of the population in the US you would
make suffer for the cause.

------
myl
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.

~~~
xiphias2
Of course they do, HN is huge. But don't think that the software engineers
there have much more ability to make decisions than you.

------
simonkafan
The solution would be simple: Stop supporting Apple. Don't release apps on
their platform. As long as everyone is just blindly following their orders,
nothing will change.

And change is possible: Microsoft didn't care much about developers and users
when IE was browser market leader and look what happened.

------
lcnmrn
Apple isn'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't know what they are doing.

------
camillomiller
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's 2020, so maybe I'm wrong and
it's just another sign of the weird times we're living.

~~~
camillomiller
Just replying to my own comment to point out that iOS 14 is out since 12 hrs,
more or less, and the world hasn't ended, nor the users have taken to the
streets pitchforks in hand.

------
dangus
What’s the supposed downside to running an app designed for iOS 13 on an iOS
14 iPhone?

File this one under “things that won’t matter and will be entirely forgotten
in two weeks.”

------
m3kw9
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.

------
nimbius
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.

In the case of the former, you can outlast these comparatively small players
for _decades_ 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.

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.

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.

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.

------
fanatic2pope
Looking at the author's github profile gives a pretty clear answer. You are
dependent on Apple, they are not dependent on you.

------
pvorb
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'd expect the platform to stay largely
compatible.

(Obviously, I haven't developed anything for the Apple ecosystem, so these are
genuine questions.)

~~~
Splendor
> Do developers get a pre-release of iOS to test on?

Yes, but those pre-release OS versions are changed and updated by Apple as the
process goes along. So once Apple declares the final version (AKA Gold
Master), then everyone needs to regression test their apps against this final
version that will be installed on user devices. The process of submitting the
app update to the store must be done with a new toolchain as well. Usually the
GM version and new toolchain are available 1 week before release. This time
they were only available 1 day before. Even if all the development is done and
the testing against the GM version goes smoothly, 1 day is a very short turn-
around for getting your app update approved by Apple, especially on a day
where lots of other developers will be submitting updates too.

> Also, why do you need to release a new version at all?

Sometimes the new version introduces unintentional bugs that break existing
functionality and developers have to figure out how to work around it.
Sometimes Apple intentionally deprecates existing functionality. These are
things that developers can address with the pre-release versions, but again,
those are moving targets and until the GM version is released, you don't know
for sure.

~~~
pvorb
Thank you for the patient explanation.

------
pier25
I'm sure some people at Apple do care about developers, but these are not the
people making the important decisions.

Apple knows they are in control of +60% of the app mobile revenue worldwide.
It wouldn't surprise me if management believed third party developers should
consider themselves privileged to be on their platform.

------
catoc
My response to the Apple Developer Feedback Request

HOW CAN APPLE MAKE APP REVIEW BETTER?

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.

HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH THE FOLLOWING APPLE DEVELOPER RESOURCES?

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.

-"We treat all developers equally". \- 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

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 _actually_ be a
force of good. Untouchable. You could really make a difference.

Yet you don't.

Well not in a good way at least.

HOW CAN APPLE IMPROVE THE TOOLS AND SERVICES IT PROVIDES AS A DEVELOPMENT
PLATFORM? Be as specific and descriptive as possible

Focus on quality more than on constantly churning out new features - it'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's
now just above par. Why? You're worth 2 trillion dollars already. Is 2.2
trillion more important than going back to actually making the best again.

HOW CAN APPLE MAKE THE APP STORE A BETTER PLATFORM FOR DISTRIBUTING YOUR APPS?
Be as specific and descriptive as possible

"This app is damaged and may harm your computer" \- stop that! At least _try_
to be reasonable. Please!

------
api
Microsoft's native development environments are a pain in the butt too, and
they're constantly introducing and then deprecating stuff.

If you hate Electron don't blame Electron. Blame Apple and Microsoft.

------
MBCook
Doesn’t the watch come out on Friday? With watchOS 7? Which requires iOS 14?

It sounds like due to hardware they were going to have to release iOS 14 in a
day or two.

------
moron4hire
Because it's Texas Hold 'Em. Once you have the biggest pot, you can bully
everyone else into giving you the rest of there's.

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

------
deadmik3
What's the saying, hey, don't like it just start your own Apple :-)

------
bsenftner
Apple has always been an asshole. I was an original Macintosh beta tester - I
had a Mac summer of'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.

~~~
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA
What were you working on?

------
mdoms
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.

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

------
jeffrallen
Because they can

------
jenkstom
I guess I have a minority view, but when were they not?

Steve Jobs was famously toxic (which is just popular term to describe someone
with a cluster B personality disorder, aka "psychopath"). But he dresses like
a rock star and creates beautiful things and so everybody is willing to
forgive him.

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's a horrible
experience for you, but you'll be happier in the end.

~~~
thefz
Jobs' whole career has been: rejecting other people's work until his engineers
(not him) spat out something he thought worthy.

And usually he's revered more by non techs.

~~~
Razengan
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/bill-gates-i-was-so-
jealous-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/bill-gates-i-was-so-jealous-of-
genius-steve-jobs.html)

------
wernercd
Acting?

------
ericzawo
You don't become a $2 Trillion company being friendly.

------
oneplane
Why are people constantly personifying corporations? All you're going to end
up with is a sociopath as that's what large companies are when you try to do
that.

Apple isn't a single person with evil intentions that thought: "let's make it
very hard to work with this stuff", even if it might seem that way. It's far
more likely that:

\- The alternative was worse

\- An internal policy or rule had unforeseen side-effects in planning or
releasing

\- The team doing the work on the release and the team doing relations aren't
the same team and didn't communicate properly

\- A deadline was set and because it was only met just barely you get an odd
release schedule

Does that mean that this release is a fun planned schedule? No. But it doesn't
mean the thousands of people working there are combined into one big person
that wants to do bad things to you.

~~~
etripe
> Why are people constantly personifying corporations?

Because corporations aren't democratic, so their policies are not the sum of
all employees working there's opinions. Most of it is the result of top-down
decisions, which in practice are made by fewer than 20 people: the board and
the CEO. Technically, we could add shareholders to that list, but IIRC they
barely exercise their right to vote. What's more: corporations as legal
entities specifically exist to limit liability for the aforementioned people.

So when "Facebook" doesn't care about your privacy, it's Zuck and the board
that don't, not individual developers. When "Shell" sponsors climate change
denial, it's the board, not someone pumping your gas deciding. The
personification is valid up to a point because the corporation as such is only
a (useful) fictional construct.

> It's far more likely that [...]

I don't know the broader history of Apple's behaviour towards developers since
I'm not an iOS developer, so I can't say whether this is a matter of policy or
a snafu. Based on what I know, I'd also lean towards incompetence and not
malice in this particular case.

------
xenospn
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.

~~~
saagarjha
If you’re not out on day 1 and your app has more than a few users, expect bad
reviews and bug reports. The beta being out for months doesn’t change the fact
that you have something like 15 hours to build and submit your app and hope it
gets through review.

------
prvc
At the risk of sounding frivolous: because it is an asshole. There's a lesson
in that, I think.

------
tinus_hn
> the final public release of iOS 14 ships tomorrow, which came as quite a
> shock to all third-party developers.

Really? This is the way they have done the releases for about 10 years now.

~~~
saagarjha
Nope, they ship a GM a week in advance.

------
varispeed
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.

------
dmitriid
> 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.

> But today, Apple announced that iOS 14 is shipping tomorrow.

So... the only difference is it's not "few days" but "one day"? For an OS
update everyone knew was coming because "for as long as I can remember it goes
something like this"?

What's the assholery?

~~~
nurettin
I think they mean that the developers usually get development version of the
OS to install into their build system and test if anything is broken or add
new features for that OS which gives them an advantage over competition and
reduces random uninstalls.

~~~
dmitriid
Now I'm reading top comment, and this makes much more sense [1] Yeah it is an
asshole move on Apple's part

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24490605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24490605)

------
catmistake
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.

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't
update. I'm still running iPadOS13.4 and _I may never update._

The problem here is not Apple'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?

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.

Apple gave you excellent tools. You have your own source code. Get something
done! It doesn'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 _something_ done, or bail and go develop for another platform.
Jeesh. Make install not war.

------
tracer4201
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.

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.

~~~
alias_neo
People have different opinions on the use of profanity. It's a language tool,
like any other, and I find in my use of it, it expresses sentiment quite
clearly, whether that be humour or frustration.

The article is the author's speech, it is their choice to use or not use
language tools as they desire, but I ask you this. How would you title the
article while maintaining the clear and concise form?

I don't believe profanity does weaken the argument, it shows that people
(developers) are getting beyond the point of being able to maintain their
decorum because of the sheer frustration at the arbitrary rules and actions
from a company who's trillions are made, in a no insignificant part on the
backs of others' work.

~~~
tracer4201
I’ll counter your question with a question of my own. How would you title a
document at your work that’s trying to convey that some process or practice
doesn’t help customers and burns trust?

I’m not saying we need the same decorum in personal writing. But I am stating
there’s another way to make the argument.

~~~
alias_neo
Of course we write professionally at work. But that's work, and there is a
level of bullshit required in all professional writing, because that is what
is required.

This isn't work, this is a personal blog, where someone is clearly and
concisely expressing how many people feel using language that many people can
relate to.

I'm sure many have made the same argument before, and many feel the same way
about Apple and its tactics, however, this one is ranking high on HN right now
because it has a title which clicks with people's frustration. Apple's being
an "asshole", there's no need to mince words.

------
lanevorockz
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.

If companies are able to hijack this process by uploading assets it could be
easy to exploit.

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 ?

I choose privacy thank you very much.

~~~
calcifer
This comment doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article, which is
about the short launch window for iOS 14 and issues surrounding that. Are you
simply reacting to the title?

~~~
lanevorockz
Just trying to give the context of why Apple is so protective to the App Store
and why these lead them to do some unreasonable decisions.

I wanted to break the preconception that software is just inherently secure.
If anything it's super brittle and the continuous delivery cycle has its
downsides.

~~~
Apocryphon
That has absolutely nothing to do with why they would depart from their usual
reliable release cycle and force developers to scramble to update their apps
for iOS 14.

