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Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

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Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#101

Post by saagarjha »

realusername wrote: post #59
saagarjha wrote: post #43

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 ne…

> iOS developer hates with a passion and gives no useful information That's typical Apple, they are allergic to technical info and error display, when things are not working, there's no way to know why.

Well, I think you might be misunderstanding this a bit. What happens is that you download a compressed application and that is signed by Apple to prevent tampering, I assume to prevent XcodeGhost-like malware. The issue is that 1. this only tells you that the file you have came from Apple but not what it contains and 2. Xcode is massive and downloading it, verifying it and then uncompressing it to run it and check its build number takes ages: you could have a gigabit connection and a 18-core iMac Pro and you’re still looking at half an hour from opening the developer downloads site to being able to check to see what you just downloaded. When Apple messes up their labeling/caching/whatever you can see why a SHA would be extremely useful, as I know people who repeated this process multiple times through the day in hopes of getting the build Apple claimed they should have. (Eventually people started spreading hashes, not verifying the archive, and sharing it around via file hosting sites like Dropbox, which totally defeats the point of all of these things, so good job Apple on making this process so annoying that people will just jump through the hoops to bypass it.)

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#102

Post by lordnacho »

HenryBemis wrote: post #44
kylec wrote: post #2

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.

What Jamil7 commented.. I stopped/dropped my iOS dev efforts. I had an app on Apple Store, and eventually pulled it because of the constant updates demanded by Xcode. Yes things were still working, but unless someone is willing to dedicate 'many' days every 3-6-9-12 months to catch-up on new requirements, it's just not worth it. For someone who does dev for a living, it's game on, for others who may want this as a si…

Same here, iOS was never my main thing, but I did write a couple of apps for it. I can't remember the specifics, but it seems way too common for them to change an API that ought to be already settled, for lack of a better term.

This just means that every time they change something, the devs have to rebuild, with an unknown amount of time spent. It might be as easy as just changing a couple of lines, or they changed the API so much you have to rethink your code.

And this is for apps that aren't using anything new, it's the old APIs that are changing under them.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#103

Post by alex_duf »

saagarjha wrote: post #43

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 ne…

Gee, it sounds like even devs internally weren't aware of it and everyone's scrambling.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#104

Post by saagarjha »

saurik wrote: post #76
geoffpado wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on this, if your app is "broken" because of changes made that require new OS features in order to "fix" them (such as the new limited permissions for photos, contacts, and location), you were completely unable to issue a new update to fix them until the end of the event. That gives you ≈24 hours to get the new GM, create a build (including setting up your CI system with the new GM, if applicable), make sure…

And even then, who is to say that users are going to instantaneously download your update before/during their upgrade to iOS 14 (even if they have automatic app upgrades turned on, which they might not).

Being able to point your users to an update to fix their problems when they come to you for support, or when they go to write an angry review that their app is crashing but they see “iOS 14 support” at the top of the app’s page, is likely to help there. Especially since the earliest adopters are frequently technically competent enough to do that but also frequently demanding enough that their apps work on day one.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#105

Post by stale2002 »

nlitened wrote: post #92
pojntfx wrote: post #3

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 inno…

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.

> to protect myself from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages

I am not sure why other people being allowed to install other browsers on their phone would force you to do anything.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#106

Post by saagarjha »

king_crimson wrote: post #69
saagarjha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

deleted

Yep, I do, although thankfully I’m not affected. But I assure you that there are apps that will be in a tight spot here (particularly ones that use SwiftUI, which has been notoriously buggy and prone to changed across beta releases). Some things can only be fixed using the GM. And sometimes new issues crop up in the new iOS build!

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#107

Post by stale2002 »

bluescrn wrote: post #37
ecmascript wrote: post #8

Web Web web, fuck native apps.

Web is great for a lot of things. But not games, especially if you want efficiency.

> But not games, especially if you want efficiency

Well, it's not great for games anymore.

There was a golden age of gaming on the web, 10 years ago. But, for some reason, platform/phone/browser owners intentionally killed the tools that made this golden age of gaming in the browser possible.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#108

Post by snemvalts »

nlitened wrote: post #92
pojntfx wrote: post #3

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 inno…

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.

Even if they switched to Android, they'd still have to ensure iOS compatibility since Apple has ~60% of the smartphone market in the US. Any abusive behaviour from Apple at this monopolistic stage is just asking for an antitrust case & resolution.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#109

Post by nlitened »

ActorNightly wrote: post #97
nlitened wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This doesnt happen though. Look at the state of web apps accessed through your computers browser - there is no issues with quality if you want a customer base.

My computer browser is indeed fine, but my mother's -- is an entirely different story. I am really happy I can still get her an iPad these days.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#110

Post by saagarjha »

saurik wrote: post #85
0x0 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 olde…

> 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.

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