App Store – Developers are rumbling over slow distribution of updates.
Everybody will agree that the App Store is actually a very cool opportunity for a developers. But some developers are having some issues with their created applications. Some of them are very buggy, the reason for this is mainly the lack of good debugging tools according to them. However this is not the only problems the developers have with the App Store. Apple’s is keeping super-tight control over app distribution, and getting updates pushed to the App Store is taking much longer then the developers would like.
So they’re starting to make some noise. Craig Hockenberry, who created Twitterrific for the Mac and iPhone, outlines the problems in a blog post:
- We’re hearing about problems with our app.
- It’s hard to figure out what the problems are, because the “crash reports” Apple provides are hard to understand and don’t include enough information.
- It’s hard to test out bug fixes. [If this was conventional software, we’d release patches and builds to beta testers and get feedback from them.] But with the iPhone, we can only fix the problems by releasing new software to everyone, via the App Store — without knowing if we’ve really fixed it. “It’s the developer equivalent of playing Russian roulette.”
- Did we mention we love the iPhone platform!
And from another developer who wants to remain anonymous:
- Apple is taking too long to approve app updates for the store — even minor changes.
- This puts developers in a tough spot: If consumers give apps bad reviews because of a fixable bug, they’ll have a hard time reclaiming their reputations.
Why does this matter? Because the success of Apple’s App Store — and, bigger picture, the iPhone as a mobile platform — is predicated on two things: Apps that don’t suck, and a large, happy stable of coders.
If Apple makes it hard for developers to test and fix their apps, they’ll be less willing to work on iPhone apps. Which is bad news for everyone — especially Apple. But it’s not an easy fix: Either Apple is going to have to loosen up control of its platform, or it’s going to have to provide developers with some kind of extensive beta testing environment, where they can at least road-test their apps.
\\ tags: App Store, App Store updates, developers, iPhone, iPhone 3G, issues, problems
July 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Yeah. I made a iPhone 3G countdown timer widget for Mac, and after submitting it to them, it said Apple will approve it by 10/9/08. Thats September ! They take 4 months to approve an app !!!!
July 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
:shock: :shock: :shock:
4 months!
And what are they approving?Most of the apps are so buggy what makes me think they are not testing the applications for bugs.But actually why do I wonder.Seing what FW they released after so long time with so many betas and testing and it even costs 8€,maybe we should be thankful that we dont pay extra for the updates.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Well, for the 4 months waiting – I guess they only see if the GUI is pretty like Leopard interface. Apple is not bothered about Bugs, they only look at Beauty.
And yeah, paying for 2.0 beta firmware was crazy ! Its a help to improve their software !!! We pay for their benefit ! And charging a fee for final firmware would be even more crazy ! BitTorrents are helpful though ! :smile: