Apple Pal developers are on the run due to the Accelerated iOS 14 release

Apple Play angered many in the iPhone and iPad developer community yesterday when it announced that iOS 14 and iPad OS DOS14 would be available to consumers today. A one-day notification is a big departure from the company’s general approach, where developers are given about a week’s notice to put a final touch on their applications before the release of the main operating operating system.

Surprisingly, some iOS developers are already excited about the way Apple is taking control of its App Store. Ben Thompson, Cara Swisser and John Gruber all reported earlier this year that many people are afraid to talk about policies that they think are inappropriate.

Still, Apple Pal developers have suddenly raised their voices for sure about the launch of iOS 14.

On its face, the launch of iOS 14 a day after the Apple Pal event is great news. It will be the first opportunity for most people to try out the new bells and whistles of iOS 14, including new home screen widgets, a picture-in-picture mode and a new translation app, just to name a few. But that’s not good news for iOS developers, who were left with a tight deadline to compile, test and submit their applications on time for iOS 14’s launch day. It’s an unwelcome stress for many developers, which means Holiday Camera co-founder and designer Sebastian Dey summed up very eloquently:

IOS developer Shihab Mehboob told me after the Apple Pal incident, “I think a lot of developers don’t sleep tonight, or just choose to release new OS as well as they want,” iOS developer Shihab Mehboob told me after the Apple Pal incident. Or as another developer, Jesse Squares, put it less harshly in a blog post, “Why does Apple Paul behave like a donkey?”

“I think this sounds pretty cool, but I think this is the most negative thing I’ve ever felt since the Apple Pal incident,” said Dark Voice developer Charlie Chapman. Tweeted. “I don’t push myself that hard, but I’ve done a lot of work preparing to hit the” One Day “release for iOS 14.”

“Of course, no one will be able to” sleep “tonight,” said Christian Selig, the developer behind the Apollo Reddit app. Tweeted.

The developer said, “A big WTF on Apple Pal will release iOS 14 tomorrow without giving developers any notice, or final tools.” Said Steve Troton Smith.

To be clear, yesterday was not the first time developers had heard about iOS 14. Apple Play announced the return of the new software at its developer conference in June and released its first developer beta the same day. Most developers will have spent months adding new iOS 14 features and making sure their apps are compatible with the new software.

Apple’s September iPhone event has traditionally been a crucial day for developers, as it unveils versions of the company’s so-called “Golden Master” (GM) iOS and Xcode developer tools. IOS developer Rhys Morgan tells me that this is the same build that Apple Pal usually declares “99 percent of the time.” That’s one of the main goals, and the moment that developers can get started on the final version of their software without worrying that something may change before its release. Apple Play released the GM version after yesterday’s event, a day before the release of iOS 14.

IOS betas change frequently on the way to GM release. Sometimes these changes are small, but at other times, there will be new features that are truncated or reverted to in response to other bugs. A similar example was posted on Twitter by developer Peter Steinberger, who noted Apple Play has removed support for the new API With the GM release of iOS 14, after it appeared in beta releases.

“So if your application had been used [the new API] Or you’re freeing a framework using it, accidentally … you can’t. That’s it, it’s gone, you have to change it, “says Morgan. The weeks that developers usually get between the release of GM and the official release of a new version of iOS are useful for printing such issues.

As if the timeline to rob developers was not so bad, once a developer has downloaded the latest development tools and rearranged their app, they will have to go through Apple’s App Store Approval process to make their vehicles available for download. This is a process that allows developers to set aside an entire week to address any concerns that might arise in the review process. In recent days, some developers have reported that their apps have been approved by Apple in less than an hour or two, Morgan says, much faster than usual, resulting in some There is speculation that Apple is speeding up iOS 14 app approvals. However, others like Chapman also say they are still waiting for their applications to be approved after hours.

At least one high profile app has warned its users not to upgrade to the latest version of iOS if they wish to continue using its software. Yesterday, the officer Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Twitter account Confirmation Its app cannot be opened on devices running iOS 14. “We would not recommend that you update this device to iOS 14, unless we fix this issue.”

Still, the developers I’ve talked to said that when iPhone owners start updating to iOS 14, we’re not likely to see a bunch of broken apps. They said that newer versions of iOS are generally good for running older software designed for previous versions, and that having access to beta versions of iOS 14 would allow developers time to prepare for any major changes.

Image: Apple

“I mean, we have iOS 14 from WWDC. I don’t think this will have a collective effect where everything is broken at the store, “explains Halliday de With. “If your app is now in a very broken state on iOS 14, it would have been broken on release. I don’t think that would be a big issue. “

Chapman agrees that many older apps are unlikely to be broken by iOS 14. “It’s frustrating, but I don’t really think the customer experience is really getting worse,” he says.

But the developers I’ve talked to also suggested that a tight change could mean that some of the new features of iOS 14 aren’t widely supported on the day of launch. The team would have “chosen” the new home screen widgets feature of iOS 14 on the day of the launch, says D With.

Supporting these big new features could result in greater publicity for small developers. Chapman tells me that he was thinking of supporting Paul’s new home screen widgets feature for his app, hopefully it will lead to press coverage one day of the release of iOS 14, as the releases combine the best apps with the support of the operating system. . The latest features

For some developers, however, the changes made to this year’s release schedule are more of a relief. For an application like Hide Lead, which prides itself on supporting both the latest and greatest hardware. And The software features of each iPhone, the delayed iPhone release this year make things easier than in previous years, D With tells me. The team is now focusing on ensuring that the current 14 iOS (currently expecting a minor compatibility update to be rolled out) (and the Highlide integration function to support any new camera My hardware that comes with the iPhone 12 when they are next released) Can focus.

The big question is why Apple Play chose to release iOS 14 today in the first place because it does not have the iPhone hardware that urgently needs a new operating operating system.

Morgan and Chapman tell me that Apple Plus needed the availability of iOS 14 to be compatible with the release of the new Apple Plus Series 6, which runs outside of the new WatchOS 7BX. Apple Pal says a newer version of iOS Choice requires iOS 14 to setup. However, it is not clear why Paul chose to release iOS 14 today, rather than wait until the release of the smartwatch on Friday.

In any other year, one day notifying iOS developers that a new version of iOS is coming may have been written as a resentment. But in 2020, when Apple’s App Store policies face unprecedented regulatory and legal scrutiny, that seems like an unforced error. Apple Pal needs more allies than it does now, and policies like the new appeal process are clearly designed to address developers’ concerns. But its hasty iOS 14 release did not favor it.

Apple did not return the moment EdgeRequest for comment.