Apple updates broken for iOS 3.x devices | Hacker News Reader

Apple updates broken for iOS 3.x devices

osnews.com

17 pointsdman6 comments

I once submitted an app which crash on 3.x firmware and Apple let it went through. Before this I thought they test the app on every single firmware version which i supported, but from the log on my server (my app requests some images from server) they only tested it on the latest version. It wasmy fault that it crashes, but I expected Apple to be a gatekeeper to NOT let it goes through.

Why do you expect Apple to do your QA?

He doesn't, but he does expect them to make some QA (that's one of the purpose of the appstore: not letting broken applications go through), and it's sad they've dropped QA-ing 3.x at all, especially since there is now a generation of devices stuck there.

Should we expect Apple to also drop QA-ing 4.x as soon as 5.x is out the door?

Does anyone want to trim down that hyperbolic 887-word rant into a concise bug report? I just don't have the energy to do it myself. Something about Remote.app on OS 3.1.x? That's as far as I could get.

Someone forgot to configure an update to the Remote app to have a minimum iOS version of 4.x, apparently.

Though the fact that apparently apple were going to send engineers to his house (... really? I pretty much don't believe that at all), if true, implies that something about his iPod touch is something that apple can't possibly reproduce with their own bug-testing facilities. He also hasn't installed the update on his other 3.x device (understandable but it would be a helpful datapoint).

Oh also the AppStore apparently has some broken Javascript on 3.x devices, meaning if you want to selectively update (to avoid the one (1) Remote app update this post is mostly about), you are completely doomed forever and cannot, for example, use the update mechanism in the desktop iTunes software.

I don't know why everyone is coming down so hard on Apple, he should have just deleted the app from iTunes and used the previous app file, probably still in his trashcan.

Apple is far far better than other companies with software updates, ahem Samsung/Motorola. And at what point can you stop offering software updates for a device and that is acceptable? 3-4 years to me is a long time to continue supporting a now out of date device.

Also: "When Macs stopped getting support for new OSX versions for example, they still worked for years to come, and new apps or software updates simply didn't install/showed on them! But this is a different case! This is a case of FORCEFUL BREAKAGE (as in the case of the remote App Store update), or apps showing as compatible, leading users to update and break them (as in the case of "Remote" app)!"

Fallacy, attribution to malice, which goes back to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor

Heavy lies the crown.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com