Stop Allowing App Reviews From Beta iOS Versions
stuartkhall.com
stuartkhall.com
That way the developer is getting feedback about potential problems with the upcoming iOS, and can fix them, but it doesn't hurt their image for the 99.9% of customers running the non-beta iOS.
What should change is the silly star rating system and they should not be calculated or even used in the review. There is way too much dependence on a 'good score' for the developer and hiding beneficial information is not a solution.
I'm more likely to agree with this if you mean only other users of the beta OS should be able to see the review. It doesn't do the general user any good to see a beta review, positive or negative, when they aren't even using the beta OS.
Apple has as much incentive here as they have with any customer complaints. If it's important enough to developers and genuinely impacts their product (aka products Apple benefits from in more ways than one) they know it will effect the relationship they have with Apple. Like with anything however, the problem needs to communicated. The more people who communicate the same issue, the more likely it will get attention. https://bugreport.apple.com/ is the place to start. Not blogs, not HN, not Twitter or anything else.
If you want a problem you're having solved, start with filing a report in as detailed, and polite, a way as possible. Using blogs to bitch and complain about how Apple is ignoring an "obvious" issue, or how stupid they were to do things in such-and-such a way, is essentially counterproductive and being part of the problem rather than the solution. Using them to explain the issue, get a discussion around it going, coming up with solutions that work for you and fellow developers, and get additional reports filed, enhances the ability for Apple to respond with a genuine solution sooner rather than later. Sometimes they see the blogs and articles, but I'm sure it's more often they don't, so the trend I've seen over the last several years of vitriolic blogs being the first and only mention of a problem has, IMHO, really been disservice to the whole community.
It's always taken much longer than I would personally like or understand, but with enough bug reports filed on a given issue I do see traction and changes come later on down the road. They may not always be the changes I explicitly requested or expect, but they do resolve the problems in one way or another.
edit: grammar
There’s more information available about reporting bugs (like which logs are useful, where to find them on your device, and how to get them off your device) at https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/ .
"Developers have had no chance to test and update these apps. Reviews/ratings are very important to sales and products.”
No chance? How so? These are Apple-registered developers. They’ve had no chance to test their app against iOS 7?
Yes, they have.
But since you mention it, while the devs can test their apps, they can't fix them yet. There is no way to submit an iOS 7 based app until, oh i don't know, iOS 7 is released.
Also bear in mind that (at least up to beta 4) there were quite a lot of bugs in ios 7 that the developers couldn't do anything about.
Pretty much every app will need to be updated for ios 7. It's a real shitstorm. Apple has created a bunch of work for every ios developer and broken all existing apps, and it's not really an improvement in my opinion.
Apple needs to sort this kind of stuff out, i'm seriously frustrated by how many problems (dev centre + iOS 7) we're currently going through that we have zero control over.
Unfortunately pretending only developers have beta releases at this point is ridiculous.
Apple's betas are not "Google betas" where they're pretty solid at release and keep the beta monicker until we've learned to ignore it. This round of Betas have definitely been early releases so developers can get a grasp on APIs and UI changes and nothing more.
/edit In no means am I saying that it is a good idea. I'm just saying that Apple's desires are not aligned with those of well-meaning developers here.
Also, it's hard for people to know if issues are related to the app itself, or underlying problems in the beta iOS release. But any negative review is going to be associated with the app, not the OS.
I don't see how public reviews from beta users are in any way a positive thing. Sure, forward them to developers, but definitely don't let them influence the average star rating.
Most people using the iOS 7 beta seem to have nothing to do with development. It's why immediately after WWDC the internet was filled with complaints about various tiny aspects of it and why things like this happen.
I wouldn't be upset if Apple limited early access not only to people enrolled as developers but people with a published application.
> I really wish the title of the article was more along the lines "Apple should prevent negative app reviews when using iOS beta".
> I felt a little mislead and thought that a developer had somehow figured out how to do the current title of the submission (news) vs. what it was really about (opinion, that I agree with, but not news).
Sad to see this happen twice today. Only happy about it in the sense that maybe it will get some traction if enough people complain. This title isn't as bad as the other one was (which eventually got changed, thankfully), but still - depending on how you read it you might misconstrue that this article teaches you how to stop this.
The worst part of it all is that I thought to myself "Title-bait like that couldn't possibly have happened again - maybe someone really did find out a solution!" and I fell for it. Fool me once, etc.
It would be better if it was prefixed with "Hey Apple, "
Both app developers and Apple have wrongly been pushing users to voice opinions publicly in app reviews, leaving app developers exposed with no way to communicate with those users.
The solution is to start pushing users to communicate their suggestions and issues privately, in the app, where you can better manage conversations, keep users engaged, and build relationships that can turn upset users into long-term evangelists.
So, instead of blocking iOS betas from submitting reviews, how about everyone as a whole stops breaking the NDA?
> Notwithstanding the foregoing, Apple Confidential Information will not include:
> (i) information that is generally and legitimately available to the public through no fault or breach of Yours,
> (ii) information that is generally made available to the public by Apple,
> (iii) information that is independently developed by You without the use of any Apple Confidential Information,
> (iv) information that was rightfully obtained from a third party who had the right to transfer or disclose it to You without limitation, or
> (v) any FOSS included in the Apple Software and accompanied by licensing terms that do not impose confidentiality obligations on the use or disclosure of such FOSS.
Because of (i), there are very few things that remain confidential for too long due to Apple fan/rumor sites breathlessly reporting every change in the DPs under the notion that it's in the public interest to know.
I'm not a lawyer and this shouldn't be construed as legal advice, but a plain reading of (iii) seems like it might indicate DP-related bugs in 3rd party apps would not be considered confidential either.
I imagine there has to be some provision for being allowed to tell other developers about bugs in their apps (does it have to be on Apple’s official forums?), but I think Apple makes developers agree to NDAs exactly to keep dumbass CS students from trying to impress their friends by telling them how many bugs they’ve found and how crappy the prerelease builds are. I’ve never had a paid developer account, but my impression is that people used to take the NDA a lot more seriously several years ago; I’m not sure if it’s because Apple dropped the price from $500 to $99 or because I spend a lot more time around CS students, or maybe because so many more people have iPhones now, but it seems like even a lot of non-developers are finding it worth $99 a year to get prerelease iOS builds, and everyone is wildly violating the NDA.
Didn't rotation API changes make certain apps not work right, particularly on the iPad?
That being said, some of the back-compat modes don't really work due to large changes in the underlying codebase.
Which ones?
In short, the app situation feels more or less just as 5->6 beta did.
As an added benefit, by doing this, Apple would also invite a LOT more developers into its fold who would like to experiment with apps on their own device without committing to publishing any.