Apple ticks off 3rd-party developers (as usual)
I haven’t agreed with a lot of what John Gruber has been posting lately, but I do agree with this point he makes. He points to Steven Frank’s post about not getting access to the Gold Master (final version) release of OS X Leopard before the general public. It’s pretty bad when developers are contemplating pirating your OS just to get their next release out the door on time.
What’s really annoying is that they give it to Pogue and Mossberg, but not even their key (award-winning) developers. Pogue could be brutally beaten to within an inch of his life by Steve Jobs personally, and Pogue would still sing the praises (he sure drank the iPhone Kool-aid), but Steven Frank is some true talent that Apple could potentially lose (along with many other developers), and it might be hard to win them back. Sure, marketing for your new flagship OS product is important, but if you don’t have any new/updated 3rd-party software to join in the celebration on launch day (or happy developers to keep creating new products for it), what good will it do you? Apple has been known to stab developers in the back before, but if they don’t stop, it will cause them problems in the future.
#1 Rob D says:Let ADC know how you feel-
http://developer.apple.com/contact/
#2 Twist says:Nice bit of over the top commentary here:
“but Steven Frank is some true talent that Apple could potentially lose”
If anyone gets the impression that Steven Frank or Panic would ditch the platform over this they are seriously stupid. I would describe Steven’s blog post about this more as annoyed than ticked off. It was a brain dead move on Apple’s part but Steven has always seemed like a pretty laid back guy to me in the years that I have been following his blog and even corresponding with him a few times (I was one of the more prolific Audion Face makers back in the day).
Anyone who knows anything about Panic knows that Cabel is the high strung one :p Just call him Cable sometime if you want to find out first hand
#3 mdmunoz says:“Pogue could be brutally beaten to within an inch of his life by Steve Jobs personally, and Pogue would still sing the praises (he sure drank the iPhone Kool-aid)”
I really hope this is sarcasm.
#4 Yong Hwee says:I think part of why I enjoy using Mac OS X is the fact that 3rd-party applications are just kick-ass! I really hope Apple will show more “concern”(for lack of a better word) for these developers.
#5 louis says:“Apple” has been exhibiting a bit of #&@(*ishness towards their more established user base as of late. This seems like more of the same.
#6 Lon says:As a dues paying ADC member, for years, this has always irked me.
Every major reease Apple pulls this.
No communication as to when developers might get the GM. Most end up paying retail to get it when it is release, in spite of paying theie membership and living under the NDA.
The lesson unlearned by Apple after all these releases is that the GM always leaks before the release no matter what.
Press, Employees and mannufacuturing has the GM 1-2 weeks prior to the release.
They should consider that fact that the developers are the least of their worries.
#7 mdmunoz says:“‘Apple’ has been exhibiting a bit of #&@(*ishness towards their more established user base as of late. This seems like more of the same.”
Except, you know, it was exactly like this for Tiger as well. Apple has always been a bit of a #&@(*.
#8 Steve says:If they released it to the developers, the chances of it leaking much earlier would grow drastically as all the other builds leaked. It was a prevention against leaking and it sucks but thats life, those dammed developers can’t be trusted apparently.
#9 bigfatduck says:first, as steve may or may not have been implying, i think this might be a result of so many leaks of each. and. every. build. of leopard in it’s road to GM. not that i think it’s a good idea to slap the face of developers even if they do something wrong (they are important after all…). just a thought.
second, is it really that important to get the GM prior to release date when you’ve been receiving the previous builds? i’m not a developer so i’m wondering, when there were only a handful of bugs left to be worked out for GM is there really that big a risk of your app breaking by testing it against the build just previous to GM? seems to me it shouldn’t, but like i said i don’t know.
#10 Lon says:I have been dealing with seeds since 10.0 and some are better than others.
With regards to leaks, they always happen and will always happen.
The GM is already on bittorrent without developers getting it.
It is important for developers to test there products against what consumer will be installing. Changes are often made in GM.
Now a lot of developers will make it through unscathed without access to the GM. But this weekend a large number will be patching final bugs.
The real issue I have is that developers form the backbone of the platform.
Assuming that we are guilty before the fact is insulting. Specially when we pay to have access, sign agreements and help Apple refine and debug their finished product.
I have high hopes that tomorrow Apple will either deliver or seed developers with the GM so we be prepared for our customers.
#11 vanni says:i don’t get it. developers have had seeds of the os for over 12 months. so are we to understand that they didn’t get the GM as soon as journalists? if so this is bad…. BUT is the GM that MUCH different from the last SEED that they received? … is this a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill… or is it a valid concern of being SNUBED. I hope not. we need 3rd party developers as much as Apple needs them.
#12 bigfatduck says:ugh, I just went back to the original article and it really is being presented as a bigger deal than it is here. Turns out, as he plainly states, this has been Apple’s policy since 10.0 if not before. So i guess the question is, why is this being presented as *new* behavior toward developers?
#13 Rob says:@vanni
The difference between a seed and GM can be dramatic, depending on what software you are developing.
@bigfatduck
Yeah, this has been a problem forever. What does it take to fix it?
#14 Padriac says:Okay, I’ll bite: what issue(s) do you have with Gruber? The man is usually on point.