Wow, he hits the nail on every major sore spot, although I think I would have mentioned the iPhone Developer program portal as a huge issue as well, especially the 100 device/membership/year limitation and the way it was implemented.
It's quite frustrating to want to spend more time on iPhone development but hitting a brick wall everywhere because Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better. And it's really saddening because their engineers are clearly awesome folks I love to have a drink with or talk to, but they just can't help much. WWDC, despite the one disastrous app store session, was the only chance I and many other developers got to personally hound engineers we didn't know to fix/workaround a lot of issues that nobody cared about. My one single problem (big enough that we couldn't ship the app until it was fixed) that was lounging in ADC and DTS support hell for months was fixed in under 1 hour (most of that waiting) by a single very awesome person there. Some of these things just shouldn't be waiting as long as a year for the one week in the year WWDC happens, but I guess we just have to live with it. I'd even pay more to get these problems fixed. But some of them have existed for...well...a year now. And new problems keep popping up that make me want to rip my hair out (like 17+ ratings for all apps with built in browsers and similar? what the hell!).
I've heard about and seen experiences with other mobile platforms that are equally as bad, but it's really disappointing when Apple comes out with this phone that changes the smartphone market but then just keeps this backwards and nonsensical attitude towards developers.
> Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better
They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody.
Case in point: For months, ad-hoc distribution would fail unless you made up a config file with a special key (get-task-allow), fed it through gcc, and attached it to Xcode via some bizarre build settings. Just recently, this trick became documented in the official "how to build things" manual, even though ad-hoc builds have been broken without it since forever. (Also, nobody seems to know what exactly get-task-allow does, although there are reports that it maybe affects debugging. Somehow.)
For months, you had to put exactly the right incantation into the bundle identifier in order for things to sign correctly. Maybe you have to put in the part before the first period, or maybe you put in the part after. (Wait, you didn't include a period? Wait, not period, you're supposed to include an asterisk in there. WTF Apple added a period !? Wait, you expected a Unicode character to work just because that was how it was documented?) Maybe Xcode doesn't tell you when you've done it wrong. Maybe iTunes connect doesn't tell you when you've done it wrong, and you get an app rejected because the documentation is fail. This has all since been fixed, although it's still more complicated than it should be.
The iPhone is just a series of secret handshakes, and everybody winks very hard. If you are okay with that, and are okay with searching the forums for undocumented Apple bugs every few days, you will be fine, and possibly make lots of money, because there are lots of people who are not willing to wink hard and look the other way, and so you can bill $150/hr.
Don't get me wrong, I get angry too, and have little fits of rage at Apple for some stupid, stupid problem. But at the end of the day, I get a pretty good check for not much work, I write things that I'm proud of, and occasionally Apple fixes their bugs. Good project, good paycheck, good stack: pick two.
> They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody....
Problems with adhoc and provisioning in general were somewhat understandable and are (sorta) being fixed and documented all over the place, which is not what I have a gripe with minus the occasional issue that makes me want to rip my hair out and wonder why it's not any better. It's that situations change and then Apple announces some arbitrary change with seemingly good intentions but with disastrous effect on apps in the store now. You see things like the change where any app with UGC should now be rated 17+ lest Apple reject updates until you change it to 17+...who on earth thought that was a good idea?
So then when I do have this occasional issue that makes me want to rip my hair out, combined with all these new problems that arise and that nobody at ADC is particularly helpful when problems do arise (I still have unanswered emails to Apple that are over a year old), I wonder if I'm being paid enough to deal with this :)
>I've heard about and seen experiences with other mobile platforms that are equally as bad, but it's really disappointing when Apple comes out with this phone that changes the smartphone market but then just keeps this backwards and nonsensical attitude towards developers.
One thing that I think we all have to take into account is the fact that the rules for Cell Network access are a lot different than what we're used to for general purpose computing networks. The fact remains that these networks are extremely, rigorously, monopolized and maintained by groups that are not going to give them up without a fight.
Its an underlooked fact that cell networks are considered a military asset. Every single cell tower, its location, and its operational condition are monitored by the Pentagon on a realtime basis. You do not get access to these towers without permission.
It should come as no surprise that stringent control is being applied to the terminals used to gain access to these networks. For sure, we have a consumer mentality about it - freedom of choice, freedom to buy, freedom not to use, etc.
But the raw hardware on the backend: it does not belong to you. You are being granted permission to access it by the military-industrial complex which controls the means and resources by which the asset is maintained, stringently.
This is bleeding through, all the way through, and Apple are doing a pretty good job of picking up the attitude. Seriously.
Seriously? While Blackberries, PalmOS, Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile devices have all let you load whatever the heck you want onto their phones over the past 5+ years, we are now going to claim that it's not that Apple doesn't have its shit together, but that the Pentagon is getting in their way?
There is no such control being applied to most of the other smartphone platforms. They all have their issues, either with the end user experience not being very good, with overcomplicated development processes, with low uptake, with poor or nonexistent app stores, etc, but only Apple behaves so strangely towards its developers.
Apple has come the closest to nailing the big picture: technology, uptake, user experience. Instead, the part they are failing on is treating developers like they care. It should be the easiest thing to fix -- and that's also what makes it so annoying for so many people.
It's quite frustrating to want to spend more time on iPhone development but hitting a brick wall everywhere because Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better. And it's really saddening because their engineers are clearly awesome folks I love to have a drink with or talk to, but they just can't help much. WWDC, despite the one disastrous app store session, was the only chance I and many other developers got to personally hound engineers we didn't know to fix/workaround a lot of issues that nobody cared about. My one single problem (big enough that we couldn't ship the app until it was fixed) that was lounging in ADC and DTS support hell for months was fixed in under 1 hour (most of that waiting) by a single very awesome person there. Some of these things just shouldn't be waiting as long as a year for the one week in the year WWDC happens, but I guess we just have to live with it. I'd even pay more to get these problems fixed. But some of them have existed for...well...a year now. And new problems keep popping up that make me want to rip my hair out (like 17+ ratings for all apps with built in browsers and similar? what the hell!).
I've heard about and seen experiences with other mobile platforms that are equally as bad, but it's really disappointing when Apple comes out with this phone that changes the smartphone market but then just keeps this backwards and nonsensical attitude towards developers.