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by clarky07 4705 days ago
It is not a public beta in any way shape or form. The only way to get the beta is to be a developer paying $99 a year to Apple. The "users" do not have iOS 7 and therefore bad reviews based on an unreleased BETA OS should not be allowed. Most of these issues aren't even something wrong with the apps. They will get fixed when the OS stops being buggy.
2 comments
diminish 4705 days ago
out of curiosity, does apple read stuart's blog or HN? there must be a better way to signal this to ios7 program management when you are signed up for beta...do they have a dev feedback option, which many devs would request the same wish...
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GuiA 4705 days ago
They do have a bug tracker to which any registered developer can submit.
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potatolicious 4704 days ago
It's really more like a black hole to which you can sacrifice words and pray for the best.
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GuiA 4704 days ago
I've only reported a couple bugs in the past few years, but they got responded to in a somewhat speedy fashion. Maybe I just got lucky.
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krichman 4704 days ago
Well, or it could be that the people that don't get responses are louder so we think they are lax and you are lucky. Xcode still sucks, despite all our bug reports, though, so I am inclined to believe they ignore most requests. (Were your bugs security-related?)
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htp 4704 days ago
Yep- send bugs and feature requests to https://bugreport.apple.com/ . Everything gets read, eventually, by a real live person.

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/ .

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clarky07 4705 days ago
i suspect Apple is well aware that devs don't want beta users to be able to leave reviews. It has been a think since the app store started. They just don't have much incentive to do the work needed to make the change happen. It likely only effects a small number of people, and not an incredibly huge effect for the most part.
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yojimbo311 4704 days ago
I think you underestimate the impact these particular reviews are having for some, even if it's a minority.

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

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FireBeyond 4704 days ago
Similarly?

"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.

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clarky07 4704 days ago
What are you talking about? Are you quoting someone else? That isn't in my parent comment at all...

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.

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