Developers are frustrated at Apple for launching iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 with just one day's notice
Apple fans who were waiting for an iPhone 12 unveiling at the Apple Event today may be a little disappointed. But, Apple gave them a treat to hold them over instead: an announcement that iOS 14 is being released tomorrow.
That compressed runway is why developers are publicly annoyed: the golden-master-to-public-launch window collapsed to a single day, right as teams would normally be submitting compatibility updates ahead of new-device season. The frustration is a recurring note in Apple's fall cadence — a year later the company announced iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 five days before their September 20 release, a visibly wider gap.
First-order effects
Developers shipping iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 support had one day between final builds and user-facing rollout, forcing last-minute compatibility testing and rushed App Store submissions.
Second-order effects
A wave of same-week update submissions hits App Store review exactly when Apple is preparing new-hardware season, straining review turnaround for every developer in the queue.
Third-order effects
If short-notice launches keep drawing this reaction, Apple faces a structural trade-off between launch-day surprise and ecosystem readiness — and the wider lead time given for iOS 15 suggests the balance can shift toward developers without abandoning the fall cadence.
The trend: Apple's annual fall OS rollout is becoming a negotiation between marketing-controlled launch timing and developers' need for stable final builds earlier.
The latter seems like a massively deep-rooted flaw in Apple culture. I can't tell you how many times I've told an employee about some big problem in public APIs, signing, deployment, the App Store, etc. — stuff they don't deal with — and it caught them *completely* by surprise.
I wouldn't say that. It's two eternal problems: - Apple's hardware release dates dictate their software release dates, not the software quality or readiness. - Most of Apple seems to have *far* too little of an idea of the challenges and conditions faced by outside developers. ht…
Sorry, my iOS 14 features aren't ready yet. Since it'll be a while before most of my customers use iOS 14, I spent the summer prioritizing bug fixes and my family's pandemic/school logistics (we're OK, just busy). Like you all, I'm just doing what I can this year. More soon.
Only now do submissions to the App Store work. It is 10PM UK time; iOS 14 launches tomorrow. App Review can be anywhere from an hour to several days. This is a whole lot of unnecessary stress on developers in an otherwise stressful year https://twitter.com/...
My conspiracy theory is that iOS 14 has been GM for at least a week, and engineering wanted to release it to developers back then, but marketing didn't want it revealing anything about the new products.
In case you're wondering how ready this iPadOS 14 “GM” is, my Magic Keyboard stopped accepting 3- and 4-finger swipe gestures, and the Home indicator on my iPad Pro isn't working anymore. Not even 6 hours in. 😬
“What purpose does it serve to place this last-minute, unnecessary stress on third-party developers? Who is in charge of iOS releases at Apple that thought this was a good idea?” https://twitter.com/...
I do wonder how AR is going to play out as a dev platform. Apple is pushing developers hard on AR, but by the time they release glasses they'll have subsumed many of the compelling 3rd party opportunities. Music ✅, TV ✅, Fitness ✅, Weather ✅, News ✅, Gaming ✅. What's next? https:…
It's more ready than iOS 13 was. But I was still hitting beta-1-style bugs as recently as two weeks ago. It seems mostly ready, but it's a bit aggressive. And developers will get effectively zero time with a GM OS or GM SDK before needing to submit to the App Store. https://twitt…
Worth stating again, how interesting it is Apple Watch never really panned out as a third party developer platform. All the main interesting apps and use cases are from Apple.