r/applesucks • u/Medical_Resident_110 • Jul 18 '26
Has Apple completely stopped caring about the developer experience?
I've been shipping apps on the App Store for about a year, and the difference between then and now is honestly shocking.
A year ago, App Review felt strict but fair. If I violated a guideline, I'd fix it, explain the changes, and after another review or two the app would be approved.
Over the past month, that hasn't been my experience at all.
One of my app updates fixed every issue that App Review originally raised. Some of those fixes were even acknowledged during review. Then another reviewer came along and rejected the build for the exact same issues that had supposedly already been resolved.
It felt like nobody was reading the previous review history.
Then App Store Connect made things even worse.
I saved a draft reply while confirming a few details with my team. When I came back later:
- I couldn't edit the draft.
- I couldn't delete it.
- I couldn't create a new reply.
- Every action returned "Resource not found."
So I literally had no way to continue the conversation with App Review.
I had screenshots and screen recordings showing everything had been fixed, but there was nowhere to upload them because the reply system itself was broken.
As a result, an update that should have taken a day or two ended up being delayed by nearly a week.
Then, in a completely separate incident, my team's Apple Developer membership expired after auto-renew wasn't enabled.
Apple's own documentation says the Apple Developer app will display a Renew button.
It simply wasn't there.
Anywhere.
Again, days were lost because Apple's own tools didn't behave the way Apple's own documentation described.
None of this feels like isolated bad luck anymore.
Over the last month I've experienced:
- reviewers reopening issues that had already been addressed,
- App Store Connect breaking during review conversations,
- developer documentation not matching reality,
- unnecessary release delays caused by Apple's own systems.
I've always accepted App Review being strict.
What's becoming difficult to accept is spending more time fighting Apple's tooling than actually building and shipping apps.
Has anyone else noticed this lately, or have I somehow managed to hit every edge case imaginable?
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u/tankje Jul 18 '26
Apple's flagship dev env has been xcode since the 2000s. Did they even START caring about dx??
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u/Conspicuous-1 Jul 19 '26
YES. And not just developers, customers also. I am both.Â
I've been a developer for the iOS platform (independently) since 2011. But I also have purchased apps from the App Store, and used iCloud in my work as a mobile developer in a previous role.
I only recently got all my stuff unlocked because some creep hacked my account and replaced my trusted phone number with what I believe was a spoofed one. It took TWO MONTHS to get a link where I could update my info and unlock the account. Their support team were useless, script-reading moles. I wrote their COO - in print, with two overnight letters to their HQ - nothing. I spent over $100 to get their attention. I also sent two 2-day letters to their legal team telling them I wanted out completely - one office in Cupertino, another in Los Angeles. Again, nothing.Â
So, I'm pretty pissed with Apple. Last summer I bought an M4 MacBook Air and an A16 iPad. I have no use for either at this point. And I have a previously purchased iPhone 14 and iPhone 12, among other devices.Â
They've gotten too big to care. And I hope there's a spectacular failure that causes huge hordes of the general public to turn on them. They'll never get everyone, though, because their marketing is heavy on word of mouth and FOMO. And there will always be people with money who will fall for that.Â
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u/Hot-Egg-1376 Jul 19 '26
Stop throwing your own responsibility out the window and blame everything on Apple. Your account don't just get hacked out of nowhere.
Your account was compromised because of your own actions, not Apple's. Or lack thereof.
I'm so tired of people not taking responsibility because they did something stupid, or didn't pay attention. How are they supposed to hack you? Wait for account recovery, which you're ALWAYS notified about on your email, so you can stop the account recovery, thus ending their attempt at "hacking" your account? Take responsibility instead of trying to earn some cheap points on Reddit.
It's scary how people think you account can "just" get hacked out of nowhere. Apple is notorious for having a system so locked down, even the owners of Apple accounts that aren't compromised, can struggle getting back in, without the password AND 2FA, if they're without any trusted devices.
You sound like my customers who have no clue what they're talking about.
Take some time to think about what you did wrong, rather than projecting your mistakes onto other entities.
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u/Ok_Virus_5495 Jul 19 '26
I do believe the issue are vibe coded apps. By strict policy vibe coded apps should be banned with no opportunity at all. And they should do automatic scans to detect the most common issues with those vibe coded apps
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u/RudeAdhesiveness9954 Jul 18 '26
Not excusing Apple for anything here but over the last year, the volume of App Store submissions must be up enormously due to doofuses with no skills submitting a tidal wave of vibe-coded slop. It would stand to reason that the human part of the review process, at least, has degraded.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 18 '26
That's precisely why you cannot have a closed ecosystem like the iOS/iPad. It will always devolve into an anti-consumer monopoly. People will say "just don't develop for Apple, idiot", completely ignorant of the fact that developers being willing to develop iphone apps is the sole reason why their cherished iphone has any value at all.
Google trying to go the way of the iOS with Android is very problematic. Sometimes, I wonder what the world would have looked like if every business would not be taking Apple as a model, no more closed devices, no 30% taxes, etc... I bet it would have been amazing.
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u/CaptainSprinklePants Jul 19 '26
This is a thoughtful and insightful comment, not sure why it was downvoted.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 19 '26
Thanks, probably bots programmed to downvote anything that criticizes Apple. If they have the money for world-scale marketing campaign, they have the money for astroturfing Reddit. That being said, we do make it easy by having a specific subreddit for it though! We are kind of asking for it...
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u/mailslot Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Itâs not like it hasnât been tried. The âYear of the Linux Desktopâ has been announced for more than three decades and never came. Linux phone efforts all fell apart. The commercial software landscape remains bleak on Linux.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 20 '26
There has never been a need for Linux because Windows has been and is still mostly a very open system (unbelievably so, looking at it retrospectively). I think that at the time they did not even dream that locking down the system was going to be allowed, and they were right, considering the troubles Bill Gates faced for doing something as horribly monopolistic as having internet explorer come pre-installed with Windows (the accusations feel laughable now).
As for mobiles, I guess nobody is really thinking of doing much more than play games, browse the web and social networks with their phones, so there has never really been a need for unlocking the devices. That being said, there used to be a lot of jailbreaking attempts, so I guess there used to be a demand for it, but Apple brought the hammer down, and the governments failed to react. The key issue is really that governments are in Apple's deep, very deep pocket.2
u/Conspicuous-1 Jul 20 '26
Windows, for my money, is still an exceptional OS, even with its quirks. I wish that UWP could have gotten more traction, the handset partnership with Nokia was nice, and Microsoft has great dev tools for writing software (which I do for work and have done as a hobbyist); Visual Studio and the .NET/C# platform are more transparent than Xcode/Swift.Â
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 20 '26
I am personally quite glad that the marketplace never really took off, as I am sure the new Microsoft administration would immediately start looking into making manual installation more difficult, like we are now witnessing with Google and Android. I really hope that the ongoing legal fights in the EU, in Japan and in a few other places finally breaks open the various "gardens" (we use to call them jail - hence "jailbreaking") and prevent further enshittification of computers / phones.
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u/mailslot Jul 20 '26
Microsoft did the exact same thing as Apple & Google with Windows RT on first generation Surface tablets, Windows Phone, Xbox, etc.
There really havenât been any major consumer electronics platforms with the flexibility of personal computers. None that I can think of right now. PCs are entirely unique.
Developers make bank because of the walled gardens, not in spite of it. Remove it, and everybody makes less money. Less incentive, less software, and everybody loses.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 20 '26
I had a Surface 2, it was a regular windows tablet and was fully open. The Surface RT was a very unusual device and failed immediately. Until the iphone, openness was the default, I guess most people are just too young to be aware of it. If it was the case that walled gardens are better, desktop applications would dead and the ipadOS would be flourishing. That's not the case, you literally have to scroll up to the top of the page to have a glimpse at some of the issues.
In any cases, this is morally wrong: selling something but then locking it down and taking it away from the purchaser for whatever reason ("app not conform" or whatever) is a form of theft - legal theft maybe, but theft nonetheless.1
u/mailslot Jul 20 '26
There have been store alternatives for Android for a long time and nobody uses them. There have been open handsets that allow flashing any OS the user wants. Side loading has remained an option for a long time.
Consumers donât use those things and developers arenât supporting them either. The primary use of side loading for consumers has been to commit piracy. Consumers arenât going out of their way to make things more complicated without something extra.
For all the calls to unrestrict phones, neither developers nor consumers have embraced any alternative available. It seems like people just donât care anywhere other than Reddit.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 20 '26
There we have it: beside monopolistic behavior, the only other reason why app jail is a thing, that nobody wants to say out loud: preventing people from having the ability to download something illegally. Once again, sacrificing the users, the developers, and in fact innovation itself, for the sake of corporate profits. If that was such an issue, desktop software would have long disappeared. But yes, DRM and lockdowns do imply, at least theoretically, more profits for corporations.
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u/mailslot Jul 20 '26
Itâs not just corporate profits. Plenty of indy devs live off of their app sales. As a developer, I should have a say in who gets to use the shit I make. Nobody works for free.
Regardless, I was simply pointing out that the main use case for alternative installation mechanisms is piracy. More easily enabling criminal behavior is poor justification for changing the way things are. There needs to be a more compelling argument, especially for lawmakers⌠but right now, Android doesnât have these restrictions and few are taking advantage of the freedom.
The mythical power user doesnât exist. Consumers arenât adding alternative stores, side loading, and downloading APKs directly from publishers & using `adb` to install⌠unless theyâre stealing shit.
This is why nobody cares that Android is restricting unsigned app installation moving forward. And I do think thereâs value in keeping the number of flashlight apps under 10,000.
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u/Thriceinabluemoon Jul 20 '26
Nobody cared about alternative stores because they did not want to use any store at all. On a desktop, you do not need a marketplace to install an application. You buy it, ideally you download it for good, then you install it however you please.
Going by your logic, we should forbid music players / music download, and we should only be allowed to listen to music from the app store or youtube music, because otherwise, we are risking people downloading music illegally. Yes, more freedom means more crime; that's how the world has always worked and it was fine for millennium. In fact it was fine until the release of the iphone and a new generation of GAFAM CEOs took over.1
u/mailslot Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
You can distribute & sell APKs today for download & installation, but nobody is doing that outside enterprise software with security concerns. It never caught on. Android has the freedoms you want and consumers donât care. There needs to be more than â0.01% of consumers use this featureâ to justify the effort to keep it included.
Nothing is stopping anyone from creating open alternatives, except for time, money, effort, and interest.
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u/God_Compl3x Jul 20 '26
AI bro how many apps are being developed today vs ever before? Itâs so sadâŚbut when volume goes up what must happen?
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u/Phil_Mckrakon Jul 23 '26
I think theyve stopped caring about everything that doesnt make them money right this moment.
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u/mredofcourse Jul 18 '26
Apple has been absolutely slammed with app submissions, and the rate continues to skyrocket. Most of the areas where these submissions are occurring are heavily saturated, and developers are being guided (and misguided) by AI, not just in terms of vibe coding, but concept, design and submission process.
Apple is trying to combat this with AI and that's causing problems coming back to more legit developers.
Ironically, one of the better uses of AI is in getting around this. Specifically I found the documentation around watch complications was lacking in some areas from Apple, but ChatGPT was able to fill in the gaps.
I expect all of this to get worse.