Manifesto 1.0.6 – What took so long?
CommentsOk, now that Manifesto 1.0.6 is finally for sale on iTunes, it is time to clear the air about what happened.
All software products have bugs. All developers have written bugs.
Manifesto 1.0.5 was shipped with a bug that would cause it to crash after the iPhone OS issued a low memory warning. The crash was not in Manifesto code but rather in a class called UISegmentedControl. The input given to that class came from UIImage. Without getting into too much detail here, it was quite obvious that it was a bug in UISegmentedControl and / or UIImage. Neither of which were written by me.
Regardless of who owned the bug, I let it slip through my testing and Apple did not catch it. So we are both at fault for letting it get into your hands and render Manifesto useless for the past few weeks.
So why did it take 3 weeks for 1.0.6 to make it into your hands?
This is where there is zero shared blame. It all falls on Apple.
Why?
Apple has need to control every little bit of what goes on in the App Store. It’s their baby and like a crazed parent, who is dead set upon having their talented son make it into Major League Baseball, will do anything to make that happen…at any cost, even if the kid has to suffer. This becomes a slippery slope really quickly and that is what’s happening with the App Store. Manifesto is not the only victim, check out here(Warning foul language).:http://www.joestump.net/2009/08/pass-the-lubricant-as-were-getting-fucked-by-apple-too.html
So what did I do wrong with 1.0.6?
Very simply, the release notes that I submitted along with Manifesto 1.0.6 that get displayed in iTunes basically mentioned that there was a bug in the iPhone SDK.
I got a call from Apple a few days ago and was notified that this was the reason why Manifesto was not yet approved.
Since Manifesto is important to me, I agreed(even though I really don’t) with the representative from Apple and changed it. As you can now see Manifesto 1.0.6 is for sale.
Needless to say this has left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I doubt Apple will change as they have no real competition at this point. It is really a shame as this is the same slippery slope that once plagued Microsoft 10 years ago and they are just now starting to recover.
To me, this is a huge crossroads for Apple. They can pick to go the way of the old Microsoft and become the company that is too arrogant to realize its faults and shortcomings. Or they can do what has brought them to this point which was to listen to their customers and developers.
Without customers and developers, you can’t have a successful product or platform. The iPhone is both a product and a platform and without the Apps the iPhone is not the success story that it has been.
