We, developers, should be able to order new devices and get them on launch day.

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Created Oct ’17

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This mornig, European time, I surprised myself hitting like a moron on Safari's reload button, desesperatly trying to display the local Apple Store page to order an iPhone X. When it finally came up at T:08, delivevery date did already slip to 21-23 of November.

So whatever effort you put in keeping your application up-to-date with latest devices, you'r still facing that some customers will have it running on X while you can't validate your work.

There was a similar struggle when iWatch first came out, and then Apple give us a chance to get a device only a bit latter than the launch date. I don't see anything similar this time.

Even if an application sells several hundreds of thousand $ / year on the store, developer still is nobody.

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Answer 1

s219 OP

Oct ’17

Agree completely, it's ridiculous. I may have to delay my new release for a few weeks until I have an actual iPhone X in my hands, as there are several things I simply cannot test in the simulator (camera stuff for example). I could take a gamble and submit the new release without testing but that's against my instincts. Normally I wouldn't mind delaying, but there are other reasons I'd like to get the new release in the hands of other customer with other devices.

On thing I have considered is compiling with the iOS 10.3 SDK, which does everything I need minus iPhone X support. When run on an iPhone X, the app will show inside the safe area and fall back to standard screen behavior. Then later when I have an iPhone X and can test, I can come back and recompile with the iOS 11 SDK and fully support iPhone X.

Many years ago I got a free year membership in BlackBerry's developer program, when they were soliciting iOS developers to come to their platform. They had a lot of other problems, including lousy developer tools and an overall poor user experience, but they always sent me new devices well in advance of public release, which was a refreshing change. The big difference is that back then BlackBerry needed developers. Apple doesn't give a hoot about developers when it comes to hardware availability.

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Answer 2

Max_B OP

Oct ’17

I did release already. But nevertheless anxious that if customers find issues I can't cross check ad resolve.

Moreover since this is the first display featuring a "real" screen scale of 3.0, my application, which is of a mapping kind, may proove to tiny to read in some case and would justify a different default rendering.

Once again, when iWatch went out, Apple eventually offered a "short list" to developers. Where it is ?

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Answer 3

JeremyWaldorf OP

Nov ’17

Many years ago developers got free phones in advance. It's crazy that we can't at least buy one for guaranteed delivery on launch day. I think there will be a tonne of digruntled users when they get their iPhoneX and find that their apps have unforseen issues. I hope I am wrong.

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