Nope, mine was certainly a bug in Apple’s tooling (and perhaps a beta OS release, I think?) and this prevented me from running tests for some platforms. I actually wrote it all up here, if you’re interested: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/01/11/mocking-capabilities-i...

For sure - I am not saying it was your fault, and the fact that it wasn’t makes it especially galling.

What I’m saying is that Apple is contending with a lot of developers who are not as experienced or conscientious as you, and you are being impacted because their rules don’t distinguish this.

Exactly. I can see a million scenarios where a developer blames Apple for a bug in their app and puts it in the notes and then it turns out not to be anything related to Apple. Apple isn't going to get into a catfight with every developer who thinks their issue comes from a bug whether it does or not.

> It’s easy to see the scenario in which developers simply blame a large proportion of the bugs in their own apps on Apple.

In Mac apps that use Sparkle for updates (lots of them), developers can put whatever they want in changelogs. I've definitely seen entries that go something like "Did XYZ to work around a bug in macOS Kitty Cat."

I can't say whether these changelogs were accurate, but they don't appear to have brought about armageddon.

Developers who use sparkle are generally a lot more experienced than many people who put apps in the App Store.

That is by design. The App Store lowers the bar to entry and enables people who otherwise wouldn’t publish software to do so.

> One of the problems is that most of what people call ‘bugs’ or relevant ‘information’ about Apple is actually false.

Is that actually a problem? Many other platforms have no such restrictions, and you don't see developers blaming bugs on the OS en masse.

It honestly just doesn't seem to matter at all. The only reason Apple seem to be doing it, is that they can, and simply aren't able to stop themselves from being excessively controlling.

Sure but for what it’s worth, Apple isn’t in the same position as other platforms in many ways, so we can’t always generalize.

People don’t care about problems other platforms have the way there care about Apple, and the media gets to make money out of the slightest issue.

This is a consequence of their market position.

That said, I do agree with you to some degree.

Control is definitely a tool they reach for by default, and they need to learn some new methods as we see the limits exposed by issues like this.

> Sure but for what it’s worth, Apple isn’t in the same position as other platforms in many ways, so we can’t always generalize.

How? I see absolutely no difference other than millions in publicity to create the illusion that their platform is somehow "better"... But none of Apple's platforms were created by aliens, they have the same error ratio as any other large platform. So what exactly are you basing this statement on?

I’m not convinced that all platforms have the exact same error ratio - that would be interesting if supported by research.

But that’s irrelevant.

My statement isn’t a comment on Apple’s error ratio.

It’s a statement about how people respond to what they see as the market leader.

People care about problems with Apple in a way that they don’t with other players, because they are perceived as better. There is money to be made in trying to tear Apple down. That’s just part of the dynamics of the attention economy.

Whether this is just a function of spending on marketing, seems highly unlikely.

My understanding is that Google and the Android manufacturers as a whole far outspent Apple in the early years of the iPhone, and didn’t end up with the same perception.

In any case, however it was achieved, we do agree that they are perceived differently to the other players, and this is what my comment is based on.

I should have been clearer. My point is not whether there's any basis to Apple being better or not, most everyone knows that's impossible because the average Apple engineer is no better than the average engineer in the rest of FAANG or Microsoft or [insert pretty much every other large company here].

My point is that it's completely irrelevant to the discussion. That Apple fans think Apple is better in no way justifies the practices mentioned in TFA, so their "perception by others in comparison" is not really here nor there.

At least as far as I can see, I could be wrong of course.

Nowhere am I saying anything is justified.

Average developer quality isn’t going to be the only factor in defect rate. Development process, strategy, technology and management all play a role, and my impression is that all of the major players have had varying defect rates over different era of their development.

But indeed that’s not relevant.

But - I’m not talking about ‘Apple fans’. I’m talking about the public perception.

Apple is obviously treated differently from the other players, when it comes to media coverage.

That isn’t a justification for anything - I have in more than one place said I agree that with Gruber that Apple is wrong to do this.

However it does rebut the argument that things that don’t hurt other companies wouldn’t hurt Apple, and it may partially explain their choices.

If by "hurt" you mean that people would stop believing that Apple is better and instead would be looked at with the same standard as every other company[0], then I don't see any problem with people no longer believing that impossibility. But I guess that's a different discussion.

[0]: Assuming that the idea that Apple is, right now, treated any differently by anyone other than its fans has any merit to it, of course.

Apple is clearly treated by the media differently than other companies, in both positive and negative ways.

Sure you don’t see any reason why apple shouldn’t have the perception of them ‘hurt’.

But that’s not the point - the point is that Apple doesn’t want the perception of themselves to be hurt, and so they are going to act accordingly.