John Gruber:
“Update My Phone & Apps: Guide” is an iOS app from developer Tair Olzhasev. By default, the only thing it does for free is give you a “Check for Updates” button that launches the system Settings app. It doesn’t even take you to the General → Software Update screen. It just takes you to the root level of Settings.
Everything else it purports to do requires a $15/week subscription. That’s $780 per year.
Jeff Johnson:
You can tell it's a scam without even downloading the app, because it has no website and hosts the privacy policy on sites.google.com, a dead giveaway.
The 3-day trial with auto-renewing subscription is also a huge red flag. By no coincidence, 3 days is the minimum subscription trial length allowed by Apple. All the scams use it.
Christian Tietze:
Being part of a team with a successful App Store app opens my eyes for how weird the app store is.
This is not the Bear Notes the Shiny Frog team is working on :)
This one seems to not be a scam—and there’s only a one-time $3.99 IAP—but it sure is confusing.
Previously:
App Store App Store Scams App Subscriptions Bear iOS iOS 27
Dave DeLong:
I can improve the process of removing backwards compatibility shims by using conditional compilation to remind me when they’re no longer necessary!
[…]
This does mean that the first time we change our deployment target, we’ll get a bunch of compilation errors. But given the nature of how Backport is implemented, this should be a relatively quick process to move past. (And of course, you’re welcome to use #warning instead of #error).
Shaps Benkau:
SwiftUIBackports mirrors Apple’s SwiftUI API names, shapes, behavior, documentation, and availability where practical. This keeps app code familiar today, and easy to migrate away from once your deployment target reaches the native API.
Backports are discovered through .backport, the Backport namespace, or backport-prefixed environment values.
Majid Jabrayilov:
Usually, we don’t see many new APIs in intermediate releases like 27.1, but this time is different. Apple introduced several new iPhone Duo-related APIs in the 27.1 release. This week, we will learn how to use all of these new APIs without bumping your project’s target version.
[…]
Here we introduced the toolbarVerticalBehavior function on the Backport type that handles availability checks and calls the new APIs if available or returns a plain view when it is not available.
Previously:
iOS iOS 27 iPhone Duo Mac macOS 27 Golden Gate Open Source Programming Swift Programming Language SwiftUI
Joe Rossignol:
Apple recently considered laying off about 5,000 support employees [to replace them with AI], but it has put those plans on hold indefinitely, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
[…]
Last month, we reported that customers who call the AppleCare phone number (1-800-APL-CARE) from the U.S. or Canada are now routed to an AI-powered support assistant.
Joe Rossignol:
The assistant can answer questions and troubleshoot issues with your Apple products, with it able to provide detailed step-by-step instructions. The assistant can still transfer you to a human advisor if it cannot answer a specific question, or if you ask to speak to a real person.
[…]
Apple has also been testing a new AI-powered chatbot in its Apple Support app, through a new “Ask” tab that has rolled out to a limited number of users.
I actually kind of like support chatbots in that they can be very fast for handling basic issues. As to the layoffs, it’s not clear to me whether this is Ternus reversing a Cook idea or something else.
The main problem I have (and I hear others having) with Apple’s support is that for more difficult problems you reach a ceiling where nobody can help you and it seems like nobody cares. Anything that can’t be addressed via a hardware swap is like filing a very time consuming Radar that goes into a black hole with no follow-up. Some software issues seem fixable in that they are more like server database entries than bugs. A sufficiently high level support person should be able to go in and edit the entry. But it seems like this only happens when there’s a major story in the press.
Scott:
Apple could probably lay off 5000 AppleCare workers if Apple programmers spent more time working on their operating systems and default apps for another 6 months before releasing them to the public.
Previously:
Apple AppleCare Customer Support iOS Layoffs Mac
Lex Friedman (Mastodon):
Though allegedly focused on benefiting users (through better safety and compliance), App Store review in its current form mostly frustrates the people it claims to protect.
[…]
Those are all scammy apps that got through. Apple’s review capacity isn’t infinite. Every hour a reviewer spends poring over a bug-fix update to an app that’s been in the store for years is an hour not spent catching the fake LastPass app.
[…]
And the review process is fundamentally flawed anyway: It works best with developers who are trying to do the right thing. Plenty of apps pull their content, features, and behavior from servers their developers control. Feature flags, remote configuration, and web views mean an app can behave differently the day after approval than it did the day of vetting. A determined bad actor can get past App Review. An honest developer just waits in a slow, nebulous line.
[…]
At WWDC 2020, the company announced that bug fixes for apps already in the App Store would no longer be held up over guideline violations (except for legal issues); developers could address those problems in a subsequent update instead. That’s a good policy! Based on developer complaints I’ve seen, Apple hasn’t honored that agreement.
He suggests a Trusted Developer Program.
Previously:
App Review App Store App Store Scams iOS iOS 27 Mac Mac App Store macOS 27 Golden Gate
