Filed under: Software, WWDC, Leopard, Developer
Developers not at WWDC unhappy about exclusive beta
After WWDC '06, when Leopard was first introduced, developers were a little annoyed that Apple took around two months to ship out the beta copies they were promised. This time around, Apple seems to have changed their tune: they allowed developers at WWDC to walk away with a beta copy yesterday - but as Steve Jobs mentioned on stage yesterday, only developers who are in attendance at WWDC can get their hands on the hot new beta.We're hearing from some developers who couldn't make the trek to San Francisco this week that this exclusivity is, understandably, a little upsetting. Besides the cool factor of getting your hands on something as soon as it's released, developers are in the unique position of needing time - in some cases, a lot of time - to get up to speed with all the changes in a new operating system and preparing their applications to run properly on it. With this exclusive beta being released to developers at WWDC now in June, but no release schedule for the rest of qualifying developers who are members of the Apple Developer Connection, some developers are understandably worried and slightly upset that they can't get in on the fun, but more importantly: they also have no idea as to when they'll get to join the party.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
avi said 3:13PM on 6-12-2007
What prevents this copy of Leopard to be distribued via bittorrent like the previous leopard builds?
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john said 3:19PM on 6-12-2007
the question that I have not found the answer to is "does it auto update" or is the update "pushed out from the ADC."
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DevHead said 3:21PM on 6-12-2007
Developing OS X software based on a copy of Leopard you got from some random tracker is dumb.
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scott said 3:28PM on 6-12-2007
I don't pay Apple $500 a year for a ADC Select Membership to get a t-shirt and a monthly documentation CD. I paid to receive the pre-release software I NEED to develop products for THEIR platform!
Jobs said that there are close to 1 million developers (I am not sure what percentage is online, select or premier) but assuming that even 20% of that 1 million are Select and Premier members -- he is basically giving the finger to 99% (195,000) of the developers who paid money to be members in order to receive the betas.
I suppose its OK for developers who live in the bay area and don't have to spend thousands of dollars in airfare and hotel in additionally to conference fees. -- but the vast majority of developers are getting the short end of the stick because they don't want to or can't drop $5K or more to attend WWDC.
If we don't have the beta seeded to us in the next week or two at the outside, I am really going to reconsider my Membership for next year. What is the point if we don't get the pre-releases we need -- I already have a T-Shirt -- I don't need another one.
Apple better address this quick and make clear the communication to developers.
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Jay said 3:28PM on 6-12-2007
What I think everyone is missing in all of the kvetching about yesterday's keynote and now this is...third party developers are no longer an important part of Apple, Inc. That the keynote really was a rehash of last year with no new product intros or updates or other pizazz spells this out. Apple no longer needs the third party developer community. They've got the iPod and the iPhone, neither of which will be open to developers.
If I were a developer who paid good money for a select or premier membership and couldn't attend WWDC, I'd be livid.
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Dave Chartier said 3:35PM on 6-12-2007
#5: Don't forget - WWDC is the World Wide *Developer* Conference. Products for 'the rest of us' don't debut here; WWDC is focused on providing tools for developers to help *them* make *their* products better. This isn't the place for new iPods and iMac redesigns. At best, Apple sometimes updates the Mac Pros at WWDC, but aside from that, the rest of us need to look elsewhere.
Let's maintain a perspective on what WWDC is and who it's for. If Apple didn't care about 3rd parties, they wouldn't hold a WWDC to begin with.
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Thayne Miller said 3:35PM on 6-12-2007
I'm sure apple will seed this new beta to developers by July. Apple isn't stupid. They know they need 3rd party developers to write apps for OSX so they can sell more copies of it. They are probably just giving the WWDC members a few weeks to be the cool kid on the block since they got royally screwed on the very lacking conference they paid heavily to attend.
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Hjalti said 3:36PM on 6-12-2007
I've watched the keynote and all I got from it was that the developers at WWDC would get it the same day. Has anyone confirmed that it will not show up on ADC for us who couldn't make in the next days?
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Mvd said 3:37PM on 6-12-2007
And from what I remember, ads to paid membership to ADC tout that you get OSX beta builds. My guess is that many developers bought membership for this reason alone. Including a host of indies out there. This exclusively-WWDC-participant beta giveaway somewhat reminds me of Orwell's novel where some are more equal than others. Not cool, Apple, not cool..
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Bratling said 3:37PM on 6-12-2007
In a nutshell: WHAT is His Steveness THINKING? If you don't pony up the extra dough to attend WWDC, you don't get what your paid ADC benefits?
Way to piss off your developers, Apple. Hell if we'll ever trust you to deliver program benefits again.
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Zeno Davatz said 3:48PM on 6-12-2007
This is bullshit by Steve J. I would call it an artificial shortage creation. Does not make any sense in the distributed world we live in.
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coyotej said 3:52PM on 6-12-2007
Yes, I'm in this camp as an ADC (Select) member. If this beta doesn't show up on ADC in the next week, I'll be mighty pissed... I couldn't make it to WWDC this year, and forcing me to be onsite to get access to a new seed is completely unfair.
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Ichiro said 3:56PM on 6-12-2007
Its the same every year, ADC will get their downloads at some point.
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St3phen said 4:03PM on 6-12-2007
As I look into my ADC assets, as a Select member, I hold the "Leopard Early Start Key." According to the PUBLIC page where Apple gladly takes money to be a member, http://developer.apple.com/products/ , the Leopard Early Start Kit says I am entitled to the following:
• Pre-release versions of Mac OS X Leopard and Xcode 3.0
• Exclusive access to the Leopard Dev Center with documentation, code samples, and more
• WWDC 2006 Videos, featuring Leopard Sessions, through ADC on iTunes
http://developer.apple.com/products/images/index_leopardearlystartkit.png
I suppose it doesn't say "all pre-release versions," and people did pay a lot of money to attend WWDC... But I still will need this, very different, beta soon.
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St3phen said 4:04PM on 6-12-2007
Uh, Moose, the new builds/seeds are not available for download. Thanks for showing the page that reiterates that developers are entitled to it, though.
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Hjalti said 4:08PM on 6-12-2007
I'm going through the keynote again and can't find this. Can anyone tell me when Steve said it's exclusive to those at WWDC?
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Matthew Ross said 4:25PM on 6-12-2007
"Ummm... they are seeding it: http://developer.apple.com/leopard/"
This seed is over a month old and very broken.
I am a paying member of ADC. I am a little pissed that they are doing this. I can understand doing it for the initial release to developers a year ago. We are too close to the Leopard release to be pulling this now. It wouldn't be so bad if the last released work as a development environment. I will not be renewing my membership next year, If I have to rely on torrents to get the seeds I payed for anyways.
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Vineet Bhatia said 4:30PM on 6-12-2007
Saying that its exclusive to WWDC attendees and no one else is just not fair. He should have said ADC Select and Premier members will get Leopard next month or at a later point. Why did he have to say that no one else will get it??
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Paul Sargent said 4:40PM on 6-12-2007
I hope (and doubt) this is the case in the long term. I'm a select developer in the UK, and WWDC just isn't an option at the moment. If seeds become limited to those on-site then the membership is useless.
It's already bad enough that you can't get WWDC session videos unless you went.
I can understand why Apple thinks it needs to put an entry price on prividged information (making sure that the people you give info to are serious developers), but after that why limit training materials to those who can aford the time and money to attend.
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JD said 4:44PM on 6-12-2007
I watched the keynote last night with interest - I didn't take Jobs' comment literally. I took it to just mean only the ADC developers will receive it, and that stating "here" was figurative. (I apologize that I don't have the exact quote - I'm behind a firewall and cannot review the keynote.)
I expect it will be released in July to all developers, which will include an update to the current beta.
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