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However, I'm confused by the blog post implying that the solution to unbricking the apps was somehow novel or praiseworthy. In the 4 years of the App Store we'

However, I'm confused by the blog post implying that the solution to unbricking the apps was somehow novel or praiseworthy. In the 4 years of the App Store we've never seen a distribution problem of this magnitude (it would be an absolute nightmare for any devs affected) and we really have no idea how Apple would respond to such a problem. We've also never seen Apple unilaterally update a specific group of apps like this. Many App Store devs likely didn't think Apple would or could take such action, and those of us familiar with what it takes for a device to accept and install new bits are now wondering just how this is being done. Are they manually bumping each affected app's version string? Is there there some hidden field that forces a device to reinstall the same version of an app? It's curious.

pooriaazimi 14y ago
My theory: there's a version number that devs set on an app, and there's another version (say an integer starting from zero) that Apple puts on apps. They bumped their version, leaving app's version intact.
- quesera 14y ago
  I'd say that's a good theory, and if they baked it in from the beginning, it's a great solution to this sort of problem. The fact that Apple is so strict about monotonically increasing dotted numbers for version strings led many of us to believe that they were being parsed for important things inside the App Store publishing platform. But maybe they are just part of the UI. Apple is known to have strong opinions and strict adherence requirements about that, too.
- Someone 14y ago
  Do they need to update any part of the app on the devices for this? I think it could be something as simple as "if a device checks for updates, check whether it (might have) gotten a faulty binary. If so, lie to him that there is a new version, and send them a version he already has, but use a correctly signed binary this time".
justinschuh 14y ago
There's a difference between being curious about the exact mechanics and considering the activity itself novel. Apple manages the updates and signs app bundles that developers upload. They need to be able to redeploy packages and trigger updates just to deal with normal operational issues (eg. malformed bundles, versioning mistakes, or reversions). Those are just the operating expectations of any system like this. There's nothing unusual about Apple being able to competently manage a relatively straightforward system that's such a big part of their business.

pooriaazimi 14y ago

My theory: there's a version number that devs set on an app, and there's another version (say an integer starting from zero) that Apple puts on apps. They bumped their version, leaving app's version intact.

quesera 14y ago
I'd say that's a good theory, and if they baked it in from the beginning, it's a great solution to this sort of problem. The fact that Apple is so strict about monotonically increasing dotted numbers for version strings led many of us to believe that they were being parsed for important things inside the App Store publishing platform. But maybe they are just part of the UI. Apple is known to have strong opinions and strict adherence requirements about that, too.
Someone 14y ago
Do they need to update any part of the app on the devices for this? I think it could be something as simple as "if a device checks for updates, check whether it (might have) gotten a faulty binary. If so, lie to him that there is a new version, and send them a version he already has, but use a correctly signed binary this time".

justinschuh 14y ago

There's a difference between being curious about the exact mechanics and considering the activity itself novel. Apple manages the updates and signs app bundles that developers upload. They need to be able to redeploy packages and trigger updates just to deal with normal operational issues (eg. malformed bundles, versioning mistakes, or reversions). Those are just the operating expectations of any system like this. There's nothing unusual about Apple being able to competently manage a relatively straightforward system that's such a big part of their business.