4 ms·

> "Apple definitely wants to make developers happy but I imagine this is very hard thing to do on scale." The downtime isn't the issue, it's the lack of commun

> "Apple definitely wants to make developers happy but I imagine this is very hard thing to do on scale." The downtime isn't the issue, it's the lack of communication during the downtime. Things go down, it's inevitable, even Google suffers outages from time to time - but we've collectively been doing this web API thing for a while now, and there's are certain best practices that should be obvious by now. Have a status page that's up to date. Post updates to the status page. Give ETAs when you have them, or state you don't have a ETA when you don't. I shouldn't have to waste customer service resources calling or emailing someone about this - if your service is down you should know it before I do, and should keep the status page up to date as needed. I don't think this is really about Apple's care (or lack thereof) towards their developers. This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web. Despite this being the year 2014 they still have to take their store offline to make major product additions. iCloud was a veritable disaster for the first year of its existence. Their Maps data is still a cruel joke. And, evidently, their core OS web APIs can go down silently with no spokesperson or page to inform anybody. This is, IMO, the weakest point of Apple, and where Google is most able to eat their lunch. The smartphone market is maturing, and IMO the innovation forwards will be less in the hardware side (where Apple is good) and more in the software services side (where Apple is atrocious).

mrtksn 12y ago
>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web I concur. My point was to challenge the statement about Apple not caring about it's developers. I don't defend Apple's way of handling this, there are industry standards to handle service outages, Apple should implement them.
- gress 12y ago
  Which industry standards are you referring to?
  - wutbrodo 12y ago
    From the comment he's replying to: "Have a status page that's up to date. Post updates to the status page. Give ETAs when you have them, or state you don't have a ETA when you don't. I shouldn't have to waste customer service resources calling or emailing someone about this - if your service is down you should know it before I do, and should keep the status page up to date as needed."
    - gress 12y ago
      Those aren't industry standards. However with the exception of posting updates, I totally agree that Apple should do this with every service they operate, whether customer or developer facing.
      - wutbrodo 12y ago
        That was him being imprecise in his terminology, which really only matters for those committed to nitpicking. Replace "industry standards" with "industry best practices" and the meaning of the comment is practically identical.
        gress 12y ago
        Not at all. If you're just talking about what a bunch of other companies do, it's reasonable to say why doesn't apple do X? One you start calling it an 'industry standard' you give false authority to what is basically saying 'do what everyone else does'.
coldtea 12y ago
>The downtime isn't the issue, it's the lack of communication during the downtime. What would that communication be? If I'm a team of sysadmins working to find out what caused the issue and trying to fix it properly as soon as I can, the last thing I want to do is being asked by some manager type "well will it be ready". It's not as if you can tell when a bug will be found and fixed, or if some idea you try will definitely work. The only answer is: "it will be ready when it's ready". And in fact most other answers are BS. How many time have you heard from hosting providers for example: "We had a glitch in our network, but it's fixed now" -- and the issue persists or comes back with a vengeance a few hours later?
coldtea 12y ago
>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web Like having the #1 app and music stores? I'd like to suck like that! >Despite this being the year 2014 they still have to take their store offline to make major product additions. I don't think that's any technical issue. That's how the want to present new products. >Their Maps data is still a cruel joke That are OpenStreetMap, not theirs. They just put a face on it. And its comparable with Google Maps, depending on where you live. >And, evidently, their core OS web APIs can go down silently with no spokesperson or page to inform anybody. Yeah, because if there was some spokeperson to tell the usual corporate BS we get from other web API vendors ("we are working to locate the problem" (well, duh), "seems to be an issue with our West Coast facilities" (well, duh), etc, it would really make a difference.
- bestnameever 12y ago
  >>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web >>Like having the #1 app and music stores? I'd like to suck like that! How do you access the app and music store from the web?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    That's beside the point. It's all web services, just with a native front-end. You might not be able to access it from a web browser (though you can see app info in one), but it's still http all right. Besides, OP also mentions Apple Maps as an example at "Apple sucking hard on anything web related" and you can't access that from the "web" either. The web != just the ole HTML "world wide web". We know also have native clients. We still call services with native consumers "web services" after all. And in fact iTunes is just a glorified browser view (albeit with a custom format now IIRC, used to use plain HTML at some point).

mrtksn 12y ago

>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web I concur. My point was to challenge the statement about Apple not caring about it's developers. I don't defend Apple's way of handling this, there are industry standards to handle service outages, Apple should implement them.

gress 12y ago
Which industry standards are you referring to?
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  From the comment he's replying to: "Have a status page that's up to date. Post updates to the status page. Give ETAs when you have them, or state you don't have a ETA when you don't. I shouldn't have to waste customer service resources calling or emailing someone about this - if your service is down you should know it before I do, and should keep the status page up to date as needed."
  - gress 12y ago
    Those aren't industry standards. However with the exception of posting updates, I totally agree that Apple should do this with every service they operate, whether customer or developer facing.
    - wutbrodo 12y ago
      That was him being imprecise in his terminology, which really only matters for those committed to nitpicking. Replace "industry standards" with "industry best practices" and the meaning of the comment is practically identical.
      - gress 12y ago
        Not at all. If you're just talking about what a bunch of other companies do, it's reasonable to say why doesn't apple do X? One you start calling it an 'industry standard' you give false authority to what is basically saying 'do what everyone else does'.

coldtea 12y ago

>The downtime isn't the issue, it's the lack of communication during the downtime. What would that communication be? If I'm a team of sysadmins working to find out what caused the issue and trying to fix it properly as soon as I can, the last thing I want to do is being asked by some manager type "well will it be ready". It's not as if you can tell when a bug will be found and fixed, or if some idea you try will definitely work. The only answer is: "it will be ready when it's ready". And in fact most other answers are BS. How many time have you heard from hosting providers for example: "We had a glitch in our network, but it's fixed now" -- and the issue persists or comes back with a vengeance a few hours later?

coldtea 12y ago

>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web Like having the #1 app and music stores? I'd like to suck like that! >Despite this being the year 2014 they still have to take their store offline to make major product additions. I don't think that's any technical issue. That's how the want to present new products. >Their Maps data is still a cruel joke That are OpenStreetMap, not theirs. They just put a face on it. And its comparable with Google Maps, depending on where you live. >And, evidently, their core OS web APIs can go down silently with no spokesperson or page to inform anybody. Yeah, because if there was some spokeperson to tell the usual corporate BS we get from other web API vendors ("we are working to locate the problem" (well, duh), "seems to be an issue with our West Coast facilities" (well, duh), etc, it would really make a difference.

bestnameever 12y ago
>>This is about Apple simply sucking really hard at anything related to the web >>Like having the #1 app and music stores? I'd like to suck like that! How do you access the app and music store from the web?
- coldtea 12y ago
  That's beside the point. It's all web services, just with a native front-end. You might not be able to access it from a web browser (though you can see app info in one), but it's still http all right. Besides, OP also mentions Apple Maps as an example at "Apple sucking hard on anything web related" and you can't access that from the "web" either. The web != just the ole HTML "world wide web". We know also have native clients. We still call services with native consumers "web services" after all. And in fact iTunes is just a glorified browser view (albeit with a custom format now IIRC, used to use plain HTML at some point).