This article was published on July 5, 2012

Apple tells developers it is working on a fix for App Store corruption problems


Apple tells developers it is working on a fix for App Store corruption problems

Apple has responded to app crashing complaints with replies to a popular thread about the issue in its developer forums, reports Techcrunch. We have reached out to developers and confirmed that they have also been contacted directly by Apple asking for more information about it and that they have been told informally that the issue is being looked into.

The statement on the developer forums, posted by an official Apple account, reads:

We are aware of the issue related to apps crashing after update. We are currently working on resolving the issue. Stay tuned for updates.

If you’re a developer, you can log in to your account and view the various replies here.

A widespread corruption issue is plaguing app updates submitted to the store recently and it appears to be the fault of Apple’s FairPlay DRM. The corruption is causing immediate headaches for developers as it has prompted a huge number of one-star reviews to get submitted for an issue completely out of their control.

The issue is on Apple’s end, has nothing to do with whether the apps themselves work or not and is being prolonged by the corrupt apps continuing to be hosted on Apple’s servers.

Instapaper developer Marco Arment drew attention to the issue in a blog post yesterday evening, which has since been reported on by a large number of outlets.

We’ve made the case that this problem has highlighted some major issues with the way that the App Store is structured. It gives developers few options to address the negative reviews and no way to inform users directly that a fix may be incoming.

Apple has yet to make any public statement on the problems. Posts to the developer forums are generally considered private communications between Apple and developers. It may be attempting to work on this directly with developers first, which is great, but the issue has received enough attention that a public statement seems like it might be good at this point.

That, of course, would be relatively out of character for Apple, but we can always hope.

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