[needusername]

Note that they are on JDK 14.0.2. An old, unsupported version of Java which doesn't get any security patches anymore. Being on a non-LTS version of Java forces them to upgrade to a new major version of Java every six months to get security patches, which they apparently don't do.

[akkawwakka]

This is a bit of a tangent, but this is emblematic of the fact that, beyond Xcode Cloud, the Apple Developer Tools team seems more excited to work on toys like Swift Playgrounds than make the Apple platform development experience better and more sustainable for users beyond the one-man shop and toy applications.

It’s not surprising that more are preferring to use Electron, React Native, or Flutter to develop apps than to live with the bare metal Xcode toolchain and Apple APIs.

The Java / Kotlin + Gradle and JS development ecosystems are dramatically easier to live, despite the fact that Apple has the resources to do dramatically better.

[rTX5CMRXIfFG]

> It’s not surprising that more are preferring to use Electron, React Native, or Flutter to develop apps than to live with the bare metal Xcode toolchain and Apple APIs.

Funny, because Electron, RN, and Flutter are the toys of mobile app development, serving mostly just one-man shops and toy applications--and even Android developers are going to agree.

And while I'm also of the opinion that Xcode has plenty of areas for improvement, you can't just extend the same commentary to Apple's APIs. Apple APIs are incredibly stable, well-architected, and so highly scalable that it's almost an embarrassment that Google gets all the rep for being an engineering powerhouse when the Android SDK has always been an incoherent hell of a mess since Android came out.

[ohgodplsno]

>Kotlin + Gradle development ecosystems are dramatically easier to live,

I know Xcode is a piece of crap, but truly, nothing approaches the level of mindfuckery that is Gradle.

[mrpippy]

This is the App Store upload tool, derived from (and maybe the same as) the iTunes Store upload tool. It comes from Eddy Cue’s org that runs the store, not the Developer Tools team.

Honestly I would wager that the Developer Tools team has never been very happy about the size and quality (outdated JRE) of the upload tool

[DeusExMachina]

> It’s not surprising that more are preferring to use Electron, React Native, or Flutter

Do you have any data to back that up. As an iOS developer, that is not my experience at all.

[xvilka]

Despite my dissatisfaction with Apple policies and way of doing things, they offer native, fast, smooth and not battery-draining experience for the users, because of no Java and Electron crap in most of the apps, unlike Android.